Learnings from the Lakes

This week we took ourselves out of the office and out of the business for a couple of days to regroup and focus our attention on the continued growth and success of the Kompozable Ltd business over the coming 1-3 years.

On Day 1 we took a 10 mile hike in the Lakes, allowing David Procter to tick off 5 more Wainwrights; testing my fitness levels and getting us both out into fresh air and away from Teams, into a completely different environment.

Here's some of the learnings along the way:

• Good planning pays off - David had researched our route, mapped it out and decided on a good start/end place. The route said just over 10 miles and a little over 6 hours - it wasn't far out!
• The map is not the terrain! Its a cliche I know, but sometimes the paths that we'd planned to take weren't there, weren't obvious or there was clearly a more obvious route.
• The hard work of others can make it easier for you - at one point slabs had been laid to create a clear route across a tricky bit of ground, and in another somebody had helpfully devised steps to navigate the ascent
• Somethings are outside of your control, in this case weather - it started to tip it down just a short time into our first ascent, but you can...
• Be prepared for eventualities - we'd monitored the weather forecast, so knew rain would be a possibility, and we had packed waterproofs, so didn't get too wet. Thankfully it blew over swiftly and the rest of our journey was completed in the dry, if a bit windy
• Have way-markers and a series of milestones (in this case a list of peaks to ascend) to break the journey up, providing an injection of motivation and to provide measure of progress.
• Beware false summits - more than once we saw a hill in the direction of our next target peak, assumed it was the next port of call only to find that the actual destination lay a good distance further on and further up!
• Keep checking the map and your current position - with the wonders of GPS and the OS Maps App we were able to check that we were still on the right route; double check which path we were intending to take when there was a fork/choice; how far we'd come and how much further to go.
• Don't forget to look back at how far you've travelled and where you've come from, from a different perspective - our route took us from High Tove out, on what looked like a fairly short path with limited descent/ascent, to Armboth Fell, and back again. Getting to High Tove was straight forward and it looked nondescript from the direction we'd approached it. However, looking back from Armboth it looked significantly higher and more dramatic. We also noticed, on the way back, that the down and up of the path was more pronounced, longer and more demanding than it had seemed going out!
• Your experience of the journey isn't going to be the same as others. I read a couple of discussion forum entries for part of the route that painted a bleak picture of a demanding trek across boggy terrain that could easily suck you under. As a inexperienced Wainwright walker this set unpleasant expectations. In reality, with all the dry weather, the bogs were more like a sprung dance floor than a quagmire and we traversed them easily.
• Your not the only person taking the journey - we passed and were passed by various individuals, couples and small expedition groups who were following the same paths. Some going in the opposite direction, who were prepared to share their tips of the route they'd just travelled, share their day's objectives and to reminisce of routes walked on other days.
• Go at your own pace - it wasn't a race against the clock, or against each other. There were times when one or other of us was taking the lead, and then we naturally switched. We took time to pause, check the other's progress and of course stop at the peaks to regroup, rest and taking the obligatory selfies and pictures of the views.
• Create space - Getting away for the desk and our screens gave us time and space (literally) to reflect and create a shared experience. There'd be no point in doing the walk if we hadn't had the chance to talk about a whole load of stuff, business and non-business, and take the journey together.
• And finally, don't forget to stop and enjoy the view, and have a bit of fun!!
• Oh, and celebrate achievements - in this case a couple of beers and decent curry once we'd finished!

Our walk has allowed us to reaffirm our direction of travel for Kompozable, tested our resolve (a little) and created a shared experience. All-in-all, invaluable time out of the day-to-day.