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With the release of the feature movie, I am reminded of a lesson plan I once compiled based on the book, The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown.  At the time, I had just started a new position as chief of staff to the CEO of a small software company. The company had recently been acquired by a Private Equity firm and had merged with another company.  The two separate companies had very different cultures and the new organization was struggling to come together. Times were uncertain, morale was low, and me and the CEO were faced with a challenge to bring everyone together.  The start of the new year was coming up along with the annual employee kickoff meeting. My CEO suggested using a book he had just read as a theme to rally the troops, if you will.  Tasked with running and leading the kickoff, I quickly read the book and came up with lessons around teamwork and endurance for everyone in the company. Revisiting what I had once developed and now refining with what I have since learned with years more of experience (and hopefully wisdom), here are the lessons that everyone can take with them to be better leaders and teammates. 

"He told Joe that there were times when he seemed to think he was the only fellow in the boat, as if it was up to him to row the boat across the finish line all by himself. When a man rowed like that, he was bound to attack the water rather than to work with it, and worse, he was bound not to let his crew help him row." 

1. Teamwork and the power of Swing

Nothing is more powerful or beautiful when a team is in perfect synchronicity.  In crew, when that happens its called swing.  Swing is where every oarsman moves in unison. This synchronicity allows the boat to glide effortlessly and gracefully at top speed.  Swing hinges on balance.  If one rower pulls too hard or another falls out of rhythm, swing is broken. It requires trust, knowing each other, and a heck of a lot of practice to achieve swing. 

This is why one of the tenants of an agile product organizations is dedicated teams. If teams are constantly reforming in your organization, they won't last long enough for team members to know each other and trust each other. While changing out team members is good once in while, as a whole the team needs to learn how to work together to achieve a synchronized rhythm.

"What mattered more than how hard a man rowed was how well everything he did in the boat harmonized with what the other fellows were doing. And a man couldn't harmonize with his crewmates unless he opened his heart to them. He had to care about his crew. It wasn't just the rowing but his crewmates that he had to give himself up to, even if it meant getting his feelings hurt."

2. Leadership lessons and the role of the leader Coach 

To this day, I use a crew team as the best analogy to describe the role of a good leader.  When holding an Agile leadership seminar, I'll start with a picture of an eight-man crew gliding across the water.  My first question to the group of senior leaders is "Where's the coach in this picture?"  Of course, it's a trick question. The coach isn't in the boat.  "Al Ulbrickson sat quietly in the launch at the finish line..." Coach Ulbrickson's role was to assemble the right team, collect the right support staff, provide resources such as the boat and nutrition, give guidance and expert advice for the entire team, overcome outside obstacles, ensure the team is collaborative, pick a good captain in the coxswain, and ultimately have trust in the boys that they could pull off winning a gold medal by the time the race starts.  In business leadership, it's similar.  The leader's role as a coach is focused on enabling their teams, making sure the right teammates are in the boat, getting the right training and equipment, removing blockers, and empowering decision making.  

3. Motivation is more than the goal or objective

The goal is clear in sports. It's to win, to be an Olympic team, your objective is to beat the other team. Setting goals and alignment to the strategic plan is a good first step, but it's not the motivation. Every rowing team on the water had the same goal, what made that University of Washington crew stand apart from the rest was their motivation. Motivation is going to be bigger than wanting to win. Having a vision for your company or team that is about more than what competitors are doing will create a sense for each individual that they are part of something greater.  

In addition, when it comes to high-performing teams, one underlying motivation that is essential is that one of those motivations is about each other. They care about the success or failure of the person next to them. When those boys were physically exhausted, they were able to dig down deeper to be there for the each member of the team, to help the person next to them.

"If you don't like some fellow in the boat, Joe, you have to learn to like him. It has to matter to you whether he wins the race, not just whether you do." 

4. Community matters: it takes more than the team to execute and overcome obstacles

Those nine team members couldn't have made it to the 1936 Olympics without the community around them.  Not only did they need the coaching staff, the boat maker, and the University to support them, they needed their family, friends, and broader community for support.  It's the broader community that supports you and you that supports others, that makes everyone achieve. When it came to getting to Berlin, they needed everyone to chip in and help.  While your team may be humming along, you also need to work with all the other teams in your organization.  How aligned are your missions and goals with your support functions such as finance, procurement, HR?  Make sure you are brining everyone along on the journey. 

Not only are your support functions important, but making sure all the leadership in your organization is aligned and supportive of your mission is critical.  The coaching that teams need won't just come from their immediate leader.  For teams and individuals to thrive, mentorship, leadership, and coaching needs to becoming from all sides. For example, legendary racing shell builder George Pocock not only made the boats and kept them in top shape, he also served as mentor and personal coach to some of the team members like Joe Rantz. 

5. Humility is essential for growth and a learning mindset  

Sometimes what doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.  Set backs, challenges, pain can be either moments when you give up or moments when you learn and become stronger. We are programmed to try to avoid pain.  When challenges happen or when it gets tough, it's easy to want to step back and look for an easier route. If we make life too easy, we won't ever make ourselves stronger. Muscle growth requires resistance.  Improving as a team will require failure and willingness to learn from it.  

“Humility. the need to subsume their individual egos for the sake of the boat as a whole. The challenges they had faced together had taught them humility. Nothing could be taken for granted in live, forces were at work in the world that were greater than they.”

While not a leadership book in its own right, The Boys in the Boat does provide powerful lessons we can take away.  Any high-performing team, whether it be in business, military, or sports, can teach us what it takes to succeed. The book is worth a read or the movie worth a watch for inspiration for us all to improve. 

All excerpts and lessons from The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

Brown, D. J. (2013). The Boys in the Boat. Penguin Books.

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