I have been watching the Tour de France each evening this week and am repeatedly reminded of the critical role that strong teamwork plays in the teams that are successful at this early stage of the Cycle race, especially in the Team Time Trials. I believe that work teams, teams of family members and just teams of friends can learn a lot from the approach of the successful cyclists in the Tour de France.
Team members have different strengths – not all team members are strong riders on the hill climbs, or strong sprinters, or with the best stamina, or can ride as fast as the others. But each team member’s strengths are recognised and used to the benefit of the whole team at the right time in the race. For example the strong hill climbers lead on the hills and the strong sprinters get to the front of the pack, near the finishing line.
The team supports the weaker riders when required – each of the nine team members takes a turn to cycle in front, where the wind resistance is greatest, for about 500m and then falls back to allow the next cyclist to ride in front for a while. And if a cyclist is tiring, he is allowed to rest near the back of the group, riding in the slipstream of his team mates so as to regain his strength. If one team member crashes, a number of the team will fall back to wait for him to restart and by riding together, enable the cyclist to ride faster and catch up with the rest of the peloton (large main group of cyclists riding together – platoon in military speak).
The team sticks together – even in a peloton of up to 180 cyclists, the good teams try to stay together to support each other. So if the strategy or tactics need to change suddenly – maybe because of a change in the wind speed or direction – they are able to react quickly as one. And once they get into the rhythm of the race, they repeat the successful moves over and over. In the Time Trials, the team needs at least 5 of the 9 cyclists to finish together, so it is critical that they support each other over the whole 39 km course.
The team does its preparation – the successful teams in the Team Time Trials had visited the track earlier to check out the course, so that they knew what to expect, where the dangerous corners were and what the conditions were likely to be like during the race, so they could implement the best race strategy. Preparation paid off for these teams with better overall times. And the teams starting the Time Trials later were able to watch earlier teams on TV screens and learn from the mistakes they made.
Teams communicate continuously – each cyclist is linked through an earpiece to the team director and other team members, so they can communicate with each other – or they use hand signals to point out a dangerous part of the road, or communicate a change in tactics. Those teams who talk to each other about what is happening are amongst the winners.
If you think through these winning strategies and apply them to your daily life, you will find your relationships will be stronger and more fulfilling.
Even Borat had something to contribute to teamwork in this short clip 
