⚠ Spoiler alert – personal post:
Management lessons from Dragonboating
When recently applying the #IcebergModel in a workshop to surface hidden personal characteristics and deeper roots of behavioral patterns, I realized:
What has influenced me significantly, lies well below the surface of the water: years of competitive Dragon boating, first in Hong Kong, later with the Swiss National team.
For good reasons this paddle sport - 22 athletes moving together, precisely aligned, sitting shoulder to shoulder in the small space of a canoe - is often used for team building exercises.
At the occasion of today’s #InternationalDragonBoatDay my key learnings, that became my guiding principle in managing teams:
👯♂️ Teamwork beats solo-out-performers: consistent strokes applied at the same time, have more impact to speed, than single initiatives. Consequently…
🕓 Adopt your pace : …you can only pace as fast as your slowest paddler.
🤝 Trust is the base : not every team member has the same absolute strength, but it is essential to the motivation of all, to trust that every individual is giving his/her/their personal best.
👀 All eyes in the boat : Don’t get distracted from your own race by what the competitions does.
🎯 Clarity matters : communication in the boat is concise and crystal clear, orders are rehearsed.
🔄 Prepare & visualize : take a moment and visualize the challenge ahead, the noise, the rush, who will be next to you.
🚀 The race is now - don't hold back : saving power for a later race might mean, that this later race will never happen.
🏆 Competing is fun : you race to win, you lose to learn.
👷♀️ Work with the team you have : there is no team B, no secret weapon, believe in the potential you can unlock through preparation and joint effort coming together.
Bonus track: video of me steering the Swiss Open Women Small boat in the 2017 World Championships in Kunming, China against Singapore and Iran ⏩ watch till the end to see who won!
Happy International Dragon Boat day to all my fellow paddelers around the globe! Elke Grete Claudius Grete Nicole Eichner Markus Gruen Markus Schmieder Jo Jones Sarah Green Lister Woo Felix Meier Bettina Madleina Bieler Matthias Marbes Corina Lempen Maarten Harteveld what do you like to add to my observations?
A true ambassador for the sport.