Monday, October 18, 2021
How to get your team to work like a Formula One pit crew
www.fastcompany.com: If you’ve ever watched motor racing, you’ve likely been in awe of the pit crew. A team of two dozen individuals changes tires, fills the fuel, and checks the aerodynamics in a well-choreographed series of actions. How well they execute can make the difference between getting the checkered flag and being seconds behind.
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First, I did not know that the fasted pit stop time was 1.82 seconds and I have now been educated. That is amazing to me and I guess I’m not the only one. The training they discussed seems a little cut throat to me but I appreciated the connected that were made. I liked the part about how every team member must know their role. I’m not sure that the practice of not checking in with your team can completely correlate to the business world. I believe that is cutting out communication but I understand the need for the theory in a pit. The further concept of trusting your team applies to every team, from sports to business. I liked how they also related repetition under the notion of trust because how do you build trust with someone, if not through a process over time. I have also found relationships to be more successful when there is a mutual understanding that both are striving for improvement. I think that this also plays into trust.
I really enjoyed the points made in this article. Working as a team can be difficult but when done correctly it can look like magic. “Everyone must know their role,” this is a wildly important aspect of teamwork but what comes with this is that everyone must understand that their role holds importance and just as much importance as everyone else. This ensures that no power dynamics take hold of your team so that you can move on to the next step which is “align around a common goal” in our case this would be building a successful and beautiful show. A common goal is crucial so that everyone is on the same page so that no one gets left behind or feels unheard. Finally, you should always “strive for continuous improvement” this is one of the most important ideas you can take with you in your life. As humans, we are never done learning. Not only on our own but also learning from every person that we meet in our life. This article touched on the basic ideas of what good teamwork requires and reminded me that sometimes successful teamwork is the most rewarding part of a production.
This article touches on many key foundational components to what make up a successful team. I was surprised how many parallels I identified between how a Formula One pit crew and a theatrical backstage crew function. One tool the author explained is that in order to have an effective team, everyone on that team must know their job description, that is, what is expected of them to make the team properly function as a whole. This applies directly to the theatre industry because all of the title assigned have specific duties on that particular show. For example, typically if you are hired as an ensemble member, you are expected to know the choreography and vocals (or anything else the show requires) or if you are hired as a stage manager, it is your job to maintain the integrity of the show (among other tasks). As explained in the article, allows everyone on a team to work together and bring their strengths forward to support the goal. Another tool mentioned was this idea of “psychological safety” which I believe applies to productions in the long run, but not necessarily to those that come in to work on a show during tech and then leave because they are not needed during the actual performances. However, I think the concept of “align around a common goal” mentioned in this article counteracts that issue.
Did anyone else think of the hit Disney classic movie Cars when they read this article? No? Just me? Cool. I mean in an ideal world, I'm sure a crew of 22 for a goal that is heavily based on how fast things get changed over is stress inducing. If this article is insinuating that theatre technicians could double as a pit crew then sign me up. I mean come on, a quick change that takes 2 seconds in a certain sequence? I wonder where I've heard that one before?? 'Align around a common goal', like literally if the goal is to make it back home to our cats, we could so totally be pit crew members. In the article it mentions having the correct tools, amount of planning, and ambition to achieve what's possible and I'm going to keep that with me for a while. Hold on, there's one more subtitle, 'strive for continuous improvement'. Oh never mind forget we could never do this. :P
I find this analogy very interesting because pit crews are the pinnacle of efficiency in many regards and we view them that way. The one thing that should be pointed out is that for the most part, the speed is because it's the same things over and over and they’ve fine-tuned it to an extreme. In emergency medical services, pit crews are referred to in the aspect of providing cardiac arrest management. Of course, I’ve never seen an arrest run nearly as efficiently as a pit crew even though there’s literally a checklist and everything is time based in that scenario. The article points out that everyone must know their role and I think defining roles is crucial to strong leadership and is a hard skill to master. It’s important that leaders feel empowered to delegate tasks to their personnel and that the trust runs all the way up and down the chain of command.
I have always been in awe of the way pit crews function and never quite wrapped my mind around how quick they are. I appreciate the nuggets about fastest pit stop times, since 36 tasks in 1.82 seconds is absolutely insane to me. I like this analogy and I certainly agree with the idea that everyone should know exactly what their role is, but I feel like that would be harder to pin down in the business of theatre, since any task anyone engages in could be extremely nebulous (of course, that could be the case with a pit crew, though I have my doubts, even with my very limited knowledge of racing). So many of our jobs require us to communicate with other departments, not just trust that they will get it done and it will mesh perfectly with us. There are designs to consider, temperaments to weather, and all manner of correspondence that may take 2 seconds or 2 days for people to respond to.
I think this article is very applicable to both all the different individual crews in theatre, but also them working together. If one thinks about the show as the car and the actors as the driver, each department needs to support each other and remain in contact with one another to make everything work as smoothly as possible. Then, in addition to that, each individual crew needs to be very tight knit and clear on their jobs. I think the statement about training on jobs is seen in theatre through the idea of having very clear job leads or getting to a call and especially in the shop, all the tasks being very clearly laid out. Then again, during shows with the stage manager on coms it is very similar to formula one. I think potentially they are similar because in both there is an unmovable ‘show’ date and timing is incredibly important, which is why teamwork and cooperation is so focused upon.
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