The boat metaphor

Team

The boat metaphor

Commitment

Situation A: You're rowing alone

You carry a heavy workload and would like your colleagues to contribute more equally. Perhaps you feel that the mental load is not evenly distributed.

👉 Here, the challenge is often one of commitment and involvement.

What to do about it:

• Clarify your expectations. Have you really taken the time to express them clearly?
• Learn to name your dissatisfactions. You often live in the reality you tolerate.
• Try to understand your colleagues' reality. What might explain their disengagement?
• Question your own level of involvement. What if no one is rowing... because you don't give them enough room?

"If you want to build a boat, don't gather your men to give them orders... but teach them the nostalgia of the sea."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Alignment

Situation B: Everyone rows... but in opposite directions

You feel that the team's efforts are scattered and would like to see better strategic alignment. People are rowing hard, but the boat is going in circles... without really moving forward.

👉 Here, the challenge is often one of collective alignment.

What to do about it:

• Clarify your vision. Get back to priorities: where are we going, and why? Repeat, repeat and repeat.
• Multiply the moments of alignment. Short follow-ups, frequent feedback, continuous adjustments.
• Eliminate the noise. If everything is a priority, nothing is.
• Coordinate actions. Who depends on whom? At what point in time? How should information be transmitted? Review your collaboration mechanisms.

A team is a living system in constant adjustment. The stronger it is, the less energy is used to protect itself... and the more is invested in innovation.