Desert Hiking and Well-Functioning Teams

 

Over the weekend my sons, my daughter's boyfriend and I spent a few days in Southern Utah hiking and otherwise exploring. The weather was great, the hiking was fun and we discovered a number of things we had never seen or experienced before.

Among the things I discovered was the fact that I spend way too much time these days in front of my computer. I'm not as sure-footed hiking the friction-pitches on the "slick-rock" as I once was and although in the past I could often be found behind the boys as "sweeper" to keep everyone together, now I am at the end of the line because I am the slowest hiker.

Keeping the "team" together seemed to fall to my oldest son, who took responsibility for keeping the faster hikers from leaving Dad alone on the trail. As I was on the trail, I couldn't help but think of how this experience applies to well-functioning teams.

Regardless of the type of work we do, we often work with team members of various experience and skill levels. Here are a couple of observations and possible insight that resulted from my long weekend in the desert:

1. Technology can help keep the team together: Everyone in our group had a small walkie-talkie, so regardless of whether or not we were within speaking distance, we could still keep in touch. Project teams can leverage the same kind of technology to work together regardless of where they work in the world. The Internet has made it possible for project leaders in Europe to manage teams in China or South America, and executives in Cincinnati to have access to real project information to make informed decisions.
2. Because you don't always get to pick your team you need to make the most out of the team you've got: Most of the time project leaders don't get to pick their team—nor does the team get to pick their project leader. Building a good working relationship with everyone on the team is important. My daughter's boyfriend had never been on one of these trips with us before, but he did a great job of stepping out of his comfort zone to take his place on the "team." And my sons reached out to include him in our experience. If you didn't know that this was the case, you would have thought he had been with us dozens of times.
3. It's not fair to expect any team member to do all the heavy lifting: My oldest boy is a great dutch oven cook. Although he and I planned the menu and did the shopping together, he was going to be the primary cook. As easy as it would have been to snooze in the tent and wait for him to announce that breakfast was ready, every morning there was someone who (sometimes reluctantly) would climb out of the sleeping bag to help get breakfast ready for the others. The same was true at dinner (although we all let him clean his dutch ovens the way he preferred—at least that is my excuse). The same is true for project teams, the same team members shouldn't be expected to do all the heavy lifting for the team. We had fantastic food on the trip—made better by the fact that we pitched in to help.
4. Stronger and more capable team members should mentor and help less experienced team members: When my boys were young, I tried to make sure they had enough to drink on the trail, took appropriate breaks and were having a good time. It was amusing to see my boys do that for me. Because they were obviously stronger and faster hikers, they tried to make sure I was having a good time, keeping up and they even refrained from complaining about my slower pace. Often, how we treat less experienced members of the project team can positively or negatively impact how the perceive their role on the team. I will be forever grateful to the more senior people who took an interest in me during the early years of my career and taught me the things that didn't appear in an HR manual or training discussion.

Successful teams don't just happen. Neither do productive working relationships. As project leaders, it's important for us to remember that we need to build an environment where healthy collaboration and communication can thrive. We need to use the technology and interpersonal skills at our disposal to foster a good team environment—which is no less important than the project management software we use, the work management methodology we employ or the details of our project plan.

What do you do to foster a healthy team environment? I can recommend a great place out in the desert if you need some time to think about it.