[GamJams loves guest contributions, particularly when they're insightful or written to make you go faster. This one is both, and it comes from Beth Leasure, a cycling coach and performance muse to the pro peloton for over two decades. Learn more about Beth at bethleasure.com or on her remarkable blog, "Good Spin."]
Team Performance: Playing Together at the Top
by Beth Leasure
“Powerful teams are built by development of team as well as individual rider.” 1
- Len Pettyjohn, one of America’s most successful pro directors with Team Coors Light
"To be perfectly honest, I'm not a solo artist. I need to find collaborators...I make a lot of music on my own but no one ever hears. It just gets better when I'm working on it with Adam, Larry and Bono." 2
- Edge of U2, Irish Rock and Roll Hall of Famers
What both these quotes recognize is that the group is better together than alone and that individual abilities are optimized in healthy team environments. Studies show that learning takes place more readily in small groups. Fortunately, cycling is full of small groups. We call them clubs and teams.
Teams that learn and grow, change and compete at the top have uncommon leadership and a few key similarities. Team Leaders give the team room to grow, learn and deliver. Crystal clear expectations are set. A culture of inclusion is fostered by involving team members in key decisions and in constantly striving to improve. Barriers are removed to make the team’s job easier. People are held accountable for performance.
Particularly good teams have leaders who possess an exemplary and uncommon skill. This skills mixes two unlikely partner virtues: accountability and inclusion. How do great teams encourage input from the whole team while holding every teammate accountable? The answer is in clear-cut expectations from a centralized source.
Pro teams call this role Directeur Sportif or Performance Manager. The best of the professional teams put a leader in that spot who knows how to build consensus while exerting a subtle force. Great amateur programs generally fill this role with the team’s founder who acts as manager or pass it off to an exemplary leader. These are all scenarios requiring a certain luxury of resources.
Most amateur squads lack this luxury but there are ways to obtain the expertise of a performance specialist.
One way is to employ a Coach with team director experience. This skill-knowledge coupling in the same person provides an understanding of how individuals can be developed in a team context. Another way is to seek outside counsel to address certain team considerations. A mediator with a cycling background would help resolve an issue or a conflict unique to a competitive cycling context. Guest Directors can be hired for key events or to prepare a team going into a targeted race. Further, a Performance Consultant can offer a team plan that works both physiology and team skills, so that everyone plays and stays together.
Amateur teams can finance performance expertise by using a portion of team budget with each rider investing a percentage toward the costs. The service can be purchased for one plan, a portion of a season, a goal event or for the entire season as per team need. Since members of a team pay something toward the costs, everyone is invested in the success of the group.
Winning, achievement, teamwork, belonging, team training rides, socializing, specific preparation for planned events – these are all benefits of a team that chooses a Team Performance Plan.
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Beth Leasure offers coaching,
strategy and inspiration for elite cyclists and teams. She is offering a Fall special for amateur teams who wish to sync individual development with team performance.
She is also the moderator of the Facebook group "Inspiration for Pro Cycling's Influential" (by invitation only). Contact her via her website at bethleasure.com.
1Conversations with Alexi Grewal
2Leadership Wired, 10/27/09 an enewsletter by John Maxwell.
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