Using ESM to Align Strategy for the German Lightweight Rowing National Team
In May 2024, after intense months of selection, I was nominated for the lightweight men’s quad for the German national rowing team and tasked with preparing for the World Championships in St. Catharines, Canada, just four months away. While the selection committee had chosen a group of well-established athletes, it quickly became apparent that our training philosophies and rowing techniques varied significantly. We needed to get aligned – quickly – if we were going to perform at our best on the world stage.
The challenge wasn’t just physical; it was strategic. How could we ensure everyone was on the same page and focused on the same goals? That’s where ESM+Strategy came into play. By using ESM to create a scorecard and track our performance, we were able to align our strategy, measure progress in real-time, and make adjustments as needed. Here’s how it worked.
Strategy Formulation: A Focused Approach
Over the first few weeks, I asked each of my teammates and our coach individually about the key factors they believed would drive our performance. The answers ranged from physical stamina to mental resilience and technical precision. After compiling the feedback, it became clear that we couldn’t prioritize everything; conflicting ideas—like "train as much as possible" versus "shorter, high-quality sessions"—would only dilute our focus and lead to conflict in the group.
We categorized our key drivers into three core perspectives: Physical, Mental, and Technical. From there, we conducted a strategy session to prioritize and refine our approach. Initially, our perspectives contained up to seven objectives, which were clearly too many for our small team to focus on. If we try to prioritize all of them, we will prioritize none. We clearly selected one or two objectives in each area, which would serve as the foundation of our performance scorecard.
Defining the Strategy: Objectives That Matter
Our strategy was centered around five key process-focused objectives, organized into three perspectives:
Physical Perspective:
1. Trust the Plan
Our training, race strategy, and recovery methods were all based on proven processes. Discipline in following this plan is critical to success.
2. Individualize Within Reason
While rowing a quad demands uniformity in many aspects, personal fitness and preparation methods—particularly around race weight management—need to allow for individualization to maximize our performance on race day.
Mental Perspective:
Note: Our mental approach is the foundation for everything. If we maintain the right mindset, our physical and technical performance will follow.
3. Stay Cool
From tough training sessions to race-day pressure, we must remain calm, composed, and committed to our collective goals without second-guessing our broader strategy.
4. Communicate Well
Effective communication was essential as we navigated the intense environment of training and living together. Open dialogue allowed us to resolve conflicts early and stay unified.
Technical Perspective:
5. Keep It Simple & Avoid Mistakes
Rather than trying to execute every technical detail perfectly, we focused on eliminating unnecessary movements and mastering the few key elements that directly impacted speed.
Using ESM to Stay Aligned and Track Progress
With these objectives in place, we uploaded our Strategy Map and Scorecard into ESM+Strategy. This allowed us to track our progress in real-time and ensure we were consistently executing our plan. One key advantage of ESM was its customizable reporting periods, which we tailored to align with important milestones like regattas and training camps rather than traditional monthly or quarterly reviews. This flexibility helped us adjust our approach dynamically, based on our training and competition cycle.
Visualize Progress with Strategy Maps:
Using ESM, we were able to visualize the relationships between our physical, mental, and technical objectives. ESM’s status indicators provided a quick way to see if we were on track, which was critical for making timely adjustments.
Staying on Track: Real-Time Adjustments
ESM’s tracking tools proved especially useful when we encountered challenges that could have derailed our performance. For example, during our second training camp, communication issues began to surface. We realized we were holding back on discussing key aspects of our race plan, leading to uncertainty and misalignment. ESM helped us identify that we were falling short on the 
"Communicate Well" objective, prompting us to have a crucial discussion about our strategy during the race. A couple of weeks later, we won a national selection race against other lightweight quads with a determined sprint 1250m into the 2000m race and secured our official nomination for Henley Royal Regatta and the World Championships.
Similarly, just before the World Championships, we were supplied with a new boat by our equipment sponsor. Although the boat was the same model we had used in Germany, minor adjustments led to overthinking and excessive changes, causing us to lose focus on the "Stay Cool" objective. By tracking our mental objectives through ESM, we recognized the need to revert to a simple, proven setup to regain confidence just in time for the competition.
Measuring Success and Reflecting on Outcomes
In the lead-up to the World Championships, our strategy execution improved. We performed well in the preliminary race, securing a favorable lane for the final, thanks to the unified execution of our race plan. However, conditions on the day of the final changed dramatically—a tailwind required us to adjust our strategy to focus on an aggressive start. While we executed our race plan, our competitors adapted better to the conditions, and we ultimately took home a bronze medal.
Here’s where the ESM scorecard proved its value beyond the podium. Instead of seeing the outcome as a loss of gold, we viewed it as a success in executing our strategy to the best of our ability, given the uncontrollable external factors. ESM helped us track what we could control—our alignment, mental resilience, and execution—and that gave us the confidence to celebrate the bronze.
Lessons Learned and Opportunities for Improvement
While ESM helped us track performance and stay aligned, one area of improvement is in measurement. The objectives we set were largely subjective, making it hard to quantify success in some areas. Going forward, implementing a quick survey where each team member scores the objectives periodically could add a layer of objectivity to our scorecard and provide even clearer insights.
Conclusion: The Power of Strategy and ESM Software
Our experience preparing for the World Championships highlights the power of aligning and monitoring strategy with tools like ESM. In a high-pressure environment with changing conditions and diverse perspectives, the approach helped us stay focused, trust the strategy, and measure success.
Whether in sports or business, alignment is the key to high performance. ESM empowers teams to visualize their strategy, track progress in real time, and make informed decisions when it matters most.
Ready to see how ESM can help your organization achieve its goals? Request a demo and take the first step toward strategic success.
