When you’re looking at how you work as a group, if all the attention is focussed on the work, and not enough attention to how you relate to each other, nothing will really change.
Make the Boat Go Faster is a way to figure out what’s holding your organisation back, and what you can do about it.
Make the Boat Go Faster is a team performance framework designed to help teams identify their core performance drivers (the wind) and eliminate operational drag (the anchors). Inspired by Olympic rowing strategies, this collaborative and practical exercise enables teams to surface bottlenecks, optimise dynamics, and align activities around a singular, collective goal.
Make Your Boat Go Faster is a really straightforward tool. It’s based on strategies devised by Ben Hunt Davies MBE, an Olympic rower who won gold with his team at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. After years of losing races, they changed the way they worked, which changed the results they got.
Make Your Boat Go Faster is a process you can do with your team, at any level.
It starts with a very simple exercise:
The aim of the exercise is for you and your team to work out how to remove the things that hold your organisation back, and concentrate on what makes your boat go faster.
There are two ways to do that:
Everything has to make the boat go faster.
The real point of the tool though is to have the conversations to call out some of the patterns that are holding your organisation back.
When you run Make Your Boat Go Faster, the first thing that usually happens is that people talk about problem processes, for example they’ll say, “the CRM system is such a nightmare to use…”, or “the data quality is so poor…” or they’ll talk about “bad communication from management”, or they’ll say things like, “we don’t have enough people to do the work…”
You can use the tool to unpick what people mean. For example if they’ve said, “leadership are really bad at communicating,” ask them to explain what is happening, to understand the dynamic.
When they’ve explained, you can ask, “These things that are holding you back, could you change your response to them… to get the communications you need, to get the clarity? Who could you talk to?”
The aim is to encourage them to get away from ‘It’s not my fault, all these things are external to me’, to ‘I could influence some of this stuff, as a team.’
When they talk about the good stuff – the things that are ‘filling the sails’ – they’ll say:
“We’ve got a great team…”,” I love the people I work with…”, or “I really believe in what we’re trying to do…”
And around these good things, you can ask “what could you do to amplify that?”
There are levels of answers that come out of doing the exercise:-
It’s worth taking everyone towards some of those taboo conversations about the way you work together, the conversations you never have as a group, because whilst all focus is on work, and not on individuals, it’s hard for them to be engaged.
If all the attention is focussed on the work, and not enough attention to the way you’re doing the work, you never get to fix the deeper issues.
And the real point of Make Your Boat Go Faster is to create the conditions to have the deeper conversations.
Even when the tool doesn’t get to that level at the first go it’s still useful, but if you can use it to lift the conversation to how you self-sabotage as a group, and the things that really matter, it is much more powerful.
If all the attention is focussed on the work, and not enough attention to the way you’re doing the work, you never get to fix the deeper issues.
Make Your Boat Go Faster helps people get clear about problems and opportunities, and if you run the conversation in the right way, you bring the team together, and give permission for people to stop doing some things, and make clear what they should be emphasising – so it’s really good modelling.
It gives you an opportunity to ask what are we going to do? This is a chance to make some decisions around letting go of some activities and accentuating others.
If you run this exercise, you’ll be:
1. Government Agency Reorganisation
A large government agency did an internal reorganisation which meant departments got cut up differently. Staff were understandably concerned, so we ran Make Your Boat Go Faster with them.
The boat picture provided the wider context for what they were experiencing ie what was holding them back that was out of their control, and why.
When we switched the conversation to their own internal functions, it allowed us to have the conversation about their team dynamics. The pros and cons, and forward and back of the first part of the conversation was really helpful for framing for this deeper part, and built a lot more trust in the group.
2. Team Leader Promotion
In another organisation, a restructure meant that a team leader was promoted and was now in charge of the department. They were a bit nervous, and wanted to do some team development.
So we ran Make Your Boat Go Faster. When they got past all the things the group couldn’t control, and started to talk about what they could, the new department head said, “I’m new to this job, I’ve never done it before, I’m worried about getting it wrong but equally I’m responsible for making sure we get all this stuff done…” her vulnerability turned out to be helpful because the others were willing to cut them some slack.
In showing vulnerability, it also invited vulnerability, and they all started talking about some of their fears and anxieties, which helped the team get over some difficult issues, and bond together more strongly. The new department head was fully accepted in the role and everyone pulled together.
3. Creative Agency Retrospective
We ran Make Your Boat Go Faster for a creative agency client, and now they use this tool every 6 months as a retrospective, to talk about what is working well, and what isn’t working well.
They look at the boat picture from the last time, and review what’s changed, and why. They can see that last time certain things were a problem for them, and other things were helping them, and they can see how the picture’s changed.
What’s interesting about this repetitive practice is that by coming back to it they’re building capability, and getting better at having those conversations.
They’re a lot better at creating the space to talk about how they’re doing as a team, and as a group of people. And as a result, it’s really helped their business.
At ThenSomehow we help universities and other HE organisations build emotional literacy, increase empathy, and help you see the world differently, giving you practical tools to shift the stuff that’s stuck.
If you’d like to discuss how we can help your organisation develop leaders and perform better, get in touch here.
For more practical tools, strategies and techniques for working with your team, read our comprehensive guide on how to be a more effective manager.
