“Be The Glue”
“Be The Glue”
My biggest mentor and 2x Olympic Gold Medalist, Susan Francia, used to say this to me everyday: “Be the Glue”. It started when I would come to her with my concerns and ask for her advice on how to approach different complex situations surrounding how to control the attitudes, mood, and mentality of the boat to get them to want to go faster and work together better. It is common, especially during the start of the racing season, for the people in the boat to change, as a result of faster individuals, beating out current ones. It can also change in terms of seat order, who is sitting in front of who, and who is stroking the boat. When the boat changes, in terms of the people in it, it is critical that I am able to manage the individual personnel in the boat, and understand attitudes of certain people, and find ways to effectively mesh the crew and motivate them to want to pull for each other. Often times, I felt stuck trying to get everyone to have the same energy, especially when there are only so many things I can control for when it comes to eight different individual people’s attitudes and mindsets. There was one instance when one person in the boat had been moved out of the lineup, after being beat out in her seat race, (switches in practice to compare individual speed) and as a result, the mood and cohesive energy turned into apprehension and lack of trust in this new individual who was switched into the boat. When this happens, not only does the effectiveness of the output (due to rhythm changes, hesitation in timing, ineffective catch/drive power output) go down from the original members, but the new member feels this discomfort on a magnified level, being the outlier. She is unable to effectively apply her power and as a result, her seat race result is now a question of validity. This turns into a cycle of distrust, as the original members can’t vouch for her power or find reason to believe she should be there. When this happens, it can be catastrophic for the entire boat, and turn practices into frustrating time wasters, working to mesh the boat again and redefine the rhythm every 10th stroke instead of using that time to break down barriers in our power potential and get faster as a unit.
This is when Susan would tell me to “be the glue” and serve to build trust within the boat, and vocalize the importance of buying into the people and the purpose of the practice. We wanted to go hard and it was my job to remind them that, and we could only work hard and be effective if we approached things with an open mindset, willing to grow and become better in a new situation. One thing I started to implement into practices, during the short rest times in between pieces, was asking the boat for feedback or thoughts on how they felt about the rhythm, speed, effort, or anything they felt like sharing. It opened up a dialogue for every member in the boat, allowing them to express openly and be acknowledged feel heard, and as a result I would try to solve these issues and address them in order to improve the next piece. This was proven effective, from just on a mental level of expressing opinions and feeling met, and as a result, the whole boat felt more in tune with each other, and able link an intention behind changes that I would call for. Being “the glue” meant that as a leader, my purpose is to generate cohesion and trust to enable the team to be their best and better.