Into the Storm (26 page)

 

 

S
teering a boat through a furious storm is exhausting work. The concentration and stamina required to maneuver through howling winds, towering waves, and drenching downpours takes an immense physical and mental toll.

Steering a team through other kinds of adversity—economic setbacks or tight deadlines, for example—can be just as strenuous and emotionally draining. Without some kind of support or relief, the burden can be too heavy for one person to carry. Rather than rely on one person's heroic efforts, teams at
The Edge
need to draw on each other's strengths. They need to share the load.

Sharing the load involves two different but related concepts. The phrase
stepping into the breach
is perhaps best known because of Shakespeare's play
Henry V
. With England at war with France, King Henry encourages his countrymen to step “unto the breach” by attacking a gap in the walls of a fortified French city. In combat, stepping into the breach can mean plugging an opening in a defensive perimeter. When applied to business teams, stepping into the breach means finding a gap in the performance of the team, then taking the initiative to fill it.

Team members on a sailboat can
share the helm
by taking turns steering the boat. In other teams, individuals can figuratively share the helm by providing direction or helping in other ways. This
distributed leadership
can be extremely effective, taking the burden off the formal leader and spreading the load.

After his “hard or squishy” self-examination, Chris and the other Ramblers were satisfied that the injury wasn't life-threatening. But Chris was prohibited from climbing back on deck and standing his watch—so there was a key role that needed to be filled.

Gordon Livingstone stayed on the rail without complaint, filling in for his injured teammate. Ed Psaltis describes the scene:

When Chris was injured, Gordon was sitting up on the side of the boat. I was so busy doing my steering that I wasn't even aware of him. Gordo sat there on the rail for hours without complaint. Even one hour in those conditions was tough physically, but he never complained.
¹

Why did Gordo do it? Because he was part of the team, and he was determined to stay there until someone told him to move. There was no “Come on, guys, give me a break.” He was simply determined not to budge until someone told him to budge. He was not going to be a weak link.

Gordo finally asked politely, “Hey, Ed, do you reckon I might be able to go down below now?” But when he saw the gap left by Chris' injury, Gordo had been more than willing to pitch in without complaint.

Gordon had filled the void created by Chris' injury, but there was another gap that needed to be plugged: a system for managing the crew under the extraordinary conditions. Ed was completely focused on getting over the mountainous waves, and no one was thinking about crew management. When Arthur realized what had happened to Gordo, he thought:

We've got to get a grip because we can't go on like this. Ed had been sailing far too many hours, and the thing that struck me the most was that the storm is getting worse, and we're in daytime. What happens when it gets to be nighttime? We're going to need our best sailor, and Ed is our best helmsman in these conditions. We've got to rest him during the daytime, because the last thing we need is to have him fatigued at night.
²

Arthur realized that the crew was not being managed well and that Gordon had suffered because of it. That insight was the catalyst for creating a new system that would spread the load more evenly. Arthur felt that there were three people capable of steering the boat and three who were capable of wave spotting. Both roles required different skills, but people needed to be rested to do either well.

Arthur took the initiative and spoke with Bob. They discussed a watch system that would give Ed some time to rest. They would also limit others to an hour on deck with two hours down below. With the new system, the Ramblers were able to have a fresh wave spotter and helmsman on deck at all times.

By monitoring each other's limits, the Ramblers saw the gaps and took action to fix the shortfall in crew management. The new system was critically important to their survival. It was a psychological boost to know that their time in the maelstrom was limited to an hour. And the new system meant that they were going to be physically ready for their exhausting jobs and capable of dealing with the storm.

Everyone on
AFR Midnight Rambler
had a clear understanding of their teammates' abilities. Many had sailed together for a number of years, and even those relatively new to the boat were intensely scrutinized during the ramp-up to the race. Ed Psaltis was the principal helmsman, but Arthur Psaltis and Bob Thomas had also shown their skill at steering. When the critical point of decision came during the storm, Ed had confidence that others could take the helm and give him some relief.

On boats with crews that have had less time working together, it is still possible to let people try different positions—and to see how well they perform. Some skippers make a point of systematically letting each crew member steer to assess their skill at the helm. With these trial runs in relatively calm conditions, the skipper and crew are able to inventory the full range of their capabilities.

I've sailed on boats where crew members are given a chance to show their stuff, and I've sailed on others where important tasks are limited to a select few—the people who are close to the skipper. Their capabilities, and their limitations, are a known quantity.

The problem with this approach is that newer members of the crew may have talents that are overlooked or unappreciated. In some instances, I've seen team members with limited skills given preference over others who were more talented but untested. The result of this narrow selection process was poor race performance—and frustration on the part of those in the crew whose abilities had been overlooked.

Leaders may feel more comfortable assigning tasks to members of their inner circle. But this insular approach fails to account for the full potential of the team. Under normal conditions, playing favorites will result in subpar team performance. But in crisis conditions, an inability to draw on the full potential of the team can be disastrous.

The implications for
Teamwork at The Edge
are clear. Teams need to provide opportunities for newer or untested members to demonstrate their skills in safe waters. Junior partners, for example, can do presentations, show what they are capable of, and get coaching from more experienced team members. Over time, these opportunities for broader participation encourage initiative, increase motivation, and—ultimately—strengthen the team.

In the middle of the storm, Ed Psaltis thought to himself, “I'm at the end of my tether.” Yet it never occurred to him to ask for help. He was focused on only one thing:

I was intent on steering the boat, because this was life and death stuff. If you get this wrong, people are going to die. It wasn't that I didn't care about other things, but I didn't have time to think about them.
³
Ed wasn't going to tell the crew, even though he knew he couldn't keep going on like this. He felt that there was no one else who could steer the boat.

When Arthur came up to confront his brother, he interrupted Ed's fixation on driving the boat. Arthur's confidence that he and Bob could steer, combined with his insistence that Ed had to get off the helm, was persuasive. Still, in the middle of the storm, Ed needed to take his hand off the tiller and let go.

The process of letting go can be difficult. It can be hard for a team leader to let others step into a leadership role and provide direction. It can be hard for any team member who excels in a particular role to let someone else “give it a go.” But to develop the full capability of the team—to bring other resources to bear on a problem—people need to move out of their familiar space. They need to take their hands off the tiller—to let go of something at which they excel. Letting go may not be easy. But for teams that aspire to the highest level of performance, it's a skill that needs to be mastered.

The most visible ways the Ramblers shared the load involved steering and protecting the helmsman as wave spotters. But that was not all they did to contribute to the team, and the less dramatic actions were important, too.

People down below could have retreated to their bunks. But attuned to the needs of those on deck, they got out of their berths and stood by the hatch, passing water up to the crew above. They asked if crew members on deck needed food or something else—anything—to ease the strain. It was comforting for those exposed to the waves to know that their mates down below stood ready to lend a hand.

They were all terrified. At times, their faces were ashen white with fear. They knew they might die. Yet the crew still did everything they could to minimize the suffering of their teammates.

Those who were most seasick were truly at the depths of despair. They felt like they wanted to die, and at the same time they were frozen with fear that they might die. But those who were most sick were comforted by those who were less so. Those who were most able to help gave water to those who were immobilized. And somehow, in spite of the terror, they summoned the energy to provide a few words of encouragement to those who were at their limits.

Everyone made a difference, and everyone contributed. Even with the blur of their fight for survival, people saw the small things. And even small actions reinforced their shared belief that they were in this together. Chris may have been injured, but he shifted his weight and held on to the pipe as ballast. He did everything in his power to help the team.

Some team roles are more visible than others, and some efforts are more dramatic. But the impact of small contributions cannot be overestimated. A word of encouragement can help a teammate regain confidence. And the smallest contribution is symbolically powerful. As Ed put it: “If we had simply been seven individuals, there is no way we could have gotten through the storm. But the teamwork made us so much more powerful. We were more than seven individuals. We were a team.”

1.  Do team members look for gaps in team performance? Do they take the initiative to
step into the breach
and fill in for others?

2.  Are team members aware of their own stamina—both physical and psychological? Do they keep an eye on how others are holding up?

3.  Are people given the opportunity to test their abilities in different roles and positions? Is there a shared understanding of team members' capabilities?

4.  Are team members willing to step aside and let others help them out when needed?

5.  Do team members encourage and value all contributions, both small and large?

 

 

W
hen I was in graduate school, a professor related an interesting story about a potential research pitfall. During World War II, as the story goes, the U.S. military wanted to determine the optimal placement of armor on aircraft. Their approach involved studying planes returning from bombing missions over Europe, then recording the location of shrapnel damage and bullet holes. It seemed logical that additional armor should be placed where the damage was the greatest.

A group of operations researchers were called in to confirm the military's findings. After studying the problem, the researchers came to a surprising conclusion: The areas of the bombers that were
not damaged
should have the highest priority for armor.

The researchers realized that the returning bombers represented a biased sample. Aircraft that made it back may have been riddled with bullet holes, but the damage was survivable. The aircraft that really needed help were the ones that didn't make it back. They were the ones that had been hit in the most vital parts of the aircraft—the sections containing the most critical components needed to keep the bombers flying.

If I had focused only on successful ocean racing crews such as
AFR Midnight Rambler
, this same sort of sampling error problem might have led to other mistakes. On the best boats, for example, unresolved conflict and other destructive interpersonal problems were relatively rare. But when the sample included the entire fleet, a different picture emerged.

Accounts of the 1998 race, for example, illustrate what can happen when the crew is not aligned—and when conflicts fester unresolved. I would never presume to make a direct connection between failure to manage conflict and any specific outcome or consequence. There were many forces at play in the storm, and there were cohesive teams that still ran into problems.

But I am confident in this assertion: Boats that consistently win do not have chronic problems with alignment and conflict. They win because they have eliminated anything and everything that slows them down. Whether the drag is created by interpersonal problems or mechanical issues, winning boats find and fix the underlying cause.

I asked
Rosebud's
Malcolm Park if he could think of an example where seamless teamwork had made a difference in a memorable race. Park said that he could think of numerous instances where teamwork
wasn't
visible because it was seamless. From start to finish, decision after decision, and from watch to watch, people worked together so well that teamwork produced results. But nobody thought about teamwork, because it was so smooth that it was virtually invisible.

There was rarely one momentous event where seamless effort resulted in a victory. But there were numerous examples of teamwork falling apart. These were cases where a crew didn't work together smoothly, and the result was a failure in a race. When I probed further and asked Park for an example, he had no trouble coming up with illustrations of things that he had seen go wrong.

The example that Park came up with involved two identical boats battling for position at the finish of the Sydney to Hobart Race. They couldn't sail directly to the finish line, so they needed to zigzag toward the destination. Park saw the action from his hotel room, and, though the boats were some distance away, he was in a perfect spectator's seat:

I was watching the boats coming across the finish line. And they were jibing [zigzagging with the wind from behind] across from each other. On one jibe, one boat was ahead. The next jibe the other boat was ahead. And from about a mile out I said, “I bet you anything I can guess which boat is going to win.”

I saw that one boat was having constant breakdowns in teamwork on every one of their jibes. The crew would make an error, and then compensate with good tactical decisions. But the crew work was falling apart. I could see the guys yelling at each other and arguing with each other, fingers pointing. And sure enough they didn't win. It all fell apart.
But you could see the breakdown from a mile and a half from the finish line.
¹

I know what it's like to sail on a boat where people are more concerned with fixing blame than fixing problems. Things would go wrong, and the skipper would naturally be frustrated. But because we never took the time to figure out how or why something went wrong, we repeated the same mistake on numerous occasions. Each time, there would be yelling, shouting, and blaming, but the problem remained.

Winning teams direct their energy to dissecting problems and figuring out how to keep them from happening again. Losing and mediocre teams spend time blaming individuals and shouting.

Previous chapters emphasized the importance of selecting people who have the right skills and who are committed to the challenge. Then, when the team is configured, individuals need to be given a chance to demonstrate their capabilities in as many roles as they might reasonably be expected to fill. This systematic process helps to ensure that the team will be composed of motivated people who are fully capable of doing their jobs.

There are times, however, when shortcomings surface later in the game. In spite of everything that has been done to choose the right people and give them a chance to try their skills, people can wind up in the wrong positions. And when that happens, the team suffers.

These situations can be awkward, especially when individuals are oblivious to their limitations. And it can be especially difficult when people have been in their roles for some time, and they feel comfortable and secure. But for a team to reach its potential, fundamental performance problems need to be addressed and resolved.

This is not a question of blaming an individual for a specific mistake or problem. It is a more fundamental question of long-term team effectiveness. And confronting a capability problem does not automatically mean that an individual needs to be removed from the job. It means that performance issues need to be clearly identified and fixed.

The corrective action starts with an honest conversation about performance. The next step can involve training, coaching, or education designed to develop the required skills. Team members who want to perform in a role should be given every opportunity to excel. But people who can't develop the skills to perform need to find another role—or another boat. Teams at
The Edge
rely on everyone's ability to perform at the highest level. Shortfalls need to be confronted and corrected.

In preparing for the Sydney to Hobart Race, I accumulated quite a collection of equipment and special-purpose clothing. I left the States for Australia with a large suitcase and a big sea bag, thinking that I would take the sea bag with me when we sailed south to Hobart.

A few days before the start of the race, the skipper, Goldy, gave everyone on the crew a small waterproof bag. He made it quite clear that everything that we would be allowed to take on the boat had to fit into these standard issue bags.

The bags we were authorized to use were about one-tenth the size of the bag I had thought I would be taking. In retrospect, it was pretty funny that I could have ever imagined fifteen people taking full-size sea bags on this race. Even though this was a 60-foot boat, there just wasn't that much space in the cramped quarters below.

There was room for the things needed to sail the boat, and some of the equipment was heavy. I hesitate to guess how much the giant Anaconda sail weighed. But everything aboard the boat was functional, and crew comfort was not a primary concern. On race day, I stood in line with the other sailors to check in both my suitcase and my sea bag. I wasn't sure how they would get to Hobart, but I knew it wouldn't be aboard the boat that I was sailing on.

Having spent time with the crew of
AFR Midnight Rambler
, I should have realized long before that speed was good—and excess weight was bad. According to Bob Thomas:

We stripped as much weight out of the boat as we could…. Weight's crucial, and we count the nuts and bolts. We go through everything in that toolbox. We scour the whole boat, looking everywhere. It's amazing how much weight we can get off the boat each year, even though we've owned it for years.
²

The fanatical commitment that the Ramblers have to reducing weight holds a lesson for teams. Just as polishing the stove symbolizes the Ramblers' dedication to careful preparation, counting the bolts represents their commitment to removing anything that might slow them down.

The responsibility for eliminating excess weight belongs to every member of the crew. Teams that aspire to the highest levels of performance need to be on the alert for anything that might hold them back. Even one extra bolt can make a difference.

Ed Psaltis is the first to admit that he can get overly excited with the pressure of the race—and he becomes frustrated when things aren't happening fast enough. Although this can lead to some shouting, everyone understands what's going on. Ed's passion to win energizes the team, but he gets carried away. Over time, the crew has learned to handle Ed's outbursts in a good-humored way.

Some of Ed's excited expressions have become standing jokes.
Give me 60 feet of rope!
is a particular favorite. As Gordo tells it:

Ed will occasionally ask for a sail to come down at the speed of light, and he'll scream “Mix, give me 60 feet!” Mix will be doing his best to manage the process. We'll go around the mark and we'll pack the sail away. Then we'll be sitting up on the rail and Mix or Arthur or I will imitate Ed's performance from a couple of minutes ago. It's a good way to settle the crew down, get everyone back on the same plane, and away we go.
³

Give me 60 feet of rope
eventually became an all-purpose phrase that, in Ed's vocabulary, translates to
Do it now!

Though humor can defuse tension under many circumstances, it can be especially important when the stakes are high. When the Ramblers were fighting constantly changing winds in the Derwent, the pressure was exceptionally intense. They were exhausted from battling the waves and the winds in the Bass Strait, and from incessant sail changes. Pressure was building and frustration was growing.

They had started the race with four winch handles—an essential piece of equipment on a sailboat. Mix had dropped three over the side—or, at least he was alleged to have lost them. So they were left with only one winch handle for the remaining part of the race.

Mix recalls that at one point:

Gordon, the
court jester
, looked me in the eye said, “Just chuck this one over the side, will you, Mix?” And it made everyone burst into laughter because it was the worst thing I could've possibly done. If I had thrown the last winch handle over the side, we would have had to grind with our fingers—and that would have been a disaster.
⁴

Gordon remembers the incident somewhat differently:

It was a good moment because it really reflected how important that winch handle was and yet, we were having a little bit of a joke about it as well. I would state for the record that I don't believe Mix had tossed any winch handles over the side during that race. They just fell over by themselves.
⁵

Regardless of whose recollection is more accurate, the point remains: Humor can help alleviate anxiety and mitigate conflict, two strategies necessary for winning teams. As Arthur observed, “You need people on a boat who can recognize the seriousness of a situation, but still be lighthearted. It realigns their concentration!”

1.  When something goes wrong, does your team focus on solving the problem or finding someone to blame?

2.  Does your team have the right people in the right positions? If there are performance problems, are these issues confronted and addressed?

3.  Does everyone on your team look for things that could slow you down or interfere with performance? Do you
count the bolts
and lighten the boat?

4.  Is your team able to lighten up and use humor to diffuse tension?