Background

The Army Crew Team case describes a coach’s confusion relating to the decision involving the
formation of the best team for the National championship races which are just four days away.
Colonel Stas Preczweski, referred to as Coach P, was the coach of a military Crew Team for the U.S.
Military.

There were two teams with eight rowers in each team. The Varsity team consists of eight best
rowers from the squad of sixteen and the bottom eight are in the Junior Varsity (JV) team. It is
expected that the team with the better individual skills in terms of rowing technique, strength and
conditioning would perform better off but this doesn’t seem to be the case here. The matter is that
the Varsity team is systematically losing to the JV team, forcing its coach to think about taking
decisive actions so that the best team is chosen for the National championship races.

Applying Organizational Behaviour Analysis, the coach has to fix the problem. Upon reviewing this
case, we suggest the course of action to be taken within four days, on how to prepare the Army
Crew team to row at the National competition.

The outline already mentions that the coach is considering the subsequent 3 options:

Switch the Varsity and team groups, switch individual boat members, or intervening to boost the
Varsity team’s performance (Snook & Polzer, 2004).

Issues concerning the Varsity team

Despite the implementation of a rigorous methodology in forming the varsity team consisting of the
eight best rowers, once the season started, we begin to visualize that the JV team systematically
begin to beat the varsity team in races. It's apparent that there are additional parameters to be
considered than stringing along the most effective individual performers.

• Lack of trust between the team members

This team lacked trust and cordial relationship among themselves. This was evident by the approach
of criticism, the members displayed on an individual basis given an opportunity during self-critique
time by the coach. Criticizing individuals destroyed the team spirit and led to developments of
mistrust in the team. This was in contrast to the JV team players who never singled out anyone and
instead focussed on constructive criticism regarding details everyone in the team had to act upon.

• Frustration due to repeated performance analysis and lack of Reward Systems

The coach had utilized a new risky technique whereby he administered frequent races between the
two teams. This caused frustration within the Varsity team due to losing successively to the JV team
against whom they were expected to win. Because of lack of rewards and positive reinforcement,
they were systematically de-motivated and the teammates began the blame game. On the other
hand, JV team had nothing to lose and performed well as a team as they knew they could win
against the stronger Varsity team only when the whole team performed better.

• Temperament of individuals in the two teams

The coach created a matrix of the 16 rowers, listing their strengths and weaknesses on various
dimensions that included if the person within the team was a “pessimist or optimist”, “a leader or a
follower”, “a team builder or a team disrupter”. However, we discover that the Varsity team lacked a
frontrunner and a number of other members were tagged as team disrupters whereas the JV team
had no team disrupters.

• Team clashes through Email

The coach asked for crucial e-mails to be forwarded to him and confirmative e-mails to be shared
with one another. It was noticed that a couple of members of the Varsity team were severely critical
of others and were absolutely negative regarding their partners. Also, while writing to their team,
the messages of varsity team members were systematically negative whereas JV team’s messages
were positive and confirmative.

• Rigid in adapting to new experience

Psychological modelling plays a crucial role for enhanced team performance. Once Center for
Enhanced Performance coaching technique was introduced by the coach, it had been well received
by the JV team whereas the Varsity members were sceptical regarding it as “touchy-feely”.

• Absence of a motivational team slogan

The JV team had a particular purpose in mind. Their slogan was “nothing to lose” whereas the varsity
players lacked one consistent motivational slogan. Varsity teams’ slogans were often on the specifics
of rowing itself and nothing that evoked a sense of camaraderie. They ended up with phrases like
“row hard”, “never say die” and “finish clean”.

Main Reasons for the loss of Varsity Team to the Junior Varsity Team

First, the Varsity team isn't a cohesive cluster. Members of the varsity team focus on individual
performances and not the on the team as a whole. This is often proven by team members criticising
each other and not sitting alongside other in team meetings. Conversely, the JV team is
concentrated on the team’s success and doesn’t wish to let the team members down.

Secondly, the Varsity team suffered from not having an effective leader within the boat that
motivated the team and had many team disruptors whereas JV team didn’t have any disruptor
(Snook & Polzer, 2004). This prevented the Varsity team from optimizing team performance
necessary to defeat opponents.

Impact of Coach P. Methodology

Coach P.’s training program ought to have targeted more on psychological variables and cluster
processes from the beginning of the season. Instead, coaching was targeted on rising individual team
member performance. The Varsity team comprised of the eight high individual performers (Snook &
Polzer, 2004). Mistrust among the Varsity team members began developing following the spring
break. Lack of trust and different but connected psychological problems prevented the Varsity team
from synchronizing their athletes although they were the highest individual performers.

Following the break, Varsity team members became frustrated and critical of one another. These
behaviours were an early indication of a scarcity of trust that required to be addressed right away. It
was necessary that the team members trust each other to correct mistakes, permitting the boat to
regain balance and more speed during races.