Case Analysis For The Army Crew Team

I. Introduction The Army Crew Team is in utter frustration since the team that consisted of the top 8 members with excellent strength and condition, rowing technique, and psychological dimension kept frequently losing the JV team before the national championship race. Facing with this problem, Coach P. hold a meeting with the team members to discuss about the problems among the team. Now on, he has to make a decision among the choices of switching the Varsity and Junior Varsity boat, switching individual boat members or intervening to improve the Varsity boats performance. II. Problem identification 1. The members of Varsity dont cooperate with each other and there are so many problems in the Varsity Team on the aspect of relationships, responsibilities, resources and rewards. Relationships: No leader but some disrupters in the team. They do not communicate with each other. Responsibilities: Team members just complained about others and dont cooperate with each other. Rewards: they do not care too much about winning. 2. The coach P. is not a good machine operator to complement each member with its strengths and advantages to improve the productivity of a whole team but just like a manager of a production line to combine each member together. He does not have the appropriate means to communicate with team members and motivate the team. And he should find the problem early. III.Present options 1. Switch the boats or individuals members. Pros: Replenish fresh blood for the team and promote the crisis consciousness of the Varsity Team, This action may also alleviate contradictions between the members of Varsity Team. Cons: there are some risks of this action ahead of the Nationals. JV team may get worsened than its original team since Varsity team has physical advantages over JV team and they may do not want... [continues]

Case Study: The Army Crew Team Reason: Why does the Varsity Team Lose to the JV Team? Varsitys consistent losses to the JV team can be explained by their lack of characteristics that make up a true team. The losses can also be attributed to JVs strong team cohesion and the presence of team disrupters on the Varsity team. Team Playing vs. Individuality The Armys Varsity Crew team was not a true team. They were merely eight star athletes, with no cohesion or team chemistry, thrown together. The players and positions were selected strictly on physical strength and capabilities. This completely contradicts the views of the more experienced crew coaches, who rank psychological factors as the most important aspect of a successful crew team. Instead of selecting players by the single most important aspect of a teams success, these factors were ignored. In a sport where team trust and dependence is of utter importance, where even a hair flip can throw off an entire race, the lack of team cohesion and trust within one another caused great failure. It proved foolish to simply throw a group of good athletes together and expect them to be compatible. This strategy is a prime example of when the whole is less than the sum of its parts. Lack of Shared Goal In addition, the Varsity team had no solid team goal that they were working towards. Yes, they all wanted to win; however they were unclear as to how they would work together to accomplish this. This was evident from the team e-mails and discussions. The individual players proved to be too egotistical and centrally focused on their individual goals of personal success and opinions to function. They were too focused on individual blame and accountability to work together successfully. They never discussed bettering themselves as a team unit. Lack of Direction Absent Leadership...