Sailing, the best team building

«If you want to go fast…, go alone; If you want to go far…, form a team! ».

The sport of sailing, in any of its modalities (even individual ones, although it may seem nonsense), is essentially a team sport. The interdependence of some crew members with others is absolute, and only those coordinated crews end up mastering the art of sailing a sailboat effectively.

The curious thing about this aspect, in my case, is that I realized it not while browsing but when I entered the conventional labor market. When, still in the "Emergency" internship, I asked a medical colleague for help to guide me in the diagnosis of a patient and, after looking at me strangely, he showed me the many stacked folders that he had pending, without even evaluating whether my case was much more serious than yours.

On several more occasions I have been able to see how different business groups are nothing but mere groups: the tasks are distributed in a partitioned and independent way and one ends when they are carried out. The sum of all these tasks will give us the final performance of that group.

However, in a sailing boat this tactic does not fit; it is not better or worse but it is different; all the tasks on board, in each and every one of the maneuvers, are interrelated, involving all (or almost all) of the crew; therefore, everyone's collaboration and everyone's coordinated and serial work is essential to complete the perfect maneuver. It will be enough for a single link in the chain to fail to compromise the success of the maneuver. This is called "team" and allows us to reach horizons much greater or more distant than when we stay in mere "groups."

It is true that the team is, therefore, a house of cards: if things don't go well, the result will be disaster! Of course, that's where the training comes in, the meetings to discuss the case, the video recordings to study the faults and how to correct them, the crew adjustments to place each one in their best position, where they will be most effective. Hence, Eddie Owen, our coach in the Spanish Copa América team, insisted on… "the Copa América is won on land and it is all about meetings and meetings."

Certainly, the hours we spend watching the day's videos (videos that another link in the chain has had to record, of course), sometimes in slow motion, sometimes rewinding, studying over and over the maneuvers to discover how to improve them, were many and very long. But the help they provided was immense, and we were able to objectify our improvement in a resounding way and without a doubt.

The result: a boat that is successful in its maneuvers, with a high performance in its regatta or its cruise, and with greater safety when facing adverse wind and sea conditions, when things go wrong. These will be the boats that win the races, be they coastal, oceanic or simple crossings of medium or long distances.

But even more: the crews will be the most united, the ones with the greatest camaraderie, the most solid, the ones with the greatest depth; they will be the companions that you want to have by your side when new projects arise.

The "group" is mathematics: 1 + 1 = 2. The "team" is trust: 1 + 1 = 2 + a plus. And it will be that plus, also growing exponentially, which allows us to go a little further each time ...

Is my company a team? Or is it a group?

This question is very easy to answer: the employees of that company…, do they know well what their colleague's job is? Could they develop it at any given time without affecting performance?

If the answers to these questions were 'no', we have a lot of work to do, a lot of meetings ahead, a lot of revisions to do.

It is not uncommon on the ship to swap all seats on board, even without prior notice. This is a very good way to stimulate empathy, essential in personal and team performance. Of course, the first maneuvers will go wrong; sure !, as it should be !; But they will help us, from the first of them, to realize what are the problems that our colleague faces in his position, which will surely lead us to better understand the task and be more understanding with his part, which is ours, by the end of the day.

When a well-known owner, a successful businessman, was asked about the reasons for investing his money in a racing team, his answer was:

“Because nowhere else have I seen teamwork like it; and I admire, and also need, teamwork! ».

THINKING ABOUT THE SPORTSMAN

Nutrition, injuries, ... are topics that interest the athlete and that require the guidance of a specialist. They include a 24-hour Medical Guidance service where you can consult all questions related to your health, as well as a wide medical staff of physiotherapists specialized in Sports Medicine.