5 Strategies From The Book, Into The Storm

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.

Comments

Effective Listening: Do's And Don'ts

Here are some great tips from Michelle Tillis Lederman's book, The 11 Laws of Likability . They are all about: what to do and what not to do to be a leader who's an effective listener : Do : Maintain eye contact Limit your talking Focus on the speaker Ask questions Manage your emotions Listen with your eyes and ears Listen for ideas and opportunities Remain open to the conversation Confirm understanding, paraphrase Give nonverbal messages that you are listening (nod, smile) Ignore distractions Don't : Interrupt Show signs of impatience Judge or argue mentally Multitask during a conversation Project your ideas Think about what to say next Have expectations or preconceived ideas Become defensive or assume you are being attacked Use condescending, aggressive, or closed body language Listen with biases or closed to new ideas Jump to conclusions or finish someone's sentences

How To Be A Generous Leader

Speaking about his book, The Generous Leader , author Joe Davis says, “This book is about the ways in which you can become a generous leader to be part of something bigger than yourself .” He adds that the old model for a leader – a top-down, unilateral, single-focus boss, isn’t effective in today’s workplace. “That old model no longer attracts talent, invites collaboration, or gets the best results from the team. That leader’s time is passed. Today, there is a need for a more human-centered, bighearted, authentic way to lead,” adds Davis. To help you become a generous leader, Davis introduces you to seven essential elements that he believes will develop you into a leader for the future . The seven elements are: Generous Communication : Be real to build deep connections. Be available to connect with the person, and not just the person in their role to make them feel seen. Generous Listening : Be sincerely curious about another...

How to Be a Leader – 9 Principles from Dale Carnegie

Today, I welcome thought-leader Nathan Magnuson as guest blogger... Nathan writes : This is it, your first day in a formal leadership role. You’ve worked hard as an individual contributor at one or possibly several organizations. Now management has finally seen fit to promote you into a position as one of their own: a supervisor. You don’t care if your new team is only one person or ten, you’re just excited that now – finally – you will be in charge! Unfortunately the euphoria is short-lived. Almost immediately, you are not only overwhelmed with the responsibilities of a team, but you quickly find that your team members are not as experienced or adroit as you. Some aren’t even as committed. You find yourself having to repeat yourself, send their work back for corrections, and staying late to fill the gap. If something doesn’t change soon, you might just run yourself into the ground. How did something that looked so easy ...

Honor Martin Luther King Jr. Day On January 19 By Volunteering

As the nation honors Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Monday, January 19, volunteer or make the decision to volunteer in your community. King routinely asked “ What are you doing for others ,” and January 19th is the ideal day to ask yourself that question. The federal holiday was first observed in 1994 when Congress designated it as a National Day of Service, inspired by King’s words, “everybody can be great because anybody can serve.” You can turn to Idealist (.org)* and similar types of websites to find volunteer opportunities right in your neighborhood or nearby surrounding area. Visit the web site, type in your zip code/city, and you will be presented with a variety of organizations seeking volunteers. And, if you are a leader in the workplace, encourage your team members to volunteer in the community as individuals. Or organize team volunteer afternoons or evenings for your employees. *VolunteerMatch merged with Idealist in January 2025.

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...

70 New Year's Resolutions For Leaders

With 2026 fast approaching, it's a good time to identify your New Year's Resolutions for next year. To get you started, how about selecting one or more of the following 70 New Year's resolutions for leaders? Perhaps write down five to ten and then between now and January 1, think about which couple you want to work on during 2026. Don't micromanage Don't be a bottleneck Focus on outcomes, not minutiae Build trust with your colleagues before a crisis comes Assess your company's strengths and weaknesses at all times Conduct annual risk reviews Be courageous, quick and fair Talk more about values more than rules Reward how a performance is achieved and not only the performance Constantly challenge your team to do better Celebrate your employees' successes, not your own Err on the side of taking action Communicate clearly and often Be visible Eliminate the cause of a mistake View every problem as an opportunity to grow Summarize group consensus after each deci...

How To Uncover Your Blindspots To Become A More Effective Leader

What you don't see about yourself can hold you back as a leader. That's typical for many leaders. What we don't see is what we can't see: we have blindspots . Your blindspots prevent you from achieving your greatest success. “It turns out that we're often not great judges of ourselves, even when we think we are. Sometimes we're simply unaware of a behavior or trait that's causing problems,” explains Martin Dubin , author of the book, Blindspotting: How To See What’s Holding You Back As A Leader . “Bottom line: until we uncover these blindspots, we can't move forward. The good news is that you can learn to do your own blindspotting .” “Most of us understand the idea of blindspots in a general sense—areas we can’t see, to take the term most literally, or places we have gaps that we may not even realize, to be a little more abstract,” says Dubin. “But in the context of this book, I’m defining blindspots quite specifically: They are the...

Full Engagement By Brian Tracy

Best-selling author Brian Tracy's book, Full Engagement , provides practical advice for how to inspire your employees to perform at their absolute best. He explains that above nearly every measure, employees' most powerful single motivator is the "desire to be happy." So, Tracy teaches you how to make your employees happy by: Organizing their work from the first step in the hiring process through the final step in their departure from your company so they are happy with you, their work, their coworkers, as well as in their interactions with your customers, suppliers and vendors. Full Engagement includes these chapters and topics: The Psychology of Motivation Ignite the Flame of Personal Performance Make People Feel Important Drive Out Fear Create That Winning Feeling Select The Right People Internal Versus External Motivation At a minimum, Tracy suggests that managers do the following when managing their employees : Smile Ask questions Listen ...

How To Lead From The Inside Out

The book, The Journey of Leadership , brings the experience of one of the world’s most influential consulting firms ( McKinsey & Compan y ) right to your fingertips. “We offer in this book a step-by-step approach for leaders to reinvent themselves both professionally and personally,” explain co-authors Dana Maor , Hans-Werner Kaas , Kurt Strovink and Ramesh Srinivasan . This book includes revealing lessons from McKinsey & Company’s legendary CEO leadership program, The Bower Forum , which has counseled more than five hundred global CEOs over the past decade. The authors assert that if you are a traditional left-brained leader who’s great at numbers, planning and scheduling, your job might be threatened in the future. “Going forward, the differentiating factor will be human leadership that gives people a sense of purpose and inspires them, and that cares about who they are and what they’re thinking and feeling....

29 People Who Taught Us Life Lessons In Courage, Integrity And Leadership

The 29 profiles you will read in Robert L. Dilenschneider’s new book, Character , are about people who are exceptional exemplars of character. They’re inspirational because they used their abilities at their highest levels to work for causes they believed in. Because of character, they influenced the world for good. The dictionary defines “character” as the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual, the distinctive nature of something, the quality of being individual in an interesting or unusual way, strength and originality in a person’s nature, and a person’s good reputation. “But beyond these definitions, we know that character is manifested in leadership, innovation, resilience, change, courage, loyalty, breaking barriers, and more,” explains Robert (Bob), “Character drives the best traits in our society, such as honesty, integrity, leadership, and transparency, and it drives others to exhibit those qualities.” Profiled in the book ar...

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog