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Balanced Optimism
Strategy #3
Find and focus on the winning scenario.
Over the course of a long race, sailors will inevitably encounter setbacks. In an instant, a boat can go from leading the fleet to lagging behind. A major reversal can easily discourage the crew and, left unchecked, can deplete the crew's energy. Worse yet, this weakened performance can quickly turn into a downward spiral. As Ed Psaltis notes:
The issue of optimism is a critical aspect of the Hobart race. As in any sporting endeavor, people get tired—both physically and mentally. If you haven't got that spark—something to aim for, some good news to keep in the back of your mind—the team can get demoralized very quickly. When that happens we're not performing at our best.
You have to stay embedded in reality, but I try to keep a positive outlook, because that keeps the crew going when they're cold and hungry and tired. We won't win every race, but if we've got a chance of beating our arch rival, we'll keep at it.1
Tactics for Teamwork at The Edge
Be absolutely clear about what it means to win
Every crew in the Sydney to Hobart Race would like to be declared the overall race winner—to take home the Tattersall's trophy. Any boat in the starting fleet is in direct competition with every other boat that sails out of Sydney Harbour. And because of the handicap system, every boat has a theoretical chance of winning.
In practice, not every boat is in serious competition for the Tattersall's Cup. Not every crew is willing to commit to the rigorous training, hard work, and physical rigors and discipline it takes to become a truly competitive boat. Some teams see sailing largely as a social event—albeit one that involves sailing hundreds of miles through potentially dangerous water—to enjoy “a quiet little drink” in Hobart at the end of the race.
A team that aspires to triumph at The Edge needs to first decide what it means to win. If the goal is winning the Hobart and taking home the Tattersall's trophy—literally or metaphorically—then the team can align around that goal. Alternatively, a team might choose to try to be first in their division—roughly equivalent to competing with teams and organizations of their own size. And if the goal is purely to enjoy the mateship of the journey, then the challenge is defined differently. The only requirement is that the crew complete the race safely and without injury.
An American boat named Rosebud won the Tattersall's Cup in 2007. It had been thirty years since an American entry had been declared overall winner, and it was only the third U.S. boat to win in the sixty-three-year history of the race.
Rosebud has won a number of major ocean races in addition to the Hobart—including the Newport to Bermuda and the Transpacific from Los Angeles to Hawaii. I spoke about the secret of Rosebud's success with Malcolm Park, a watch captain who played a key role in the boat's design. Park was filled with ideas about winning races:
For me, the most important thing in building a winning team is that everyone has the same vision of what the team goals are. It's not enough to say I want to win. We all want to win. That doesn't cut it. The question is, what do you want to win? Do you want to win ocean races? Do you want to win buoy races? Do you want to travel internationally? Do you want to stay locally? In our case, there is more than the result we are looking to achieve in specific ocean races like the Hobart Race. It wasn't enough simply to build a boat that would be successful. We wanted to build a class of boats that others would have an interest in.2
To find and focus on a winning scenario, the first step is to define winning. Only then will the team have a clear shared understanding of their race. With that awareness, the team can plan a strategy for taking home their trophy.
Find a winning scenario
I was once called in to help a senior executive team that was mired in problems. The CEO had strained relations with many members of the team, and a feedback report—consisting of anonymous verbatim comments—painted an extremely grim picture.
There were historical conflicts between key team members. The executives felt isolated from the leadership of their parent company. Some were fatigued, feeling that no matter how well they performed they would always be asked to do more. And there were numerous comments from people who did not feel like they were part of a winning team—they felt like losers.
The level of frustration and sense of hopelessness were more profound than I had ever seen with any senior team. After reading one negative comment after another, I started to get depressed myself. But the paradox was that the team members seemed to have all the ingredients needed to succeed. Individually, many were exceptional. There were some obvious problems that they knew how to solve. They had the potential to become a great team. But they weren't winning.
As part of a two-day team off-site meeting, I shared the story of the Midnight Rambler. I described how the crew was always able to identify a scenario by which they could be successful. The scenario didn't necessarily result in their being declared overall winners in any particular race. It could be a scenario by which they could win a bigger contest—for example, the Blue Water Point Score series. And it could even mean finishing the race at the end of the pack with the jury-rigged sail, as they did in the ’94 Hobart.
The Ramblers’ winning scenario didn't even have to be the most likely series of events. This was not about oddsmakers handicapping a horse race or about pundits predicting election results. It was not about using Bayesian statistics in a decision tree to find an option with the highest expected value. It was about giving the crew a reason to fight: a reason to believe that there was a way they could win the race on their own terms and—because of that possibility—to do everything they could to make the boat sail as quickly as possible.
The metaphor resonated with a number of team members. The idea that they needed to find some pathway to victory made sense. They realized that, absent some tangible scenario for winning, it was useless to try. But if they could see a way through the maze, then they were willing to invest time and energy in the race.
With that turning point, the team committed to a number of very specific actions. They agreed to:
Stand behind and support the CEO
Develop a strategy for dealing with the parent company
Establish ground rules for operating as a team and working together
Identify ways of more effectively running meetings, setting agendas, and avoiding dead-end conversations
Perhaps most important, they also committed to sharing the load and taking greater responsibility—rather than bringing every problem to the CEO.
This catalytic moment was a significant milestone for the team. It did not solve every difficulty with the parent company, and it didn't make all internal tensions disappear. But it did enable the team to gather the energy to get their boat upright and to turn in the right direction so that they could make it over the next wave.
Finding a winning scenario served the same purpose for this team as it had for the Ramblers. It gave the executives hope and energy so they could escape the trough of despair and start racing as a team.
Once you're committed, rely on tunnel vision
In some cases, teams can see only one path to victory. In other situations, when there are multiple options, it makes sense to deliberate. This was the circumstance that the Ramblers found themselves in during the ‘98 Hobart race, as they weighed the odds of sailing into the storm against turning around and running for safety.
In those moments of decision, it makes sense to debate every option, to consider the pros and cons, to express reservations, and to think of everything that can go wrong. But once the decision has been made, distracting thoughts need to be left behind. Everyone needs to focus on the winning scenario with tunnel vision.
On the Midnight Rambler, each crew member had an individual coping strategy for dealing with distracting thoughts about catastrophe. Arthur Psaltis willed himself out of a state of despair and focused on crew management. Mix Bencsik concentrated on straightening out the boat and passing water to the helmsman. John Whitfeld kept track of the relative percentage of time they had some control over the boat. And Chris Rockell took comfort in the fact they were doing everything they could do to survive the storm. They all stayed focused on what needed to be done to sail the boat and get to Hobart.
In some situations, tunnel vision can be dangerous. When Everest climbers are so focused on reaching the top of the mountain that they refuse to turn around, summit fever can be fatal. But in situations where there are no alternatives—as was the case with the Ramblers—tunnel vision was completely adaptive. Everything not directly involved in getting the boat through the waves was peripheral.
High-performing teams need to understand the difference between adaptive tunnel vision and dangerous summit fever. If there are choices, and if a safer option involves turning back, then teams should fight the temptation to go forward. But when a team commits to a course of action, tunnel vision becomes a valuable tool for concentrating on the goal. It is a mindset that enables the team to focus on their winning scenario and to leave distracting thoughts behind.
Consciously encourage positive, optimistic dialogue
One of the most interesting patterns to emerge from my research concerns the nature of conversation among teams that survive life-threatening situations. I've seen a similar pattern in many accounts—in teams ranging from Shackleton's Endurance Expedition to shipwreck survivors adrift in lifeboats, and to the Ramblers as well.
In the 1998 storm, the encouraging and optimistic banter of the Ramblers seemed to be transparently concocted. When Arthur Psaltis said, “The clouds up there are clearing,” or “I think we're getting through it,” his brother Ed was skeptical. Yet at the same time, he realized that Arthur's reassurance made things better. It felt good to hear him say that they were going to be okay. It helped. But how can words that seem to be an obvious spin make a bad situation better?
I gained some additional insight about the phenomenon a few years ago at the Explorers Club in New York. Because of my previous book on Shackleton, I had been asked to do a keynote presentation at the Club's Lowell Thomas Awards Dinner. I was looking forward to the dinner and to meeting a number of the distinguished honorees, including Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia.
At a reception before the awards dinner I found myself in a room filled with explorers, a number of whom had impressive resumes. None of the faces in the room were familiar, however, and this was not my usual social circle.
Much to my surprise, my wife, Susan, began waving at a figure across the room. I was supposed to be the writer and adventurer, but Susan—who grew up in Queens and has never been camping—seemed to know one of the honorees.
We crossed the room, and Susan was soon engaged in an animated conversation with Kenneth Kamler, a doctor with whom she had studied while a medical student at Mount Sinai. It seemed somewhat ironic that Susan was more at home at the Explorers Club than I was and that she knew the distinguished adventurer who was being honored at the awards dinner. It was my good fortune, however, because the event introduced me to Ken's work.
Ken Kamler has climbed, dived, sledded, and trekked through some of the most remote regions of the world. He was the only doctor on Everest during the 1996 expedition documented by John Krakauer's book Into Thin Air, and he helped treat the survivors.
As a physician, Ken's life work involves understanding how people respond to extreme conditions—how they succumb and how they prevail. And in his fascinating book—Surviving the Extremes: A Doctor's Journey to the Limits of Human Endurance—Ken shares his experience in places ranging from the jungle to high altitudes and even outer space.3 One story in particular caught my attention.
Ken had volunteered to accompany an expedition to study the tectonics of Mount Everest and to measure its exact height using a laser telescope. On the second day of the expedition, a Sherpa slipped and fell while crossing an aluminum ladder placed over a crevasse in the ice. He dropped 80 feet and ended up wedged headfirst between walls of ice at the bottom of the crevasse.
Pasang, the Sherpa, spent thirty minutes hanging upside down before his fellow climbers could bring him back to the surface. The climbing party then made its way down to the base camp where Ken was waiting. At first Pasang had been conscious and walking, but he began to stumble badly and collapsed, unconscious. It took hours to lower him slowly down the mountain.
This kind of head-on collision, followed by loss of consciousness, would have likely been fatal for someone brought into Ken's emergency room in New York City. And at the Everest base camp, 17,559 feet above sea level, none of this advanced equipment was available.
Pasang had made it down alive, but just barely. His respiration and pulse were slowing, and less oxygen was getting to his brain. Pasang's body was about to shut down, but something was keeping him alive.
Gathered round the injured climber were fellow Sherpas who had come to pray. They were facing toward him, and their lips were moving in a monotonous chant. Outside the tent there was more chanting—a chorus arising from tents around the camp where other Sherpas were keeping vigil. As Ken describes it, “In the stillness of the night the effect was powerful, primal, and unnerving: a quadraphonic rumble emanating from within the mountain itself.”
The sound was calming and hypnotizing, engulfing both the doctor and the injured climber. Ken administered oxygen through a face mask and fluids through an IV line. He performed some of his medical tasks without conscious effort. Was it possible, Ken wondered, that the Sherpas had evolved a method for matching the pitch of their chanting with the vibration of brain waves—that they could create a harmonic that was helping reverse Pasang's brain shutdown?
There was no course in medical school that showed Ken a protocol for treating a subdural hematoma in below-zero temperatures using a combination of oxygen, IV fluids, and Tibetan chants. But there on the mountain in the dark, Ken would not dismiss the possibility that the chants were helping Pasang recover from this traumatic event.
Pasang survived the night. His pulse strengthened, the swelling in his face receded, and he opened his eyes. With the morning light, the chanting stopped. Ken felt as if he had been watching the scene from a distance, and he was certain he had witnessed a healing force—that the chanting had released an energy within Pasang, a will to live that had reversed his decline.
The recovery of Pasang the Sherpa can be explained in medical terms describing nerve impulses and chemical reactions. It can be described in religious terms as a miracle. Or it can be understood through the power of human connection—the power that comes from the strength that we draw from each other in times of crisis.
Without grasping the complexities of the human brain or the possibilities of divine intervention, one thing is certain: The power of a team to surmount adversity is extraordinary. With encouragement from others, we can overcome overwhelming odds.
Navigation Points
1. Does your team have absolute clarity about what it means to succeed? Do they know what it will mean to take home the Tattersall's trophy?
2. Do all team members see a path to victory? Can they envision a scenario by which the team will win?
3. Once the team is committed, are you able to exclude distracting thoughts and focus on the goal with tunnel vision?
4. Do team members speak positively and optimistically, encouraging each other? Do they support individuals who may be discouraged—helping them regain confidence and energy?