Q. How would you compare the Army Crew team to other types of organizational teams? What are the key similarities and differences? What lessons can we learn from the Army Crew team?
A. The Army Crew team and other types of organizational teams in companies resemble each other to some extent. Both have a shared goal among team members and have a leader of them. They are based upon trust and cooperation. Motivation or team morale is also significant to achieve their goals. The better the teamwork is, the more they achieve.
However, they are quite different from other perspectives. The Army Crew team has a coach, the absolute power existing outside the team, besides a leader inside the team. In the instruction a coach has made, players decide what to do. They have less autonomy to do what they want independently and usually their positions are decided, which is hard to change once it fixed. The Army Crew team has a goal and it is clearly divided into actual race and practice race. They are operated by Coach more strategic than typical organizational teams. On the contrary, other types of organizational teams just a leader inside the team. They do not really have a practice and actual projects and team members have much freedom. They can express their own opinions to be reflected for their strategies. Teamwork in organizational teams is an important factor to achieve goal, but not overwhelming as much as in the Army Crew Team. Also, their roles are not obviously divided because each member has different and various talents. Individual ability is regarded slightly more important than in the Army Crew Team.
As regard to the analysis of the Army Crew Team, it gives an insight how to deal with teams in real life: the importance of teamwork and the role of leader. In typical companies, projects are allocated to teams and team members perform as a team player. That is why