Team Paddle Power

“Everybody has to hit the water at the same time and look like one paddle, not twenty.”

Lorrae Fitzgerald, Head Coach of ‘Hackers’, Port Hacking Dragon Boat Club

As we approach the 2nd quarter of 2024 and have the end of the financial year and mid year mark within our sights, the pressure is on for many teams to meet certain benchmarks, goals and milestones. The warm up phase after the start of the year is well over and Easter on the immediate horizon, so by now leaders expect their teams to be into their stride and working well together.

This article, which was originally published a few years ago, gives great insight into the inner workings of a Dragon boat team and what it takes to get everyone paddling in unison:

The pure raw power of a Dragon boat and its crew as it is races across the water is quite a sight for spectators and for the crew there is nothing quite like it as they give everything they have to the team and leave everything on the water to finish the race with nothing left in the tank.

There is a real art in fashioning a Dragon Boat team out of a diverse group of individuals with varying levels of fitness and skill. This is what made our interview of Lorrae and Ken Fitzgerald so fascinating. This husband/President and wife/Head Coach team, who between them have over 20 years experience in Dragon Boating at state, national and international level respectively, are the real force to be reckoned with and are the ‘engine’ behind the Port Hacking ‘Hackers’ Club.

Our conversation with them revealed so many parallels between Dragon boating and business that we wanted to draw your attention to.

On a simplistic level consider the principle that in dragon boat racing you need to move a group of people in a particular direction together as quickly as possible whilst minimising their level of exertion, avoiding energy wastage and maximising output. This is in essence the same challenge we face in business of galvanising a team of people to achieve a set of goals as efficiently and profitably as possible.

On top of that, don’t forget that the combined weight of twenty-two in the big dragon boat competitions and twelve in the smaller ones, creates quite a mass to move, which serves as an interesting metaphor of the challenge companies face with getting their teams to work together harmoniously to outmanoeuvre market problems and competitors.

So, whether it is a race on the river or competing for a contract, the principles of mobilising the team remain true.

Strength in Unity not in Numbers

The key to success for any team on the water, is how well they work together and keep in time.

After all, if you have twenty paddlers all paddling at different times, this can lead to paddle clashes. If one side paddles harder than the other, then the boat could go in circles and if some of the crew don’t paddle at all and instead rely on the others, then you may not even have enough power to build the necessary momentum to get going, let alone finish. Thus, for a crew to get past the finish line they need to work together, in perfect unison. Anything less than that and the boat simply will fall behind the others in the race and serve to demoralise the team.

So just how does a crew go from a disordered set of well-meaning individuals to a team of paddlers gliding through the water in perfect unison?

The answer is training and lots of practice, practice and more practice. This helps build muscle mass and memory, resilience and trust, but before that can happen you have to have the right people in the boat.

Learnings for business – The more seamless a team works, the better the outcome. If you do that, then productivity is higher, efficiencies are lower and conflict and misunderstandings are minimised. This sounds obvious and it is, and yet it isn’t as commonplace as it should be. This is why the steps that Lorrae and Ken take in the recruitment, onboarding and training of their crews might serve as a useful refresher for business leaders.

The Make-up of a Team

Let’s start with the fact that the members of their club come from all walks of life and that at the start of their membership they rarely have the necessary skills, fitness or stamina to handle the pressure of a race.

We were surprised to learn of just how broad the age group is of people who sign up for this sport. The ‘Go Hackers’ Club even have septuagenarian members as well as an octogenarian, whose strength and fitness would surprise most of us and put us to shame.

Age clearly doesn’t perturb Lorrae or Ken as, for them, the perfect student is one that is able to listen, take instruction and is open to learn and change their behaviour. This will enable the coach to teach them the timing and technique as the foundation on which to build the power and fitness that will come with time.

Another core attribute for a successful crew member is their ability to fit in with others, be accepting and take the team first attitude. There is little room for individuals, no matter how talented they are, to ‘showboat’. At the end of the day, each paddler is only one paddler of many. Their value to the team is not their individuality, but to the contrary, rather their ability to blend into the crew so they operate as one and don’t stand out. So, it is less about how the power each paddler brings, but the power the boat gets from the sum of all the parts working together.

Another important aspect of the composition of a crew is picking the right paddlers for the right positions, so the power of the boat is balanced from left to right as you cannot afford to have too much power on one particular side. Similarly, the stronger and bigger paddlers need to be located in the middle of the boat to provide the horsepower and for this reason this section of the crew is known as the ‘engine room’.

Learnings for business – Your recruitment process is the first filter to ensure you select the right people and then match the right people within the team to the different roles, so they complement rather than compete with each other. Skills and ability are certainly a benefit and useful, but they are rarely the most important attributes. They can be learnt, improved and perfected, but attitude is more important. Whilst it can be fostered, if a person’s attitude is wrong then this can be more of a problem and a real challenge to change. And then the way the team is blended is the final piece of the team make-up puzzle. So be sure you pick the right people!

The 3Ps of Perfection – Practice, Practice, Practice

Clearly, another important aspect of team success is the commitment of the individuals to turn up for training, come rain or shine, whatever the time. When one considers just how early they sometimes need to leave their home to do that and the sometimes cold and wet conditions they need to train in, there are times when they need to dig deep. Plus, as this is an amateur sport, training and competition happens outside of work, either early in the morning or in the evening and weekends. So, at competitive level this is not a sport for the casual, but rather the committed.

There will be times when crew members will be tired and won’t feel like going to training, but this is where their commitment must shine through, just as they must keep paddling in a race when their muscles are burning and their hearts and lungs feel like they are going to explode. So, if they can’t make training, just how will they cope under the pressure of the race. Thus, every aspect of their training is a test to prepare each paddler for the rigours of competition and the resilience they build will in turn set them up to face the trials and tribulations of life.

This is why Lorrae and Ken look for people with a competitive mindset and also why they work hard to actively foster camaraderie within the club and their boats as success comes from a crew where dragon boating has become part of their lifestyle.

Learnings for business – Every team needs to have mastered their communications, collaboration and cooperation, as well as have a clear understanding of how processes are followed, policies respected and programs are run. Repetition is a key part of this and training, mentoring and coaching are critical support mechanisms to supplement day-to-day feedback loops. Part of creating a settled team is ensuring that the team are encouraged and have the opportunity to get to know each other outside of their individual roles.

Setting the Right Direction

Paddlers power the boat, but if the direction is not clear then the crew will simply go in circles, or worse crash into another boat or the shore. So this doesn’t happen, each dragon boat has a Sweep who stands behind the paddlers and steers the boat in the desired direction. Their role is to also shout instruction and encouragement to the crew as they have the necessary vision to see how the team is doing and how they are tracking against their goal.

Thus, the sweep sets the direction, gives the commands and instructions and is ultimately responsible for the safety of the entire boat. They also stand above the crew and so can see what lies ahead, whereas each crew member is so focused on their paddle, their patch of water and rarely if ever look up as this could take them out of the rhythm of the moment and ‘zone’ which prove disastrous. Thus, it is the Sweep’s responsibility (along with the Coach) to plan for the race by setting the race strategy, decide on the crew composition, balance the power, select the technique from the race start to building and lengthening the pace where necessary and ensure that the crew don’t burnout.

Learnings for business – Strong and decisive leadership is critical for team success. A Leader needs to set the direction for the team to follow and must foster respect and trust, which in turn will ensure that everyone will follow. This is particularly important to ensure the team stays united, focused, together and on track to achieve their common goal, especially during tough times. A leader must also be willing to make hard decisions, give honest feedback and not be driven by the need to be liked. Trust and Respect are the more important badges of success of a leader. They are hard earned and offer a source of energy and motivation to the rest of the team to help drive them when the going gets tough.

Motivating the Team

During competition, the boat gets one more team member, who sits at the front of the boat facing the entire crew. This is the drummer. They beat a drum that serves as the heartbeat of the boat, which matches the pace and rhythm of the left (predominantly) and right ‘strokes’ that lead all the paddlers. The drummer’s role is not only to communicate this pace and rhythm, but also to help get the best out of the crew. Ultimately, their goal is to ensure that the crew’s timing is aligned as perfectly as possible, so the team operates as one cohesive unit.

As the drummer faces the paddlers, they can also see their expressions and read what they’re thinking and feeling and in doing so understand the mood of the crew and when their spirits are failing. That is when they raise the tempo and working with the sweep, shout encouragement to drive up motivation levels as well as ensure that the Sweep’s instructions are understood and received and any necessary corrections made.

Learnings for business – The morale of the team is critical as it can serve to foster confidence or undermine each person’s self-belief and commitment. It is thus critical that a leader keeps their finger on the pulse of the team’s motivation levels and takes corrective action when these dip. This is not a task they have to take on alone as this is where each team member has a role to play to foster team spirit.

The Essence of the Success

The origins of dragon boat racing date back to 4th Century China and there is much to learn from the folklore around the birth of this sport, but the acronym that Lorrae and Ken shared with me that they use at their club serves as a great synopsis of the key ingredients of success needed by business leaders to mobilise highly successful teams:

Desire

Resilience

Attitude

Goals

Overcome (obstacles together)

No (the discipline of making hard choices in the best interests of the team)

Belief

Organised

Accountable

Teamwork

The Learning for business – There are many aspects to mobilising a team, many attributes required of its members, but the real magic is how each individual blends in with the group to be one entity. The ultimate success comes when the individuals are indistinguishable from the group and when each part of the team is operating homogeneously. When that happens, your strength will be optimised, your endurance reinforced and your power truly unleashed. Then your team will realise the type of success that was never previously thought possible.

“If your timing is out, you’ll lose power.”

Ken Fitzgerald, President of ‘Hackers’, Port Hacking Dragon Boat Club

We hope that this article resonated with you and that you have picked up a few pointers through the analogy with Dragon boat racing for your own team. Best still, we hope that you have a few ideas on how to get your people to paddle with more purpose and power, together.