You probably remember the old Army commercials on
television back in the ‘80s with that catchy little song and phrase, “be all
that you can be”. The Army did away with that and eventually went to something
a little less catchy, “An Army of one”. Do you remember those commercials? I
remember one where a guy is running through the desert with a ruck sack and his
weapon by himself at first and after a few seconds a helicopter flies over his
head. It was a brilliant market concept except for one problem – it did the
exact opposite of what it was intended to do. “An Army of one” doesn’t mean
that anybody can be a one-person army like Rambo or something. It meant that we
all have a role to play to make up one body. The idea was to promote teamwork
showing that the cook or supply specialist was every bit as important as the
infantryman or doctor or general. The concept was conveyed on too deep of a
level for most of the intended demographic to grasp. However, regardless of the
failed marketing campaign, the Army may be the ultimate team-based
organization.
When I was in 5th Special Forces Group, we
were extremely tight-knit. We were always together. We trained together,
deployed together, fought together, bled together, mourned together, relaxed
together – we were a family. That is to be expected when you are with the same
small group for years at a time. On my last deployment, I was assigned to an
A-team on a small outpost miles from any kind of support. There were only 23 of
us living together for all those months so yes, we were close. However, not
every job we do in the Army instills the same level of camaraderie that the
infantry of Special Forces may bring about. As a recruiter, though I work on a
small team, we live a very different way than I did when I was in 5th
Group. We don’t have people shooting at us (well, our office is in Washington
Heights which is a little rough so maybe sometimes… just kidding!) and we all
are able to go home to our own families every day. The teamwork doesn’t come
quite as naturally so we have to work a little harder at it. In order to bring
us closer together, we build team-building activities into our training
calendar. Over the past few years, some of the things that we have done have
included going to Six Flags, playing paintball, going ice skating, having
luncheons or barbeques, and going fishing. I seem to recall once going on a
booze cruise and accidentally leaving one of our teammates stranded in Jersey.
Whoops.
Team-building outside of the workplace is not a
concept that is unique to the Army. Developing interpersonal skills is every
bit as critical to the success of our organization as developing our
professional abilities. Many organizations today use outdoor experimental laboratory
development (sometimes known as corporate boot camp) to develop teamwork and
leadership skills.
The
idea is to take a group of people who normally work with one another and put
them in an outdoor setting where they participate in experiential learning
exercises. The outdoor setting is very different from the normal work
environment; the learning exercises are so varied, and so typically foreign to
the background of most participants, that no one has a distinct advantage. Thus
the outdoor lab puts participants on an equal footing. This seems to encourage
discussion of leadership styles, teamwork, and inter- personal relationships.
(Brown, 2011, p. 273)
These corporate boot camps appear to be very similar
to the team-building that we experience in military training. The rigorous
physical demands are so extreme that no one person should attempt to complete
them on their own. Even though we some may have the raw ability, we must learn
to rely on our teammates for physical, emotional, and moral support. One such
example of an outdoor experimental laboratory comes from Seagate Technology.
Every year, the organization invests about $2 million to run a challenge known
as EcoSeagate. The company flies 200 employees from all levels of the
organization to New Zealand where they split into 40 groups of five people to
compete against one another. This is a very physically demanding and intense
challenge that culminates in a 40 km adventure race with running, biking, and
hiking through rugged terrain with little guidance. As exciting as a
team-building exercise like this may be, there remains one fundamental problem –
there is really no way to quantitatively measure to the return on the
investment. I asked my friend, Gene, about this (Gene completed an MBA in
Quantitative Finance at NYU Stern a few years back) and he said that he loves
it because he was a Marine so “gets it” but would have a hard time getting
investors to buy off on something like this. There is just no proof that it is
financially worth it. Fortunately, we have advanced to the point that we
understand that qualitative analysis is just as important as quantitative
analysis within modern organizations. Solid qualitative analysis may be
difficult to directly measure but “high performers are attracted to
organizations that recognize their contribution, and if you don't, they will go
somewhere else. The flip side is also true. Weak performers will self-select
out of organizations where there is a strong recognition of high performance” (Smolkin,
2016, p. 30). Something like EcoSeagate accomplishes this very thing. It may be
impossible to determine the actual added financial value but it is part of the
process of ensuring that the best performers remain with the organization and
the mediocre performers either increase their performance or will quietly exit.
What are some of the qualities that an event like this
would bring? Bob Whitmore of Seagate lectured on the benefit of teaching
conflict resolution (Chao, 2008, April 25). The event forces people to work
together to through uncomfortable situations that are rife with conflict and
force resolution which is a lesson that can be applied within the organization
as well. Conflict resolution is a learned behavior. We can’t achieve it until
we practice it. Another benefit of events such as EcoSeagate is that it teaches
us to collectively share in our struggles. There was a point in the event in 2008
that a massive storm was forecast during the competition (Chao, 2008, April
26). Together, as if in one voice, all of the participants let out a little
sigh/moan together but they knew that they were pressing on together as well.
It wasn’t as if they were experiencing the woes as individuals but rather as
one body.
Since EcoSeagate took place in New Zealand, many of
the video clips showed natives performing the Haka. If you have never seen this
dance performed, it may strike you as being a little odd but this is a
traditional war dance from the native New Zealander warriors. The All Blacks,
the famous NZ rugby team, perform it before every match to intimidate their
opponents. (I’ll add a link right below this to watch some of the All Black
Hakas.) To me, that Haka captures the true spirit of events such as EcoSeagate.
Not just anybody can perform the dance. These men, much like my old 5th
Group buddies, have experienced brutal hardships together, bled together,
struggled together, and persevered together. When they perform the dance, they
bring all of that back and proudly display how they have overcome it. It is
possible to bring that into our organizations and you can’t measure that with
numbers.
All Blacks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5chRqRr8iQs
Brown, D. R. (2011). An Experimental Approach to Organizational Development (8th ed.).
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Chao, M. (2008, April 25). Eco Seagate 2008 1/3 [Video file].
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=520&v=zCOfOFMiLtE
Chao, M. (2008, April 26). Eco Seagate 2008 3/3 [Video file]. Retrieved from
Smolkin, S. (2016). PERFORMANCE: Performance Ratings
Still Earn Unsatisfactory Scores. Employee
Benefit News, 30(10), 12.
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