The Rowers' Code: A Business Parable of How to Pull Together as a Team - and Win!

by Marilyn Krichko, Jon Gordon (Foreword), Jane Rollinson (Contributor)

Each year, thousands of business stakeholders--from CEOs, senior executives, and department managers to mainline employees--climb into narrow 60-foot rowing shells and set out across rivers and lakes. As they learn how to row together--a process that requires focused communication and coordination--initial misunderstandings and general chaos are soon replaced with highly effective teamwork and goal-oriented success. The Rowers' Code dramatically portrays one company's intense experience and presents a simple, actionable set of truths about teamwork and communication that can be applied to every workplace scenario to supercharge performance.

The book will teach you how to:

Tap into the strength of peers.

Maintain synchronicity with other members of your team.

Work through issues directly with teammates.

Personalize and powerfully leverage change.

Unleash the effectiveness of the workgroup.

Succeed in an increasingly competitive business landscape.

Based on an overwhelming response to more than a decade of successful workshops, The Rowers' Code brings to life the authors' unique perspective on organizational team-building, drawing on proven, real-world results.

Genres: Business

224 pages, Hardcover

First published March 11, 2011

Reviews

[Alexandra Chauran · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a chunky hardcover. The poor printing quality gave it a low-quality feel, and I could really feel the author stretching for word count to fill pages, including acknowledgements, a forward, a preface AND a prologue. The meat of the book could easily be a double-sided handout.

The Rowers' Code is a set of team building clichés loosely hung together on a metaphor.

Most of them are essentially meaningless. For example: Always do what's best for the team, carry your load (be responsible), balance the boat (have the right mix of employees) and stay in sync (be mindful that what you do affects others). These are pointless pabulum, because everybody already believes those things about teams. Honestly? Who doesn't think that doing what's best for the team helps teamwork? If any of these things aren't already true for a team, it is because of impracticality, for example if there is not a good mix of employees available.

The rest of the code consists of norms that may or may not make sense for any particular group and are certainly not universal or necessarily best practices. For example: Lead by example and keep everything in the boat (Read: Don't puss out and go to HR).

As you can see, the Rower's Code is about interpersonal behavior and does not go into work groups in a business environment. The vast majority of this book was spent telling a story with characters as an example while somehow not including any practical applications of the material at all. Particularly horrific was the scene in which each team member was handed a rubber chicken to imply that they were "chicken" for not bringing up issues with team mates. Can you imagine that happening in real life? A school teacher bullying her students by handing out rubber chickens and calling them chickens for not raising their hands in class? A manager creating a hostile work space by handing out chickens to everyone, including those whose cultural norms or roles do not put them in a position to be assertive?

I'd encourage team members interested in team building to instead work through the exercises in Developing Managerial Skills in Organizational Behavior: Exercises, Cases & Readings instead of spending money on this tripe's glossy marketing.

[Coquille Fleur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basically this book uses rowing an olympic racing shell as a metaphor for teamwork and its challenges. The story follows a corporate team of leaders through an offsite team-building exercise that changes the way they see themselves and each other, as well as their leadership styles after experiencing a few hours of rowing out on Lake Washington. One part of this book that I liked was when the trainer gave the group tiny rubber chickens to remind them not to be chickens about bringing up issues. LOL. Otherwise,the book is rather simplistic in the quick character arcs as the self-centered and ambitious team-members come to grip with their weaknesses and learn tools to succeed as a team, but maybe that's how these books work.The characters did not strike me as realistic at all, nor did the all-too-easy resolution at the end, but I'm a fiction writer, so what do I know? Generally, I am not a reader of business books or self help, or really non-fiction at all, so take this review with a grain of salt. The only similar book I read was the Franklin Covey book that came with my Franklin Planner like 10 years ago.

EDIT: After attending Marilyn's workshop, using the companion workbook, and hearing what my co-workers thought, I added a star. This book seems too good to be true as a stand alone, but this woman gives an amazing workshop. The snarkiest girl I know went from eye-rolling to relieved after 4 hours of team building with the author. If you are a corporate team in need of help, hire this woman. Seriously. This is not another corporate metaphor puke session about no whining in the boat. It's about acknowledging and facing the problems and not being chicken to do so. Then the teamwork comes in.

[Ravikiran]

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Mapping the strengths and weaknesses of team members gives the team a baseline to work from and helps the team make sure they have the right fit for the task at hand.

If there are too many people in one seat, or if there are empty seats, it helps the team realize overlap and gaps so they can be addressed and the team can maintain balance
Being present and engaged is every team member’s responsibility during decision-making. Encouraging team participation by supporting behaviors such as active listening, summarizing key points, asking clarifying questions, and soliciting reactions will help you. Also, make sure you eliminate distractions such as talking on cell phones, leaving the room, reading e-mails, and doing other mul ti-tasking, to keep everyone focused on the task at hand.

Team success relies on valuing people and tapping into their strengths. To tap into the strengths of your team, find out what knowledge, skills, and experience people have in relation to the task at hand. If you have access to a subject-matter expert, take advantage of his or her expertise.
Balance is the ability to hold calm and steady, adding stability to your team’s overall efforts. It is easier to attain when you have the knowledge of what to do, are careful when it matters, and work in sync with your team-mates. Understanding your resources and how to use them is key to organizational success.

Make small adjustments and focus on doing the right things, because even small changes have an exponential effect on the team.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just think this book seems like it is a few main points posing as a book.
I don't like the fakeness of the characters on the team.
I think the central point--think of yourself as rowing a boat with everyone else vs. being on a bus being driven by someone else--is fine, but I think the summaries at the end of each chapter lend themselves to people NOT reading the book.
I did read the whole book, and besides finding a few typos, I think that ultimately it just didn't seem that profound to me.
Having been on teams since I was in first grade, and excellent, national-championship level teams in high school, as well as a conference champion team in college, I found its messages simplistic and overly drawn out.
Plus, there's a serious effort on the part of the publisher and the author to draw the page number of this book out--wide margins, page breaks, pictures, etc...

Ultimately, it just didn't feel like a real book.

[Jason · Rating 1 out of 5]

Clunky metaphor, trite advice, poorly written, large print to fill space