As I wrote in Pursing A Vision, great performing organizations learn how to set a vision and then motivate all leaders and employees to collaborate together to follow that vision. For many organizations, building trust, between leaders, between employees, and between each other is critical to becoming a high performing organization.
There a few recreational activities where adversity builds trust. Scuba diving. Back country skiing and climbing mountains. Sailing across oceans.
In December, I sailed across the Atlantic Ocean from the Canary Islands to Barbados via Cape Verde on my friend Dick Leighton’s 39-foot catamaran Van Kedisi. While Dick knew all three crew members—his 21-year old son Andy, his friend Rick Lane, and myself, we had never worked together as a team before. The vision was clear—sail Van Kedisi across the Atlantic, while keeping both the boat and her crew safe.
In the first eight days on the Atlantic Ocean, we settled into our watches while the weather threw everything it had at us. After five or six days the auto helm, a device that automatically steers the boat, failed. At the same time, the steering was sluggish, making it extremely difficult to steer Van Kedisi at all. At 3:00 am one night, Rick, Dick, and I were working together to bleed the hydraulic steering system of air while filling it with oil, while the Atlantic Ocean tried to throw us off our feet.
At this point, steering was so difficult that we had to pair off into six hour watches, taking one hour watches each on the helm. Any longer than that was too tiring. Off watch, we still needed to cook, repair the boat, and get enough rest to be able to support each other.
We ended up stopping in the Cape Verde Islands for four days to repair these and other problems. We then set out for a fifteen day passage from Cape Verde to Barbados. On the second part of our trip it felt like our eight and a half days of weather and mechanical adversity were just what we needed as a team to gel together, building 100% trust in one another.
While squalls continued to challenge us all the way across the Atlantic, Dick, Andy, Rick, and I comfortably took it in stride working alone and together to keep Van Kedisi sailing safely. We were all more relaxed, better able to work with each other and the boat. One of my fondest memories is of coming on watch at midnight to take over from Rick on his 9-midnight watch. Before going to bed, Rick put on the kettle, made us each a cup of tea, and for a half hour, while surfing down huge Atlantic swells, we would sit in the cockpit in compatible silence, happy to just be sharing the special moment together knowing that we had faith in each other, Dick, Andy, and Van Kedisi.
How can you use adversity to build a stronger team today?
