Mountains to Climb

I recently watched a movie about two experienced mountain climbers attempting to ascend the Devil’s Thumb in Alaska, a series of five peaks close together. (Here's the movie trailer.) There were several possible approaches, all of which looked exceedingly dangerous to me, but they chose to proceed with the goal of climbing the five summits in one day. I won't spoil the ending for you, but the movie is definitely worth watching.

The amount of partnership required in tandem climbing is exceptional, and you rely on each other for the best ropes, path, and strategy.?The footage and cinematography were awe-inspiring but beyond the beauty of the picture there were other key takeaways that translate well into leadership lessons.

The first takeaway was the amount of preparation needed to plan for the ascent. Between the two climbers, it was months of training, observing, and trying to discern through pictures and maps what the best approach would be as they were not able to get their hands on the real thing. Some of our best-laid plans are developed through the facts that we have available in front of us, knowing in the moment factors will arise and challenge us. ?They needed to gather as much information as possible in advance, but on the day of the climb, it came down to making real-time decisions with a firm foundation of the homework they had done to get them there.

As I mentioned, they were preparing to do five summits at once, and after the first summit, you could sense a palpable relief and accomplishment sitting at the top. Of course, the camera then panned to look at the four additional summits they had put on their agenda. It is evident in the panorama picture that they would have to descend significantly to climb back up to achieve their next summit goal.

In talking with leaders over the last couple of weeks, we’ve touched upon this ability to celebrate a goal and then keep going vs. human nature's desire to celebrate a goal, take it off the list, and settle for what we have accomplished. Healthcare, like many other industries, will not allow you to stay at the top; by just settling you must constantly push to see where you can innovate and where you can do things better. The ability to stand back up, walk back down, and then summit back up is a skill and learned behavior that doesn’t always come naturally or easily. From a leadership perspective, our most significant task is to ensure we have created the culture, the functional expertise, and the drive that allows us to walk back down and then climb back up a different mountain.

It is evident in this movie that doing these climbs as a twosome was imperative as one climber went ahead of the other to find the next best path, then switched off who was leading to navigate a particular difficult section while the other followed. The beauty in teamwork is the ability to leverage each other's strengths and skills, to encourage and have each other's back when doing something complex or new for the first time. As a leader, you can never underestimate how important it is to build that muscle of teamwork within your organization. That doesn’t mean there are no individual goals, successes, and celebrations along the way, which are also important.?At the same time, the ability for those individuals to come together to find even greater successes is where the magic happens for a team and an organization.

Every leader understands this is not an easy path, and there are pitfalls and crevices and times when you need to go farther back than you thought so that you can restart. Leading with an element of kindness to oneself and to those around us is part of the process.?So is the ability to extend grace to those around you. As I reflect on the beginning of the holiday season, and having just celebrated Thanksgiving,?I realize that embracing grace and gratitude for those around me has not only made me a better leader but also driven my team and me to achieve more than we ever imagined possible.?

I hope you find time in this upcoming season of celebration?to extend that grace and kindness to those around you and to also extend that kindness to yourself. After all, we have new and higher summits to climb in 2025.

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