Agile vs. the Boat

Since 2006, I have seen quite a number of use and peruse of the “rowing boat” metaphor for leadership, teamwork, alignment, collaboration, management, culture, you name it. However, it seems to me that there is a very profound misconception with that metaphor, which is more revealing of an unassumed management style fantasy quite contrary to what the original author probably intended to convey. I just happen to have rowed a lot, up to France vice-champion (college sports category), and I wanted to set some things straight with that metaphor, with an internal account of what it really takes to take that boat across the finish line before the others—and decode what that metaphor really means in business environments.

Let’s start with the iconic picture of eight people holding their oars, with a ninth seating in the back, snuggly tucked in the hull. Here are two common misconceptions: every rower is the same, and the cockswain’s only role is to steer.

Every rower is the same

If you have never set foot on a rowing boat, there seem to be only two distinct well-defined roles to the untrained eye: the cockswain (the guy steering the rudder and yelling orders to the others) and the rowers (the 8 others). In reality, there are at the very least two more: N°1, and N°8, and the real role of the cockswain is not what you might expect.

N°1 is the first rower in front of the cockswain. He is usually a senior rower, with more experience and physical endurance than the others. He is not necessarily the strongest, but the one who will die last. His role is as important as the cockswain: in effect, most other rowers will synch themselves to his pace and gestures, by instinct, even amidst the harshest of efforts. The cockswain might give silly orders, incur a mic fault or pass out, the boat will always follow the gestures of N°1.

N°8 is the last rower, at the far end of the boat. He is the only other crew member, with the cockswain, to have a full view of the boat and thus the only one who can provide instant feedback to the far end of the boat. Usually a lighter rower (so that the tip of the boat can go surfing more easily), he also needs to adapt to every other rower’s slight differences, and thus plays a power balancing role onboard.

The cockswain only steers

These two roles are so important, that on smaller boats (2 rowers, 4 rowers), a cockswain is not even always necessary… Speaking of which, another common misconception is that the cockswain “only steers the rudder”, i.e. his sole job is to define the direction where the boat is headed and actively use the rudder to obtain it, the rest of the crew being here as a mere mindless human engine. But let us have a look at the actual rudder on a rowing boat: it looks like a tiny, postcard-sized sheet of material that seems far too small to actually steer a 20m-long boat. And in actuality… this is the case. 

The rudder can only correct small errors, or requires a huge distance to get the boat to turn, and every action on the rudder also acts as a brake on the ship to the detriment of its performance. To actually maneuver, the cockswain has to command one side of the boat to paddle lighter and the other side to paddle with more force. And here lies the actual role of the cockswain: speaking with the crew, and relaying broadcast information as well as dedicated feedback to every teammate. Granted, as he is the only one to look ahead, he also manages direction and efforts on the crew, but to achieve this, his primary means of action is his voice, which is only effective if he has the trust of the crew. And more often than not, he will rely on N°1 to set an example and N°8 to compensate for the rest when a command is issued.

How does it translate in business environments?

The metaphor is most often used to emphasize the role repartition between a boss and a team, with the assumption that every team member should “row in the same direction” or “do their part” under the enlightened command of the boss. But the reality of rowing teaches us that there’s more to a team than meets the eye. The senior members of the crew have a critical role that is not the same as the other rowers, and a boss is not always necessary once the direction has been agreed upon by the team. Furthermore, the role of the “boss” is less to actively steer than to serve as an information broker enabling the team to reach their goals, and providing feedback. However, this is rarely what people using the metaphor have in mind.

Now, I would like to address the ill-advised side effects of using this metaphor, especially on the implicit management culture that it exposes. In my experience, the metaphor is mostly prompted by bosses to communicate something to their team, along the lines of “we are not enough leveraging our collective potential”. However, using that metaphor proves rarely useful, and in my opinion and experience rather signals the intimate self-doubt of the boss. In effect, the management model that is emphasised through that metaphor is one where the team has practically no say in the strategic direction, can only look backwards and never see the objective, and has to comply to a boss that is the only one who has all the elements to make proper decisions. To put it bluntly: it signals a boss’ insecurity as such, and his or her perceived failure at having orders followed.

Opposite attracts

In other words, the metaphor describes a Fordian model out of the 1920s, which is pretty much the opposite of any kind of liberated entreprise and could hardly be farther from the very principles of agile development or lean startup models. This post has partly been triggered by my recent witnessing the use of this metaphor by the leadership of a business unit of a large company, said business unit being supposed to act as the torchbearer of that company’s new ways of working. To me, though it can pass as “just a visual to support the need for alignment”, the fundamental trends that using such a metaphor signals are very concerning, especially in such an environment.

That being said, is there a better metaphor? Still in sports, I very much prefer the metaphor of acrobatic gymnastic, where each team member has strengths and weaknesses that are harmoniously put together to reach always higher, every team member building on the strengths of others to come up with intricate and elevated figures. We should very much strive for a management model where teams are diverse collectives, empowered and self-engaged towards a common goal, rather than specialized human engines whose only quality is to lean their raw power to a boss. As much as I love rowing, real life is never about rowing on a straight line, as much as it is about leveraging each other to get there before competitors, with better margins, together.

Oh, and before you ask: on the boat that won the national silver medal, I was the cockswain.

Huge thanks to the rest of the crew back then; what we did, in Macon, on the Thames, on the Amstel, in the Grand Canal of Versailles, on the Bicorne lake, on the Seine, though not always victorious, was always epic.

P.S. This post was written with a male-only crew, as this was my primary experience. Kuddos to all the excellent lady rowers out there.