A Formula 1 car integrates approximately 14,500 parts before it is driven out onto the track. Oftentimes, you’ll hear drivers refer to these parts as bits. Each is carefully designed, built, and tested. According to motorsport.com, cars are required to, “run certain ‘standard’ parts and ‘prescribed’ parts…” However, there are also, “’transferable parts’… which can be bought and sold between teams.” It’s a complicated process, and expensive.
What makes the system unique is the fact that throughout a Grand Prix season, new bits may be introduced on a team’s car with each race. In other words, there is always an opportunity for change. The goal, of course, is to improve performance and secure a podium win.
Formula 1 racing is quite tricky. And while it may appear a driver sits alone on pole position, behind him are hundreds of people. A team.
As communicators, our clients and organizations are looking to their performance… and ours. We are part of their team tasked with enhancing missions, goals, and objectives. To get the job done. It’s easy to blame one “bit” or another when our work doesn’t go as planned. A missed deadline. Absence of appropriate feedback. A failure in technology. All of these bits are then summed up into one package: a lack of communication. Failure. We are in the proverbial “pit lane.”
But amazing things can happen when a team pulls together to get a car back out onto the track. Each bit is carefully reviewed. Maybe repaired. Or a new bit installed. That’s how we, as communicators, need to see our profession. There are tens of thousands of us employed in this field. We need to think collaboratively to improve our performance. Impact change. And win a Grand Prix!
Categories: Consequence