The Five Lessons Into The Storm Teaches Leaders

Imagine navigating a tiny boat through a sudden, violent storm at sea -- with winds roaring at nearly 100 mph and waves soaring to 80 feet -- to not only survive, but triumph over formidable competitors in one of the world's toughest ocean races.

It's a feat claimed by the crew of the AFR Midnight Rambler, overall winner of the 1998 Sydney to Hobart -- the most treacherous and tragic race to date in the six-decade history of Australia's iconic competition.

As Dennis Perkins, an expert on thriving under daunting conditions, shows in his book, Into The Storm, it's also a feat rich in lessons for anyone tasked with maintaining smooth, effective teamwork -- and delivering winning results -- in the unpredictable, turbulent waters of today's business environment.

Inspired by the Ramblers -- the Midnight Rambler's team of one determined skipper and six dedicated amateur sailors -- here are five crucial strategies, with proven tactics, for Teamwork at The Edge of human endurance.

Strategy #1: Put team unity first. Make the team the rock star.

Winning tactic: Find committed team members who want to go to Hobart. "A business team that aspires to excellence may not have the same physical challenges as an ocean racing crew," Perkins acknowledges, "but lofty goals require sacrifice, dedication, and the ability to persevere. Selecting people with the right levels of confidence and motivation is fundamental. Realistic job previews are important."

Strategy #2: Prepare, prepare, prepare. Remove all excuses for failure.

Winning tactic: Keep preparing while you're racing. Preparing in advance for everything the team needs to do to succeed is crucial. But so is continuing to prepare while racing toward the team's goals and while navigating through a crisis. "Successful teams master the art of bifocal vision," Perkins attests. "They have the ability to focus on current challenges while, at the same time, preparing for longer-term threats and opportunities."

Strategy #3: Strive for balanced optimism. Find and focus on the winning scenario.

Winning tactic: Be absolutely clear about what it means to win. For some team members, winning means being the first in their field to achieve a breakthrough result. For others, it means coming in under budget. For any team that aspires to win, the first step is to define winning. "Only then will the team have a clear shared understanding of their race," states Perkins. "With that awareness, the team can plan a strategy for taking home their trophy."

Strategy #4: Reinforce relentless learning. Build a gung-ho culture of learning and innovation.

Winning tactic: Think gung-ho -- a phrase rooted in teamwork. Originally an abbreviation for Chinese industrial cooperatives, gung-ho came to be translated as "work in harmony" by some Americans -- including Colonel Evans Carlson, who, during World War II, implemented the radical practice of gung-ho meetings, where everyone, regardless of rank, has a right to speak up. As Perkins notes, "The ability to talk honestly about what works, what doesn't work, and what might work is critical to effective teamwork."

Strategy #5: Take calculated risks. Be willing to sail into the storm.

Winning tactic: Test your limits before the storm hits. The Ramblers, who had sailed together for years and knew what they were capable of as a team, deliberately pushed their limits early in the race. They broached twice, and each time recovered. As a result, they were ready to take on the storm, with confidence, when it hit. "Only by taking small risks will teams be able to assess their ability to take on big ones -- and to sail into the storm when they need to," declares Perkins.

Authors Bios
Dennis N.T. Perkins, author of Into the Storm: Lessons in Teamwork from the Treacherous Sydney to Hobart Ocean Race, is also the author of Leading at The Edge and CEO of Syncretics Group, a consulting firm dedicated to helping leaders and teams thrive under conditions of adversity, uncertainty, and change. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, he successfully completed his first Sydney Hobart Race in 2006. Follow Dennis on Twitter.

Jillian B. Murphy is the Director of Client Services at Syncretics. Follow Jillian on Twitter.

Thanks to the book publisher for sharing a copy of the book and this recap of lessons with me.

Comments

How To Break Through The Beliefs That Limit Your Potential

As a leader, do you find yourself frustrated, wondering why employees don't meet expectations, peers are slow to act, or pressure from your boss falls unfairly on your shoulders? It's easy to point a finger at others and double down on getting results. But have you ever considered that the problem might not be them—that it might be you? “Your mindset may be the only thing standing between you and your potential. It’s time to break free from the beliefs that hold you back,” says Muriel M. Wilkins , author of the new book, Leadership Unblocked: Break Through The Beliefs That Limit Your Potential . Through countless hours coaching executives over the past twenty years, Wilkins has pinpointed the biggest reason behind these common leadership challenges: hidden blockers . These unconscious beliefs can actively stall progress if leaders aren't aware of their existence, preventing them from seeing a situation clearly, solving problems effectively, and advancing their caree...

6 Ways To Seek Feedback To Improve Your Performance In The Workplace

Getting feedback is an important way to improve performance at work. But sometimes, it can be hard to seek out, and even harder to hear. “Feedback is all around you. Your job is to find it, both through asking directly and observing it,” says David L. Van Rooy, author of the new book, Trajectory: 7 Career Strategies to Take You From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be . As today's guest post, Van Rooy offers these six tips for how to get the feedback you need to improve performance at work . Guest Post By David L. Van Rooy 1. Don’t forget to as k : One of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming things are going perfectly (until they make a catastrophic mistake). By not asking, you’re missing out on opportunities for deep feedback: the difficult, critical feedback that gives you constructive ways to improve. 2. Make sure you listen : Remember, getting fee...

Alyssa Freas: 8 Insights On Leadership And Executive Coaching

Alyssa Freas is a pioneer in the field of executive coaching . She is Founder and CEO of Executive Coaching Network® (EXCN) , a global company whose mission is to help organizations achieve results by improving the effectiveness of their executives and their teams. Recently, she answered for me the eight questions I hear the most about leadership, leaders and executive coaching . Question : What is the most common leadership challenge you see that executives face? Alyssa : Executives are challenged by prioritization; that is, getting their work done and having enough time for reflection and rejuvenation. The vast majority of executives today have too many plates spinning and they feel imbalanced. The successful leader of the future will be one who understands how to prioritize in a framework of their company’s vision, values, and strategic objectives and financial results. Executives will always be challenged by the need to focus on building the busines...

10 Quotes From The 5 Levels Of Leadership -- John C. Maxwell

Soon I'll post my full review of John C. Maxwell's latest book, The 5 Levels of Leadership . In the meantime, here are some of my favorites quotes from the book that I believe should become a must-read book by any workplace/organizational leader: Good leadership isn't about advancing yourself. It's about advancing your team. Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others. Leadership is action, not position. When people feel liked, cared for, included, valued, and trusted, they begin to work together with their leader and each other. If you have integrity with people, you develop trust. The more trust you develop, the stronger the relationship becomes. In times of difficulty, relationships are a shelter. In times of opportunity, they are a launching pad. Good leaders must embrace both care and candor. People buy into the leader, then the vision. Bringing out the best in a person is often a catal...

How To Survive And Then Reset To Ultimately Thrive

“Uncertainty is here to stay. Rather than seeing it as an obstacle to overcome, integrate it into your strategic approach to invigorate your high-growth potential and outperform competition under any market condition,” explains Rebecca Homkes , author of the new book, Survive, Reset, Thrive . “Most books aren’t honest enough about how hard it is to reset ,” adds Homkes. Yet, resetting and leaning into change is essential. “If you are ready to embrace change as a central element of your growth strategy, this book is for you.” Homkes’ book is a timely, comprehensive, and essential read for business leaders looking to take the next step toward ensuring high growth for their companies. The book brings together more than 15 years of Homkes working directly with high-growth companies of all sizes and across a wide variety of industries. Survive, Reset, Thrive (SRT) is a practical and innovative interconnected three-mode approach : Survive : Stabilizing ...

The Five Critical Roles You Need To Build A Winning Team

The new book, Team Players , by leadership expert and New York Times bestselling author, Mark Murphy , explains why a team needs more than strong leaders—it needs the right mix of five roles and talents to succeed. In addition, Murphy reveals that the secret to extraordinary teams isn’t making everyone the same—it’s embracing and leveraging fundamental differences through those five distinct team roles. No amount of teambuilding, trust, or cohesion can overcome having the wrong mix of people in the room. The five essential roles and talents are: The Director assumes a leadership role within the team, guiding its direction and making important, difficult, and even unpopular decisions. The Achiever immerses themselves in the details of accomplishing tasks and getting things done, with a keen eye for delivering error-free work. The Stabilizer keeps the team on track with meticulous planning, processes and procedures, clear timelines, and organi...

Learn The Extraordinary Power Of Caring For Your People Like Family

“Everybody truly does matter. No idea could be simpler or more powerful. It is an idea that has unlimited potential, because people have unlimited potential—to surprise, delight, and elevate themselves, one another and all around the world,” profess Bob Chapman and Raj Sisodia , authors of the newly expanded 10 th anniversary edition of Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power Of Caring For Your People Like Family . The book’s first edition, premiered in 2015 and has sold more than110,000 copies and is available in seven languages. This book is about truly human leadership that creates off-the-charts morale, loyalty, creativity, and business performance. It manifests the reality that every single person matters, just like in a family. It’s not a cliché on a mission statement; it’s the bedrock of a company’s success. “The startling truth, supported by research, is that your leader has a greater impact on your health than your doctor, therapist, or even your par...

4 Ways To Make Your Executive Coaching Experience More Successful

If you are a leader already engaging with an executive coach, or contemplating engaging one, here are four ways to make your coaching experience a success, as reported in a relatively recent issue of Fortune magazine: Find the right match . Find someone to push and challenge you. To encourage you and to hold you accountable. Be sure the person you engage with is a person you can trust and can talk to easily. Be aware of your company's expectations . If your boss hired the coach to work with you, make sure your boss, and your boss's boss, share their expectations and hoped-for outcomes with you. Then, make sure your coach knows that those things belong at the top of your goals list. Get your money's worth . Work with your coach on issues or questions that have a direct correlation to success in your job. Be sure your coach sees you in action . Allow your coach to observe you interacting with your peers or dir...

How Businesses Hone And Also Avoid Drift

“Honing, not sharpening is a metaphor for how successful businesses keep their competitive edge,” explain authors Geoff Tuff and Steven Goldbach , authors of the new book, Hone: How Leaders Defy Drift . “Today’s leaders seem to be highly focused on increasingly frequent transformation (akin to knife sharpening), when in fact they would be better served by building daily habits to hone their organization like a chef hones a knife.” Sharpening : This process restores a dull knife edge by removing material to create a new, sharper edge. Honing : This process realigns the existing edge of a knife, maintaining its sharpness without removing material. The book is a call to action for leaders to build the capability and mindset to hone their organizations, minimizing—but not eliminating—the need for transformation. “Choosing and honing the set of management systems that promote an organization's desired outcomes (and uninstalling them when they are past the...

Step-by-Step Guide To Making A Hybrid Workplace Successful

The new book, Thrive With A Hybrid Workplace , provides a way forward to understand the changing world of work, to dispense of old biases, and to establish trust between the enterprise, its leaders, and its employees. “Our goal is to provide organizations, leaders, and employees with guidance as to how to sort through what feels like a ping-pong argument about whether to embrace a hybrid workplace, explain the authors Felice B. Ekelman, JD and Jullie P. Kantor, PhD . More specifically, the book will help you: Understand flexible work options, and how to assess which options are best for your organization. Develop a thoughtful approach to hybrid work that is consistent with your organization’s core values. Identify how to best lead in hybrid work environments with the tools and competence to succeed. Identify pitfalls that may hinder success in implementing hybrid work protocols from both an individual and an enterprise point of view. Both Ekelman...

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog