10 reasons why it is good to learn leadership outdoors

This morning I was sent an article from the Harvard Business Review on a subject of which I am particularly keen; the benefits of teaching corporate leadership in a wilderness setting. It is something I have reflected on a lot over the years, but rather in the same way that a childless person can imagine parenting – you do not really know what you are talking about until you are woken at 3.00 am by a child vomiting or you are trying to figure out the integrity of your teenage daughter’s would be suitor. After 25 years of watching and developing leaders outdoors I now work in a corporate environment where I see two kinds of managers and leaders. There are those that have been “battle trained” and those that have gained their smarts from books, classes and experiences in a somewhat artificial environment, a place where they are sheltered from the true consequences of their actions. So in a similar vein to last week I want to offer up 10 thoughts about developing leadership outdoors and why it is so potent.

 

You cannot bury your head in the sand:

Firstly, you can never blame nature, it just is and your successes and failures are a result of the way that you interact with it. Period. If you are cold you did not bring enough clothing or you are not thinking warm enough thoughts. If you are hungry you did not bring enough food. If you are ready to collapse and do not think you can go any farther then you have bitten off more than you can chew, you are not fit enough or you need to develop your resolve by having more of these moments. Conversely, if you are soaring on the elation of a view or an adrenalin high you must have done something right even if you do not know what it was.

 

It is far more evident what leadership actually is:

Leadership is hard to define and yet it is easily felt. It is less of a role and more of an agreement. When it is thought of as a series of easily measured rules and responsibilities it often loses its essence. Take a group of friends who regularly paddle challenging white water together. On any given day the structure of leadership will look different. Who is “on” that day, who feels the flow and is willing to take point, who is “off” and sees the wisdom of deferring an emotionally charged decision. The leadership of the group is organic and also the result of the individual energies that each member brings and the collective energy that they create. At any moment decision making can be by consensus, abdicated or elected to the person in the best position to make it. Basically, in the outdoors leadership usually has a flatter hierarchy because it is naturally evident that everyone brings something to the table, it also becomes obvious that leadership and fellowship are part of the same continuum and it is basically best to take whatever role is necessary to meet the team’s needs.

 

Relevance makes learning leadership natural:

Leadership can be learned. My leadership certainly developed over the years and I have had the pleasure and joy of watching thousands of people grow around me. Teaching in the outdoors is about scaffolding experience on top of experience, sometimes it is deemed a success and sometimes it is perceived of as a failure, however there is always the potential for learning. Learning is manifested by reflection. The thing about the outdoors is that it is simple and consequently often easier to define success and because of this people take the time to do it. Also, there is a natural relevance that makes reflection worthwhile. Inevitably this is followed by accelerated learning. Put simply, when in nature a group is more likely to naturally do what groups need to do to be successful. It is certainly far easier to steer them towards a culture of success.

 

There is no better place to learn to trust: 

I am yet to find a relationship that was not defined by trust. The thing about sharing adventures is that you put yourself in a position where you develop trust through necessity and you do it quickly. The other piece is that you repeat adventures with the people who responded to and reciprocated the level of trust that you invested. I do not climb as much these days as I used to and usually it is with my seven year old son, my best friends though; the ones I am most invested in, are the ones with whom I have shared time in the outdoors. The ones I wish to seek most counsel from are the ones I repeatedly shared a rope with in the most hazardous places. I learned to trust these people because I had to. One of the other reasons that I want their opinion is because I know it is based on the sound reasoning of natural cause and effect.

 

Balancing planning and dealing with uncertainty is a daily occurrence: 

Planning is a large part of any adventure. My sights are currently set on walking the Colorado Trail, and I feel I may have already spent as much time thinking about it; especially the logistics, as it will probably take to walk it. I have been scouring information on how people have maintained ridiculously light packs while walking alone. I have poured over maps. I have tried meals I might cook. I have made stoves out of cat food cans. Cai & I have been camping without a tent to experiment with small tarps. The bottom line is that I want to go into this thing with the lightest pack I can safely manage and this requires trial and error. So I will start with a plan because I can control this, however there are so many things over which I do not have jurisdiction that I will also have to be flexible to change. Nowhere have I been so schooled in this balance of planning and responding as in the outdoors. Being hit by rock fall a quarter of the way into a route in the alps with no chance of retreat. Gaining a col after a days travail in the Himalayas only to find descending the other side was suicide. Being caught out on 20 foot swells with a group of students sea kayaking in Baja and hoping for a safe, sheltered beach to land on. These lessons have real consequences which lead to real growth.

 

Success in the outdoors is dependent on behavior:

Have you ever been stuck in a tent with someone for a month? The rain is teeming down, neither of you have had a bath for weeks, you are sharing the most incredible views and adventures, yet you are also sharing your smells, the sad stories you have told a few too many times and the angst of failed relationships. Perhaps, you also both know the taste of gasoline infused food because of a spill in a backpack and perhaps that infusion was the direct result of one of you being clumsy. A tent is a testing ground for relationships, no small wonder I committed to the last ten years with my wife during a period of trail building we shared at 12,000 feet in the Colorado Rockies. The thing is you have to develop compassion, empathy and the ability to communicate or you suffer. The best expeditions are the ones where you bring the best out of the people you share them with. No small wonder the National Outdoor Leadership School talks about and coaches “expedition behavior” and this is quoted as being something that transfers into all walks of their alumni’s lives.

 

You quickly learn to maintain calm:

The outdoors breeds grace especially under pressure. One of my pivotal moments as an outdoor instructor involved watching a pack float away while I had 10 students in a swamped boat. Realizing that I had no way of finding let alone retrieving the bag and being grateful that my charges were all accounted for led to a renewed drive to become even better at what I did. The thing was that a colleague whom I called across to saying, “Terry, I think we could do with some help” had no idea how challenged I felt at that moment and the kids thought it was just part of the adventure. Outward calm comes from lots of experience of dealing with duress, well either that or ignorance of your situation. It is rare that I witness drama (outside of relationships) among my outdoor friends and that is because through ritual they plan for most outcomes and they are used to dealing with unexpected situations as they occur.

 

Serenity leads to clarity:

One of my favorite quotes is reputedly from St Augustine who said “solvitur ambulando” “it is solved by walking”. When I have a decision to make my two favorite ways of gaining perspective are to either meditate or go for a walk. There is something about the cadence of placing one food in front of the other, especially when it is accompanied by the song of birds, the rustle of trees, fresh air and a view. We live in a world full of “stuff” and increasingly we are diluting our faculties by being constantly available to a barrage of drivel. The thing is we are often blinkered from seeing what is important because of the endless flow of unnecessary information that we have to sieve through. Going outdoors brings with it serenity and a space where we can focus on the important decisions. It is very liberating.

 

The outdoors induces a playful and experimental state:

Nature also provides a great venue for practice. Styles of leadership vary with a situation and “playing” outside provides a place for seeing what works best as the consequences are usually immediate. For instance if I am walking in a safe and mellow venue and I start barking orders like a sergeant major running drills on a parade ground, inevitably the people I am shouting at will push back – my behavior will make no sense to them and they will tell me this in no uncertain terms. (This is unlikely to happen in a military setting and while the water cooler chat will be off the charts in the corporate world the leader may never gain the feedback.) Now if I use the same tactics in a high risk environment coming down from a technical summit amidst an electrical storm where my charges are scared they will probably thank me for being so directive. We need to play and practice with concepts and we need a response as to how well they work.

 

It beats sitting at a desk!:

Finally, the rewards are incredible. When I am outside I want to lead if it is necessary, I certainly want to play my part to make something happen because I know how it feels when I reach that peak, pull that move or drop over that lip. The days of hardship melt away when I survey the view in front of me. The sense of satisfaction derived from sharing it with others is enormous. We do not need to talk, we know. This is not always the case in the office, so it is easier to learn the skills where there is plenty of motivation.

 

 

Moving Forward: Vision, goals & strategies

You are what your deep, driving desire is,

As your desire is, so is your will, 

As your will is, so is your deed,

As your deed is, so is your destiny.

- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad IV.4.5

Last Friday I gave a presentation for Colorado Bar Association Leadership Training. It was a wonderful opportunity to work with twenty bright and driven individuals who will make great contributions to their communities. It was also a fantastic reminder of how fun my work is. I am the guy who makes their point through play; games serving as a metaphor to inspire deep thought and provide learning to transfer into real world examples. The theme of the day was goal setting and creating strategy and I spent some time figuring out my learning outcomes (teacher’s goals) for the session and games to play that might ensure they were met. Coming on in the latter half of the afternoon I had the pleasure of listening to others including an entertaining Troy Mumford from Colorado State University who had an engaging way of presenting his top strategy tips for leaders.

So why the big build up to a simple story? Well following listening to those that preceded me I recognized that my job was not only to promote my ideas, it was also important that I support the thoughts of those that went before me. I also knew that I needed to walk my talk and model what I was talking about.

So over lunch I frantically rejigged what I was going to do leaving out the visually stimulating powerpoint that had taken a few hours to prepare. And now to the point of all of this. The thing that allowed me to be flexible was that I was following my own advice with regards to goal setting. The process works most efficiently when there is a funneling effect. Start with a vision statement which defines purpose in terms of values, while this is probably the hardest stage it eases the rest of the process. By knowing what your values are and the purpose of what you intend to do, then setting goals is a fairly straightforward process and once you have goals figuring out strategies to make them happen seems intuitive.

With a vision in place I felt comfortable editing my goals as I heard and saw what went before me. The strategies (games) for reaching those goals were manipulated without undue stress and I was able to listen to my audience laugh as they created their learning.

Save yourself from spinning gears and living in a state of being overwhelmed, start out with a vision, move on to goals and finally figure out your strategies. Or in the words of  Max DePree and I love this bold statement.

Beliefs come before policies or standards or practices. Practice without belief is a forlorn existence. Managers who have no beliefs but only understand methodology and quantification are modern day eunuchs. They can never engender competence or confidence. They can never be truly intimate.

Max DePree from Art is Leadership

Can creativity be taught?

“Artists can color the sky red because they know it’s blue. Those of us who aren’t artists must color things the way they really are or people might think we’re stupid.”

Jules Feiffer

I am in the Sir Ken Robinson camp on this one. Creativity is often educated out of kids in school – if you have a spare 25 minutes check out his talk on ted.com he is both passionate & funny on this issue

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

I am not entirely sure if creativity can be taught as the audience needs to want to learn (I am not sure if anything can be taught if there is no inherent motivation to learn). What I do know is that I have watched a number of people “become” creative in front of my very eyes and the ingredient for it is very simple. In other words I have facilitated the learning of creativity.

If you want people to be creative or innovative – yes they are different but they both require the same foundational environment – then create a safe place; one where it is ok to make mistakes. Allow your audience to FEEL what Alexander Bell knew – for every incredible thing he created there were a thousand “mistakes”.

Personally, I create that environment through games and activities. I am more than willing to share if anyone wants.

wilrickards@gmail.com

and as a follow up:

Creativity is a wonderful organic process, I believe it is what the brain does naturally because it works on the principle of making connections. Here is the kicker though, the brain does not function optimally when it is controlled by an emotionally negative state – the brain needs to feel safe to make a majority of its connections – there are obviously the fight or flight exceptions. So this whole idea of teaching creativity leaves me a little uneasy as it is something that occurs naturally. As has been said before though; if the environment is one that creates a negative emotional state then creativity will be stopped in its tracks. I believe this is what happens in a lot of school and business environments.

We can create environments that will see increased creativity, we can provide tools to help it happen. I do not know if we can teach it.

What makes this discussion really relevant to me as a trainer is that it is my responsibility to make sure that I create an optimal environment to ensure learning AND to help people be the best that they can be and learn that this “best” is truly part of them. I want my audience to be creative to find that “best” so mulling over what the creative process is and what I can do to help it on its way is very valid.

This discussion has been a great thought provoker for me as it has mimicked the creative process and grown organically. Connections have been made and transferred. Contributors have taken information and made it their own by playing with it and manipulating it to create something that reflects them. It demonstrates the creativity involved in all learning. Now imagine what would happen if several contributors had shamed, mocked and dismissed other contributions – there was one entry that may have been taken that way but thankfully the group moved on quickly and left it behind.

If I imagine that scenario then I am back where I started, with a supportive environment creative magic is able to happen.

Thoughts on Physical Education

“We’re on a mission to make self-reflection hip for just a moment, just long enough to save us.” Jamie Catto

I have a thought that if the word diversity refers to looking for difference then university can be about seeking unity. For me education works best when it moves to bring people together through learning. Two men who have taken this concept of seeking similarities a great deal further are Duncan Bridgeman and Jamie Cato of 1 Giant Leap http://www.myspace.com/1giantleap; a concept band and media project that travels the globe collecting music and video images on a laptop. What makes this wonderful project so distinctive is that they layer music from around the world onto a track having provided an initial beat. Through this we hear both the similarities and the unique nature of each artist performing within a whole while knowing that they are separated by continents and cultures. This surely is a wonderful metaphor for education.

When thinking about what Physical Education can be I am also drawn to 1 Giant Leap, watching their videos something becomes apparent. Humans were made to move. Naturally we are movement literate, we are made to walk, run, jump and dance. Somehow through a sedentary and mechanized western lifestyle we educate ourselves out of this natural state.

When I look at it from this perspective physical education becomes a different paradigm. I no longer wish to focus on teaching “how to” sports classes or even an interest in lifetime activity. Suddenly I find myself passionate about encouraging reconnection with movement and experimenting with its subtlety; I want students to play with timing and balance, and to examine their range of motion. It fills me with excitement when I can suggest a holistic outlook and examine philosophy through movement. Take an activity like Le Parkour; a contemporary, viral and frequently urban discipline, which is based on the idea that obstacles are ramps into a new world of opportunity. As part of the activity a traceur (practitioner of Parkour) replaces the concept of obstacle as barrier and substitutes it instead with the obstacle being something to be played with, explored and ultimately as providing a chance to develop a new skill. A traceur will experience this reality many times in their average “jam” and suddenly it becomes their truth when transferred into life in general.

As a physical educator I want my students to feel rhythm through their core and be so moved by it they spontaneously erupt in movement that fills them with joy and a sense of satisfaction. I want them to remove rules from this movement and just let themselves go and be happy in their expression. I want them to create community through their sharing of this expression.

It is important to me that students see movement for what it is an integral part of life, one that has ramifications on their whole. Fitness is about far more than looking good. Thinking of it purely in terms of cardiovascular disease is limiting. Movement allows all parts of your body to function better; it promotes happiness, learning and a healthy mental state. It is the lubricant for a life that is balanced and fulfilling.