Case analysis of Viktoria Medevdeva and Federica La Vigna students at University Tor Vergata, Economia Prof. Marjan I. Bojadjiev

1. THE ARMY CREW TEAM
Valeria Medvedeva, Federica La Vigna
Prof. M.Bojadjiev

2. What’s the
problem?
• The JV crew boat beat the Varsity
boat during practices and in some
races.
• But the JV consists of 8 bottom
rowers
• The coach has to find the solution,
but he doesn’t want to switch titles
and mix JV members with Varsity

3. SWOT of the Coach P.
Strenghts
• Coach P. and his
assistant had almost identical views on
these subjective measures
• Advanced degrees in
psychology
• Experience as a tenured professor in
the Department of Behavioral Sciences
and Leadership
Opportunities
• Connections in the Center for
Enhanced
Performance (CEP) at West Point
• Both teams could possibly embrace
the CEP training and benefit from it
Weaknesses
• Coach P. and his assistant had
almost identical views on these
subjective measures
Threats
• Varsity team doesn’t accept the
training

4. Why does JV
beat Varsity?
• In Varsity team no one was
classified as a leader while
several were labeled as team
disrupters.
• The JV boat’s members, in
contrast, had virtually no team
disrupters.

5. Suggested Solution
■ Organize a team building event. Do it on a regualr basis
■ Invite successful retired boat rowers to talk in front of JV and Varsity and share their
team experience
■ Make it a rule: «no puking» at the practice. The only person to talk to about all the
negativities should be the coach
■ Coach should keep up the team’s spirit. Sending emails about good job, sending
articles to read (apart from rowers’ biographies, these should include psychological
books).
■ Ask all the team members put down the list of features of the ideal team, and then
ask them to put down the features of their real team. Is there any room for
improvement?

6. Lessons
learned:
1. In teams with high level of
interdependency communication
between the members is crucial
2. Leader’s role should never be
underestimated in criteria for success
3. Cohesion of the group is not always
positive, but can also be detrimental