On Friday, November 3, 2017 at 2:10:10 PM UTC-4, jfitch wrote:
On Friday, November 3, 2017 at 10:29:14 AM UTC-7, Papa3 wrote:
John,

I think you need to take a big step back and separate the goals/objectives from the execution. My suspicion is that many (most?) US competition pilots agree with the objective to send the most qualified team possible. If that requires some amount of subjective input over and above the numerical rankings, so be it.

What you're hearing is a lot of legitimate pushback on the implementation of the new approach. A couple of the fundamentals of organizational change initiatives are communication and transparency. This whole initiative scores a D- on both.

Here's what I sent to Team Committee back in early June and cc'ed to my Regional Director. Note that I got an extensive response from my Director.. Crickets from the Team Committee (see a trend here?)

The rancor you are seeing today was 100% predictable (and predicted).

June 4, 2017

Hey Jim,

I was somewhat surprised to see that there is a new WGC Team Selection process; I don't recall much (if any) publicity or debate about this.

While I can see where the desire to "do something different" comes from, I'm not sure that a process that concludes with an opaque selection by a secret committee makes sense. In fact, that's what we USED to do up until about 1985, when the current ranking system came into play. The ranking system came about exactly because the membership was sick of back-room deals that depended more on relationships than pilot skill.

Rather than just complaining, here are my specific recommendations:

1. Ranking "boosters". If we want to give a nod to pilots who have already competed in the WGC, I think that makes sense. But other Category 1 events such as Pan American Events, European Gliding Championships, or Pre-worlds are just a way for the really rich/retired to buy their way on the team. Tighten up the verbiage to include only true WGCs.

2. Committee Selections. If we're going to make the Committee the ultimate selectors, then I would expect (demand) that the process be 100% transparent. Specifically: The votes of the Committee members must be public.. The Committee members must document their rationale for selection using a standard form which is made available to the membership.

Feel free to pass this along to the Excomm or whoever it is that made this decision.

Note: I went back and read the minutes from the Spring 2016 BOD meeting.. It appears that this was tabled on Saturday and supposed to be discussed on Sunday. But the minutes from Sunday don't reflect this. Seems suspicious.

Erik Mann (P3)
30 years of racing in the USA

On Friday, November 3, 2017 at 12:58:43 PM UTC-4, John Cochrane wrote:
The whole reason the US team committee undertook the huge effort is exactly experience with the "objective" system. We were sending, time after time, people to the worlds who you could tell had no chance, either for skill, seriousness, preparation, willingness to adapt to the WGC environment, or psychological stability.

(Sean is actually pretty good on this scale -- he goes nuts behind the keyboard but you don't see him pulling the kind of self-inflicted disasters that bedevil so many others on US teams.)

The modal pilot went to the worlds once, and treated it as a subsidized gliding vacation. We prized "fair" and "objective" above "successful." We could go back to that... and to the predictable results. The US team committee, bless them, wants to win on occasion, not just be "objective" about who gets selected.

So, what do you think is more important: The US winning, or the feelings of people who feel they should have been selected? Experience has proven you can't have both.

Let's give it a try. Let the US team committee pick, and if pilot a or b is unhappy about the result, tough. Let them form good teams, of people who will work as teams. Give them a few cycles, and let's see if they can produce results.

John Cochrane

"Specifically: The votes of the Committee members must be public." I am a bystanding gawker to this spectacle. Like watching a gruesome traffic accident that you just can't take your eyes off of. I agree with the quote, and wonder how votes might have changed, had the voters known that their votes would be made public? If the answer is they would have changed, this is just as disturbing, as it further reflects the reality that biases and appearances matter more than objectivity. If they would not have changed, why not make it public in the name of transparency?

The more I hear, the happier I become, that I stopped paying my dues. Oh, happy day