Army Crew Hbs Case

First of all I would like to say that this case is great. It is inspiring especially in the frame

of the MBA. I truly enjoyed reading it and it helped me understand how to work as a group

for the rest of the upcoming year. I find it to be a perfect parallelism between the description

of the most demanding sport and the exhaustion of fulfilling successfully an MBA program.

Although the elements of success in both rowing and completing an MBA are the exact same,

the crucial ingredient to a successful “season” is the team work. For example both in rowing

and the MBA you need exceptional individual skills and endurance, but without confidence and

team work coordination your chances are most likely to fail. It was inspiring to read how one

of the crucial aspects of a successful team is confidence in each other and trust that if a team

member makes an error you have to trust that he will do anything possible to correct his error. I

think this is crucial in the general vision of becoming part of any team throughout our life. Trust

and confidence are main pillars in a team. Even if errors are natural in any human being, you

have to confide in your team members to an extent that you know that at some point everyone

will make a mistake and do everything possible after it to mend that error.

Discussion Questions:

1- Why does the Varsity team lose to the JV team?

I believe the Varsity team fails because even though they have the best individual

strength they do not function as a team, instead, they function as individuals. By having

such A- type personalities together this might backfire even if they are the most skilled.

They confide in their personal skills and strength rather than confiding in their team

members. I don’t believe it is impossible for this team to succeed they just haven’t

found the way to function together. They are not mature as a team, and maybe they

should focus on working as a team outside the rowing activity and try to function...