Team Dynamics

Posted Sunday, May 19, 2002

By Jack Jefferies

Team Dynamics We believe that it is important for all teams to have some sort of leadership. Strong leadership provides direction, which keeps the team on track and working efficiently. It is important to remember that there are a lot of different ways to do any one thing but that nothing will be done properly unless the entire team focuses on one method at one time. Having a leader will give the team a beacon to follow, which will keep them working together on the same thing.

It is best for the entire team to agree on who to have as their leader. It should be someone who is well liked and respected by everyone on the team. This respect must be earned. The leader must constantly prove his worth with his deeds. He must be very tactful and able to see what each individual needs from the group. He needs to have a holistic vision of how the team will look when it reaches its goal and know what basic adjustments must be made along the way to achieve that vision.

The team leader has a variety of responsibilities above and beyond his personal mental and flying skill work. He must lay out the plan that will bring the team to fulfill its goals. He must monitor progress and make decisions about when and if the plan needs to be altered. He is responsible for the setting of smart goals. He needs to mediate team meetings to ensure that they are productive. At the end of a debate on technique, he must make the final decision on the method to pursue.

It can be very helpful to the efficiency of the team and the morale of the players if the team leader can delegate responsibilities to other team members. This will keep the team leader's workload at a manageable level allowing him to better perform all of his tasks. It also gives the rest of the team a sense of equality with the leader and shared ownership of the team’s responsibilities.

Team Meetings

Communication seems to be the key to making interpersonal relationships work. A team is very much an interpersonal relationship with a lot of potential pitfalls. It is common for people on a team to try to bury problems due to a desire to not create a scene. This can be very destructive because the issues do not get resolved. Instead, they lie buried and slowly build into something that is blown out of proportion. It is important to safeguard the team from this by setting up a system of routine meetings where people have a chance to discuss potential problems.

These meetings should be routine and held regardless of whether or not there is a problem. You do not want to create an environment where people shudder with apprehension every time a meeting is called. They should be pre-scheduled and if there are no problems then only good things are talked about and everyone leaves happy.

I believe there should be two separate kinds of meetings. One should be a meeting where any personal problems are brought out in the open. Here each individual should have an uninterrupted chance to speak freely. It might help this process if there is some sort of object that is held by whoever is speaking and it is understood that nobody may speak unless they are holding this object (“pass the rock meeting”). It is best if the speaker starts out with things that he likes about the teammates before he starts into the problems. This will help keep the problem being discussed in perspective.

Another kind of meeting that must be regularly held are business meetings. It will help keep the team focused on skydiving if everyone is clear on how and when the different business aspects of the team will be dealt with. This should deal with everything from money to scheduling to deciding who is responsible for what tasks and when they will be accomplished.

A closure meeting held at the end of each day is also important. Here the team can recognize the day’s accomplishments, discuss future plans and events, and bring up potential problems that need to be avoided. It is a good time to review the day’s goals and discuss what was and was not achieved and why. It is a good thing to officially close the day. This will prevent any confusion about when the day is actually over and you can relax. The meeting should be brief and concise to avoid dragging out the day. It should also end with a positive note regardless of how the day went.

Coaching

Skydiving coaching has consistently proven itself as an invaluable element to any team's training. There are dozens of instances where a team has come out of nowhere to make incredible gains with very few training jumps due to the use of a well qualified coach. The teams I have been on have always made use of as much coaching as we could manage.

A well qualified coach will show the team how to perform all the skills properly without having to spend the thousands of jumps he did to learn it. He should be experienced enough to be able to troubleshoot the team's problems and quickly bring them to a solution. He should be able to discuss what needs to be done and why, helping the team to understand how everything fits together.

The coach does much more than provide technical information. The coach basically takes the place of the team leader. He is in much better position to do this job. He is unaffected by the emotional involvement and he is not dealing with the adrenaline coursing through his veins after landing from a training jump. This allows him to think more clearly during the briefing and debriefing allowing him to make better judgements about what the team needs. He is also much more able to positively affect the team’s morale.

Having a coach also allows the team leader to be just a teammate. This is a better place for him to work on his own skills. It is also much easier on the team, since there is no feeling one team member being superior to another, easing a whole field of emotions. Life on a team with a coach is a lot easier than without.

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©1998 - Jack Jefferies, Airspeed - All Rights Reserved

Team Dynamics

Team Meetings

Coaching

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