The Army Crew Team Case Analysis

The Army Crew Team Case Analysis

Case overview

Coach Preczewski of the Army crew at West Point confronted a perplexed problem when it was only one week left before the final competition. The so-called “dream team”, varsity boat which contained eight best rowers, was beaten by junior varsity boat two-thirds of the practice time. The situation, as explained in the case, was that the varsity team was full of dissatisfaction and finger-pointing over who was contributing most, whereas the junior varsity team kept performance steadily with the spirit of sprint and “nothing to lose”.

Q1. What should Coach P. have done differently?

For starters, it is effortless to diagnose the seeming problem hindering the varsity team – they couldn’t synchronize their rowing as a truly coherent team. Rowers in the varsity team were dejected, skeptical in other members’ skill and willpower, and even destructive when conflicts came out. No team members have served as leaders, while at least several rowers claimed that they carried the boat single-handedly. Even the slogan sounded demoralized.

The coach P. was not a competent and shrewd leader when he conducted the two crew teams, but was more like a manager whose main tasks was to organize rowers and train them. In other words, all the above deterioration of the varsity team can be attributed to three aspects of Coach P.’s inappropriate leadership. Coach P. should have implemented the following several tactics during the season so that the situation could have been mitigated.

The most important step, after a leader has declared that a team exists, is to set specific and achievable goals and objectives, even visions, and articulate the path leading to the destination. We could say that both teams had obscure goals – cross the finish line surpassing other competitors. Nevertheless, the coach should have clarified and negotiated measurable goals with detailed path to steer teams, such as focusing on racing against the clock or only aspiring near-perfect synchronicity. As the team achieves each goal, they would gradually gain confidence enhancing the group’s emerging sense of itself as a talented, capable collective that would be able to meet the formidable challenges that lay ahead^[1]. Besides, the case informs us that the Varsity team’s margin of victory in Atlanta made team members dissatisfied. Probably, the coach shouldn’t have forced them to row against each other too often, lest creating a rift between them due to the difference of specific goals.

The second part which need to be improved is performance expectations and concomitant accountability measures. Each person should know the stakes and clearly grasp how others will determine whether they meet expectations, fail to deliver, or exceed expectations. Although different seats on the crew boat have different performance expectations, the varsity team lacked sufficient feedbacks from both other team members and Coach P. to improve performance or create a strong human connection. Hence, a bidirectional feedback mechanism should have been established by Coach P.. Moreover, Coach P. didn’t get every rower accountable for their collective success or failure, which caused severe finger-pointing and merciless critiques. Even conflicts arose, the coach should have resolved them positively and healthily by effective communication instead of avoiding them.  

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