Nascar Racing

1. In what ways do Evernham’s leadership tactics prove consistent with the characteristics and ideas on high performance teams and teamwork advanced in the text?

Ray Everham has a kind of leadership tactics which is rarely seen in the whole of motor racing industry. He instills a sense of confidence into the team by asking everybody to sit in a circle during a meeting. He knows in order for the team to perform well, every single member must feel at home, have a sense of belonging to the team. To do so, he will share the prize money of a race victory with every single member of the team. Ray Everham also shares the revenue from his personal activities like speaking tours and autograph sessions with the team.

Ray Everham is never satisfied with his knowledge and skills on leadership. He continues to increase his knowledge and learn new methods by reading up as many books on leadership as possible. The teamwork of the pit crews is so good mainly due to Everham putting strong emphasis on team excellence. In order to make the pit stop as fast as possible, it needs every crew to be able to co-ordinate well with each other.

2. If you were hired as Jeff Gordon’s new pit crew chief, what team norms would you expect to be in place?

If I am hired to be the new pit crew chief, the first team norms I would expect to be in place will be team unity. A pit crews will be nothing if there is no unity and understanding between members of the team. The other norm will be team quality. Every single crew must be committed and 100% fully focus on the task on hand. For an example, a lapse in concentrate for one of the tyre changer may result him missing the cache position of the wheel nut. This will result in wasting the team a few hundredths of seconds during the pit stop. As longs the unity and understanding is present, there should not be any major obstacle to maintain the pit crews high level of standard.

3. What can someone who takes over a highly successful team from a...