Climbing with a group and attaining the summit with a team

… Teams, teams, teams

See what's become of us

… Teams, teams, teams

See what's become of us

While we looked around for our possibilities

… we were so hard to please

While ascending the #Kilimanjaro, the #Bangles did not, at any point, accompany us neither with their Manic Monday nor Hazy Shade of Winters. However, now, 2 months later, reflecting on how this ascent unfolded, the Bangles came rushing as a parody of their lyrics. Like any proper adventure, the Kilimanjaro one started with an innocent WhatsApp message from a friend with whom I hike: “we do Kili in March”? And I replied in between meetings, calls, and other messages “Sure sure”. A few months later, at #Beirut airport I get to meet a few of the other climbers, and I met the rest at a hotel in Tanzania. This is how I found myself as part of a group of climbers (nine which I never met before and one that I day hiked with a few times) that will spend days on the mountain together, and I was expecting the worse (as usual). It was hard not to wonder how can you bring such a different set of individuals in terms of backgrounds (sales engineer, architect, entrepreneur, garage owner, event planner, civil servant, airline customer rep, HR expert and consultant), ages (ranging from the late 20s to the late 50s), different cultural background (#Armenian, #Canadian, #Chinese and #Lebanese) and expect them to spend 10 days together with minimal friction?

Over the next 10 days, I went into observation mode watching the dynamics unfold between the group members and looking for lessons to bring back with me along the memories and the photos from beautiful #Tanzania. And what emerged slowly and crystalized in front of us all was the beautiful metamorphosis of a group of individuals into a #highperformingteam that came together without a #leader, without anyone stating the need for it and without the other artifices typical in team-based organizations such as in #consulting or #engineering firms. How could this be?

In this article, I will summarize some of my observations/questions/insights and hope to be able to dwell on them in a series of articles later by building on comments/reactions to this one.

One of the first questions that became apparent is to which extent planning is needed vs. leaving space for adaptation and emergence? Comparing the professional setting, where I operate during my professional hours, to the one I was thrust into for this climb, the contrast was evident. In the former, details at multiple levels are predefined, carefully planned and thoroughly executed with all kinds of TLAs (you guessed it Three Letter Abbreviations), with assigned roles and responsibilities and a technostructure (human and digital) to ensure that the whole choreography happens with minimal deviations. In the latter, there were barely a round of minimal intro (“Hi I am Jad” “Hi Jad, I am Lauren”). These are two extreme situations that end up delivering results but what is the right balance in each situation?

The next question is how do you align the multitude of personal objectives to a single common objective? Here you have 10 individuals who flew to Tanzania from as far as #Toronto, each coming with some personal objectives to achieve, personal fears to conquer, personal stuff they want to do and yet without the typical artefacts used in professional firms (assign a project leader, develop a project plan, agree on team norms and other PTOs), they aligned. How did this happen without it being designed: is alignment a structural component or an emerging one?

Moreover, this happened without having a designated leader nor one emerging and imposing themselves to lead, guide, inspire, direct, or whatever appropriate verb leaders ornate themselves with. What was beautiful to observe, was that at any point that someone needed to play a role (cheering, supporting, informing, etc.), one of us was there to do it and when no one did it, no one noticed (or it might not have been needed). Are roles defined, agreed to, and structured or are they needs-based emergent and ephemeral phenomena that are just plug and play and discarded after use??

We also witnessed the emergence of sub-groups within the group. However, they were not perceived as cliquish or detrimental, nor were they exclusive. We had the “Crazy Laughers” sub-group that radiated positive energy, we had the “Human Panels” ensuring phones are charged, we had the “x-Red Crossers” making sure to have explanations for our depleted oxygen levels, etc. These were neither exclusive nor rigid. Members would move, coalesce around sub-groups and then re-organize constantly during the climb. Why “cliques” have such a bad rep in organizations? What contexts allows them to show their bright side, and which cast their dark shadows long??

Finally, we went through multiple dynamics: from the exuberance of the starting point (“One Team One Dream”) to the depleted energy facing the #BarrancoWall or the silence enveloping the white, snowy lunch on #LavaTower. All through these different moments, at no point any of us was superfluous, taxing or slowing the group. It was just one blob moving forward systematically. How come we had no black sheep? Or if we did, how come we did not notice them?

Great observations one might say and then …so what? Let’s leave the so what for a next article where I will share some personal conclusions I got out of this climb, observations and the behavior of the amazing members.

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