The Maui Open Paddle throbs with hundreds of outrigger canoe paddlers in an all-day competition.
Paddlers range from the Four Seasons Hotel teams dressed neatly in blue, to groups with little but hope. Competitors are girls and boys, men and women 6 to 60+ years old. The Four Seasons Team “likes to win”. We watched them win 6 of 7 races. They weren’t bigger; just better: smoother teamwork, stroking together, and faster.
This quarter-mile sprint offers lessons for leaders, like these:
- Pick teams that have work goals in common. Outrigger teams are 5 people, with one guiding (steering) and setting the pace. That structure can be a winner at work.
- Create a clear target for teams. The Open Paddle Trophy is a specially painted paddle awarded to the winner of the most events in the day. It hangs in the Four Seasons Hotel. The teams want it to stay there.
- Create skill-building frameworks with a coach, feedback, and a few guidelines. The Four Seasons team framework was practice times, stroking together at the same pace, and learning to change pace together. They blew away the others, usually by boat lengths.
- Invite your people to learn new skills, and reward them. The races are grouped by skill, age and team mix, inviting just about anyone to join. And race sponsors say so out loud. It’s an invitation hard to resist, because everyone looks like they’re having a great time!
Where will your teams take you this year?
© Jim Grew 2013. All Rights Reserved.
You may reprint and excerpt this blog if you include our copyright, the source, the author, and “reprinted with permission.”
Privacy Statement: Our subscriber lists are NEVER rented, sold or loaned to anyone.
To learn more about this ‘Winning-CEO’ stuff, contact me below:
jim@grewco.biz http://www.grewco.biz Twitter@grewj
