The Adventurers Blogging Chain Post: Sarah Outen-Teamwork

Teamwork

I am a solo expeditionist. Therefore you might think that to write a blog on the concept of team work is a bit ironic. Out there on the Indian Ocean last year it was just me and the fishes, right? Right. But I had a team of folks right around the globe, working to ensure I made it safely to the other side. It had certainly taken more than just me to make it to my start in Australia too. You see, no man is really an island – not even a rower on their own, thousands of miles from anyone. I think that in the most literal sense, none of us can truly function without anyone else at all – we need people. As social creatures we are generally interdependent to some or other degree. In the expedition world, this is absolutely the case. Behind every solo adventurer there will almost certainly be a team in the wings – helping manage logistics, pulling strings, paying bills, managing media activity and easing the burden of the one they are supporting. Even ‘unsupported’ expeditions have remote support teams.

Therefore to make these teams productive and to achieve the goals, effective team work is essential. There is no point in having a team which can’t work together or who are pulling in different directions, particularly when the team is geographically distinct. When this happens or something goes wrong, it is likely that things get tricky and the chance of success might plummet. At the very least it might make things uncomfortable and more hassle – both of which you don’t want in an expedition setting. Yet with quality team work, I think the potential is mind-blowingly exciting. It can put people on the moon. It can defeat armies. It can take people right round the planet.

I hope that my team will achieve the latter. For I am currently working with my team to put together a bid to loop the planet under my own power. I will row two major oceans, cycle three continents and paddle all the bits in between. Logistically, physically, financially, temporally – it is mind-bogglingly huge. So huge in fact that I try not to think of the whole in its detail too often, but I think of it in different sections. To get anywhere near the start line I need a team to help me across the board and to take charge of those little sections. That way none of us gets freaked out, and all of us can manage the project in piecemeal fashion, joining up the dots only when we need to.

I have sourced the best people I can find to be on my team. In fact, some of them found me. Between them they are a formidable and highly skilled bunch, equipped to do all the bits that I can’t do. But I need more than skills. I need to trust them and they need to trust me and each other. We need to click and gel. We must all be singing from the same song sheet and marching in the same direction. For the world it isn’t just my goal, it is their goal and their journey too, now

The most important things about the folks in my team are energy and belief. This has to be inherent – I need folks who believe that this is possible and who can commit to a multi-year project. They need to buzz too, excited by the project and the journeys. There will be setbacks on the way, mountains to climb and oceans to cross. To an extent, my dreams and my life are in their hands. So they need to believe in me and I in them. It is a tangible multiway web of energy and belief, a really special thing to be a part of. In tough moments, it is this which will buoy us and move us forward.

Another key ingredient to my team is effective communication. It will keep everyone informed and tie everyone together. It will shape progress and direct action, it will help me avoid storms on the ocean and keep me safe. It is critical that we get this right. Without transparent, effective, honest communication teams can and do go bust. Projects flounder and fail. This will be particularly important on my voyage for we will all be on opposite sides of the planet. HQ is in Britain; my Logistics Manager loves to travel; my weather router is in the States and I might be thousands of miles out to see, alone in a small boat. In the best of times, it will make everyone’s lives easier if we are communicating properly as a team and in the worst of times it might save me my life.

My solo row across the Indian Ocean taught me a lot about communication. As with the next project, my team were on the other side of the world and my opportunities to talk to them limited by technology and my budget. It was essential that we said what we meant and we meant what we said. More than once we got in a bit of a pickle due to a breakdown in communication. During the voyage that was just frustrating, but right at the very end it nearly cost me my life.

A Mauritian chap had agreed to help me and arrange the details of my final run to the island. All manner of things were promised and agreed – most importantly an escort boat to guide me in the final few miles and through the treacherous reef.

On the morning of my landing, I had a phone call. There was no support boat as it wasn’t allowed outside of the reef. I had to head in by myself.

As a result, I crash landed on to the coral reef, missing the safe entrance by a matter of yards. Had I been unlucky, I would have been pulped to a bloody mess on the reef or drowned in the surf, gone with the waves. Had I had an escort boat as planned, it wouldn’t have happened at all. And why did it happen? Because I failed to communicate properly. Believing that the other person had sorted out the escort boat was, it seems, not enough. I now realise that I should have been on the phone to the captain checking details, discussing the plan. Then when it wasn’t sufficient, I would have known and sourced another boat. As it happens, I trusted and assumed that all was in hand, taking his word for it. My team did too. As the leader of that team, it is therefore my fault.

Still, you live and you learn. And thankfully I have learned that it’s all about communication and that this all lies with the receiver. It doesn’t matter what you’ve said; if the receiver has misunderstood you then it might well be curtains. And when we’re talking expeditions and risky situations, then miscommunication may cost someone their life. So remember, it’s all about clarity, clarity, clarity. Then you will know that you and your team are all headed in the right direction, whatever weird and wonderful place that may be (the moon, the world or otherwise).

Other posts on the Adventurerers Blogging Chain:

Mark Kalch on Adventurers and the X-Factor
Tim Moss on Community
Dave Cornthwaite on What’s Next?

1. John Kinser says:
   2010-05-25 04:14:21
   awesome post bud