Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Teamwork

The USA women's K4 had our first practice together yesterday morning. We set up the old best, now named the titanic by Emily V. and launched her for the first time as a team. It was a shaky start, the boat itself is several sizes to large for us making it extra tippy because we don't have enough body weight to hold her down but we are determined to prevail and we are! There was a major transformation in our paddling and the way we felt in the boat from the beginning of practice to the end, and we found even more improvement today.
We have a positive attitude in the boat and our focusing positive changes we can implement to make the boat go faster vs focusing on the negative issues and a good policy of open communication.
My various K4 experiences stood me in good stead this afternoon when I was put on the spot to talk about  team building to a group of 44 teenagers. The 4 major points I was told to discuss were, communication, conflict resolution/management, teamwork and character. The K4 provided me with a perfect examples for all these points! It was interesting to put into words what we do everyday and how it related to each of the key points which help build a good team!

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