3 Business Lessons Your Team Can Learn From Rowing

By Whit Mitchell

Have you ever been on a high-performing team? I mean truly high performing, where the synchronicity of all members is so fine-tuned that it feels effortless the harder you push?

For those of you who have had the pleasure of watching a 2000-meter crew race, you have seen “symphony in motion.” The bodies moving in perfect harmony, the shell slicing through the water with precision.

If you have ever created or been part of business team that has "rowed the race" together over and over again, you know that it takes a lot to achieve a level of true teamwork. Use these three business lessons to get your team there.

Business Lesson #1: Uncover passion and foster engagement

Victory comes to those who are willing to put it all on the line day after day. If you had to rate your employees on a scale of 1-10 on engagement, what would your team average be? Who on your team would get a high score or a low score?

Early in my career, I had the opportunity to coach a team of freshmen oarsmen from Dartmouth. One of my athletes was not the most skilled at the sport, but he showed up—truly showed up—every day for practice. He didn’t miss a practice during his four years as an athlete, and not only did he contribute to the team’s motivation, but he also won the award for most dedicated athlete his senior year.

Which members of your team may not be the most skilled, but are still present and dedicated on a daily basis? They are the people who show up early for work, they volunteer for tough assignments, they ask you for developmental opportunities, and they make changes and challenge themselves.

As the leader of the team, you can drive engagement by discovering the passions of your team members and then creating opportunities around those passions. For example, you may have a director of sales who enjoys fundraising in the community. Tell him, “Fred, if your team could increase sales by 3.5% in the next six months, I’d be willing to donate a portion of that to the local community food bank.” Watch what happens.

Business Lesson #2: Put the right people in the right seats

Crew shells have nine seats in the boat. Each seat has a slightly different requirement, and the coach must use his judgment to put the right oarsmen in the right seat.

Do you have the right people in the right seats on your team? Have you made the right hire or promotion for each position? How do you know? How are you measuring performance each month?

Other articles from AllBusiness.com:

• Use Your Inner Athlete to Excel in Business, Sports, and Life
• The Benefits of Hiring Former Athletes
• Playing ‘Musical Chairs’ in the Office Can Spark Creativity and Productivity

Hiring is not an art any more; it is a science. It is possible to reduce the guesswork from the beginning. Many companies are partnering with consultants that use tools such as psychometrics to help recruit, hire, and develop key people. These types of scientifically based evaluations can give insight into hiring and promoting decisions.

If you can get the right fit in your key positions, you will have employees who will thrive in their work and stay in their positions longer, creating a true team culture.

Business Lesson #3: How to win and how not to lose

There is an old tradition in the sport of rowing. I first observed it at the age of eight while watching the Yale-Harvard Crew Race in Connecticut on the Thames River.

The two teams battled four miles upstream for 22 minutes, and Yale won the race by one second. What happened next changed my life. My grandfather said, “Now watch what happens.” I saw the two crews pull their shells together. The oarsmen from Harvard took off their racing shirts and handed them to the Yalies with a handshake and a couple of congratulatory comments. When you win a race in the sport of rowing, you receive the racing shirts of the opposing crew. That’s a powerful lesson in humility.

Do you teach your employees to win with humility and lose with grace? You and your team will experience both disappointments and victories. How can you prepare them for both?

You may lose an important contract to a competitor or one of your top employees may jump to one of your competitors. How you react and behave after a win or a loss will tell both your direct reports and your boss a lot about who you are as a person. As Socrates said, “You can learn more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”