Alone we can do so little; together, we can do so much.
— Helen Keller
I love watching Formula One race events. But it’s not the actual race that hooks me into the action. Believe it or not, it’s the pit stops!
In September 2005, and again in 2007, I was fortunate to be invited to the Monza F1 in Milan where we were guests of Vodafone’s CEO in the Paddock Club (a fantastic space directly above Pit Lane where our team’s cars come in for their pit stops). It was a perfectly hot Italian Sunday afternoon. The food was first rate. Prior to the race, Ferrari’s top pilot and the sport’s all time winning driver, Michael Schumacher, came by the Paddock to
talk to our group and answer questions. It was pretty heady stuff. One of those “lifestyles of the rich and famous” moments.
The crowd around the track was divided into camps, each supporting its favorite team—usually based on the nationality of the team’s driver. It was a very special festive environment with national flags, colorful outfits, and singing everywhere.
When the race began, I settled into a great seat situated right at the finish line out on the deck of the Paddock Club. I watched the
first few laps of the race. The cars flew by my position at over 300 kilometers (186 miles) per hour with the sound of a jet fighter plane. After a few minutes, I found it difficult to watch because they soared by with such blinding speed. It was impossible to tell which car was which and who was winning. Still the crowd loved it!
Soon, the first car pitted—the term racers use for when a car comes into their team’s race side garage for fuel, tires, or mechanical adjustments. As the pit station for the Renault F1 Team was directly below where I was sitting, I had the best seat in the place to watch the action in the pit!
Pitting is the most important feature of any car race. Literally, millions of dollars are on the line each time a race is held. Because of the incredible speeds, a race is easily won or lost in the pits. When a car pits for a stop of 6-12 seconds, a competitor travelling at an average of 150 kilometers per hour can gain 400-800 meters, or a half-mile, on the leader.
Pit stops are crucial because they allow the car to carry less fuel— making them lighter and faster. They can run softer tires (which wear out faster) to enable better traction, thereby giving the driver more control at higher speeds. As well, the pit crew can make mechanical adjustments to the car for better handling in changing conditions.
Business leaders can learn a tremendous amount from every aspect of a pit stop. To begin with, a detailed strategic plan is developed for each and every race. The team looks at weather, lighting, the weight of fuel (it is different for diverse temperatures and altitudes), fuel consumption, track speed and condition (for tire wear), stopping distance, cornering speeds, what the other teams may be doing, etc. No strategic SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and threat) is overlooked.
Next, the strategy is thoroughly shared with every team member. The entire team then goes to work rehearsing the new strategy (which includes spying on other teams to try figuring out another team’s strategy for that race). It is not unusual for a pit team to practice five hours on a new strategy for a race—the equivalent of 3,000 six-second pit stops!
The team’s strategy is carefully crafted and modeled so it knows and is comfortable with exactly how much “time” it is willing to “give away” to a competitor.
Strategies are also developed for unscheduled pit stops by drivers, such as changing weather, race cautions, and mechanical failures.
What I find amazing is that an F1 Pit Crew consists of over twenty members who take on individual and highly specialized roles for changing tires and carrying tires, including front and rear “jack men,” firefighters, fuelers, fuel carriers, starters, and my favorite, the “lollipop man.” The lollipop man is the air traffic controller for the whole operation. He stands in front of the car and holds out a long stick with a round sign on its end—it looks like a big lollipop, hence the name. Believe it or not, the sign reads on one side “Brakes On” and “First Gear” on the other side. You would think the driver—who is paid millions of dollars each season—would be smart enough to know he has to keep the brakes on when in the pit, and he needs to start out in first gear when it is time to go. However, forty years of pit stop accidents show that many a driver has eagerly stepped on the gas when his car was still attached to a fuel hose or tire jack!
The lollipop man is the pit boss. He is like the COO. Behind the actual pit box, he is managing information coming at him and the team from engineers back at the factory who are monitoring the car’s performance data via satellite, from engineers sitting track-side who are monitoring hundreds of other data points, and from the drivers via radio communications. He then has to make decisions about what to do with the information, how it plays into the strategy, what his team can do and what the driver can do—all just to gain fractions of seconds on competitors…. just like leaders need to do every day in business.
The rest of the pit crew operates like a finely tuned orchestra, making spectacular, albeit, fast music. They train as intensely as professional athletes—keeping up very demanding cardio and weight programs for peak fitness.
In a pit stop, an F1 car can scream into the pit, get 70 liters of fuel, four new tires, and have mechanical adjustments done; the driver gets water and his visor cleaned, and he is on his way again in six seconds. The lollipop man waits until the entire 20-24 team members have completed their individual tasks, and each one gives him the “done and safe” signal. !e lollipop man has to take all that action in, make sure no other cars are coming, and release the driver back onto the track—talk about pressure and stress!
The team does all this for not only one car and driver but for two as F1 rules stipulate that each needs to have two cars in each race but only one pit crew! The team performs in unbearable temperatures while wearing full double-layer, fire retardant suits.
Yet, through all this chaos, each team member knows his role and responsibility. Not one team member is looking over the shoulder of the other guy, questioning his ability and competence. No one tries to do someone else’s job. They just trust each other completely.
When the race is over and the winners are on the podium, the pit crew celebrates along with the driver. They know that only the driver can be on the podium. They are proud of their teammates and their driver. No one on the team says, “Oh, there he goes again! What a show-off!”
They know they may have a minor role and make a fraction of the money the driver makes, but they know the driver would not be there on the podium if it were not for the entire team. The driver knows it as well, and after he poses for the mandatory photo with some long-legged model, he rushes to the railing and tips his hat to his pit crew and then sprays them with a magnum of champagne and hands the trophy and the win over to the team!
Business leaders can have this kind of top level teamwork embedded in their culture by making sure that:
Celebration is a key part of the team’s routine!
Do your business colleagues or team members spend time looking over each other’s shoulders to see whether the others are doing their jobs?
Do you hear complaints around the table about other people and maybe even suggestions about other people’s levels of competence?
How can you make your pit stop team players proud of their important roles in your business?
How are you going to change this behavior?
