Effortless team rowing

When watching teams rowing, it’s a mesmerizing experience. The boat moves like it’s floating, without any friction, effortlessly. The entire team is in perfect sync, everybody paddles in the same rhythm, in the same direction. It’s a great embodiment of team collaboration.

It’s very easy to miss the great effort made to achieve this, cause it looks so easy. But this is the result of hundreds or thousands of hours of work.

At one point, everybody in the team came together, agreed on their objectives and started their deliberate practice. The coach helps with goals, measurements and feedback. Everybody in the team knows what they want to achieve and what it takes to get there. And they keep at it, day after day.

Too many times we forget very basic components of great team work: clear and shared measurable goals, intentional practice and quick feedback.

How clear are for you the goals of the team you’re working with? How do you practice things that push you to new limits? And how often do you receive feedback to help you know where you stand?

If this is not yet happening, then start to put this in place, demand for this, maybe take the initiative yourself and get in sync with others. Start offering specific feedback to others for their behaviour, either to show appreciation or to signal a desire for change.

Too many times we’re waiting for things to happen, forgetting we can initiate them.