Rod Davis
Freshen it up
A few years ago the coaching staff of the All Blacks did a crazy thing, they swapped jobs. The backs coach became the front row coach and so on. The New Zealand press, and much of the world press, thought All Blacks chief coach Steve Hansen had lost his mind. Steve had one simple reason: ‘We (note the
“we” not “I”) wanted to freshen it up.’ While the press and public were thinking this coaching experiment could cost a few games, Steve was more concerned with the big picture, of improvement through innovation, passion and challenge. Doing the same thing over and over again does not move a team forward. Normally if you challenge passionate people with something new
and different you will get outstanding results. Maybe not the first day, but soon. Doing the same thing, the same way, over and over is not a formula for moving forward – it’s treading water. And in any competitive environment, be it sport or business, treading water means losing out to the guys who are moving. Here are some real-term examples of mixing things up to move
forward. How about this season you switch your main trimmer and jib trimmer. Or your bowman and pitman. Each under the proviso that they not only have to learn the tricks of the new role, but they have to teach their old role to their team mate.
28 SEAHORSE What is the worst thing that can happen? They make a mistake
and it costs some distance on the racecourse? What will happen is a new challenge, more interaction and communication between your team, and with that more respect and fun. Fun! That’s a concept we can all embrace… And use more of it. Give it some time, because day one will seem ropey, and it would
be easy to say it’s too hard, but building something worthwhile is hard. Coaching sailing can be similar. After coaching a team for three
years things can get a bit stale. The same messages from the same voice for regatta after regatta lose their effect after a while. That is the reason a new coach has a big impact on a team for the first few regattas. The team hangs on every word the new voice says, they take it in and use it. Funnily enough, even when it is the same thing the longterm coach has been saying for years! Coming from a different voice makes it more valuable for some unknown reason. This year for the TP52 Super Series we have freshened up the
coaching, with different people taking on different aspects of the task, like performance analyses, flying the drone and introducing a dedicated boat speed coach. All but one were with the programme, in different roles, for the past three seasons, but the new responsibilities have reinvigorated the whole team to push it to be better in every aspect. Under the ‘freshened-up system’ I steer the boat during the tuning
MAX RANCHI
GILLES MARTIN-RAGET
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98
