5
The Team Message

Shackleton was always opposed to splitting the party, and he very wisely refused to consider such a move … although the temptation to explore … was almost overwhelming.¹

—Frank A. Worsley

Teamwork has become something of a modern rallying cry in today’s high-performing organizations. Sometimes the word appears so often that it seems to be just another corporate buzzword, and leaders invoke the teamwork mantra whether or not the task calls for collaborative effort. Or, as happens in many academic organizations, teamwork is preached but individual achievement is rewarded.

Why is teamwork so popular? Although the concept of teamwork can be faddish, the reality is that the challenges faced by most organizations can be overcome only through unified effort. It is not surprising that in Fortune’s “All Star” list of the world’s most admired companies teamwork consistently appears as a critical part of the organizational culture. Whether in the wilderness, the classroom, or the corporation, sustained success turns on cohesive effort. This chapter explores tactics for creating a solid team and sending a strong message of unity.

Establish a Shared Identity

There was no question in Ernest Shackleton’s mind that survival depended on exceptional teamwork. Under the conditions faced by the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, a fracture in the group would mean energy wasted. This disharmony might well mean the difference between life and death.

Since Shackleton so consistently emphasized teamwork in everything he did, it is curious that he does not mention the subject more explicitly in South—his story of the expedition. Perhaps the importance of a solid team was so clear to him that it needed no special notice. He had certainly seen the potential danger of fragmentation on his earlier expedition with Scott, when interpersonal frictions were rampant. Or, perhaps, solid teamwork was simply something whose importance he instinctively understood—and that he had a knack for instilling in others.

The ability of individuals to work with others was clearly on his mind from the beginning. For example, when interviewing Reginald James, who later became the expedition’s physicist, he asked whether the prospective scientist could sing. He was not, however, probing for vocal ability. In asking whether James could “shout a bit with the boys,”² Shackleton was undoubtedly looking to see if James could live and work with others in close quarters under difficult conditions.

With some notable exceptions, Shackleton seemed to have largely succeeded in selecting a group of people who had the capacity to work together. But he clearly did not select a homogeneous group that could be expected to gel of its own accord. There was a diverse mix of temperaments: some cheerful and gregarious, others introverted and reserved. There were physicians, scientists, seamen, and artists. Shackleton did not simply assume that teamwork would happen.

Almost everything that he did was designed to promote the message of team unity. Before Endurance went down, for example, Shackleton brought all hands together in the wardroom after evening meals. These gatherings served to promote spontaneous discussion and to build the social bonds that would become so important later in the journey.

As the days wore on, Shackleton proposed a ceremonial haircutting for all, and he volunteered to be the first shorn. As Worsley described the scene:

[Rickenson] gloatingly seized the clippers & plies them till not a vestige of hair longer than a bristle is left, & his victim looks like one of the Roman Emperors. But it is when the roles are reversed, that we [are] all clipped … & looking like a group of convicts. When the commotion was over, an official group photograph was taken “to perpetuate this evening & to cure us, where necessary, of conceit.”³

The incident, although comical, was much more than entertainment. The ceremony and the haircuts themselves were also vivid statements of the men’s common identity.

This shared identity was only to grow as their adventure continued. Later, during sledge marches, the group advanced in relays to ensure that the party would remain together if cracks appeared in the ice. On Patience Camp, the tents were kept together. Still later, during the open boat journey to Elephant Island, the three lifeboats stayed in constant contact.

As a result of this continuous affirmation of team unity, near the end of the expedition, when Shackleton was forced to split the party and sail for South Georgia, the sense of cohesion remained intact. There was no fear that their comrades would abandon the “castaways”—they were as one.

Contrast this episode at The Edge in Antarctica with that of the Everest expedition described by Jon Krakauer. On May 9, 1996, dozens of climbers camped side by side, preparing for their assault on the summit. Judged by the standards of their equipment, the Everest climbers were much better prepared than any of Shackleton’s team. Instead of reindeer-skin sleeping bags and linen tents, they relied on ripstop nylon and the finest cold-weather clothing.

Thanks to the backbreaking work of a Sherpa, New York socialite Sandy Pittman was equipped with a thirty-pound satellite telephone that would enable her to file Internet dispatches from 26,000 feet. They had everything money could buy, but they lacked the one thing money could not buy on Everest—teamwork.

Krakauer describes the scene:

There were more than fifty people camped on the Col that night, huddled in shelters pitched side by side, yet an odd feeling of isolation hung in the air. The roar of the wind made it impossible to communicate from one tent to the next. In this godforsaken place, I felt disconnected from the climbers around me—emotionally, spiritually, physically—to a degree I hadn’t experienced on any previous expedition. We were a team in name only, I’d sadly come to realize. Although in a few hours we would leave camp as a group, we would ascend as individuals linked to one another by neither rope nor any deep sense of loyalty. Each client was in it for himself or herself, pretty much. And I was no different.⁴

At another time, this fragmentation, isolation, and lack of unity might not have been fatal. After adding the elements of an unexpected storm, exhausted guides, and the cognitive deterioration that occurs in the oxygen-depleted “death zone,” however, the concoction was deadly.

Climbers came upon others who were lying close to death in the snow and simply moved on without offering food, water, or oxygen. They passed the other climbers without a word, and as one later explained: “We were too tired to help. Above 8,000 meters is not a place where people can afford morality.”⁵

Lessons for Leaders

I have seen organizations that operate like the Everest expedition. One global financial institution, for example, was known as “the lumberyard.” In an effort to establish a presence in the United States, it hired a number of investment bankers with contracts that took the dimensions of lumber, such as two-by-fours and three-by-tens. In economic terms, this translated into assured compensation contracts of $2 million annually for four years, $3 million annually for ten years, and so forth.

The reward structure created an individualistic culture in which institutional loyalty was almost nonexistent. The problem was that the financial success of the organization depended on making money “between the boxes”—that is, between the institution’s different divisions. It required collaboration of investment bankers, commercial and institutional bankers, and others throughout the organization. With no common identity or loyalty, this teamwork often failed to occur.

Success at The Edge demands a different outlook, and this sense of identity can be fostered in a number of ways. Values statements, for example, can be used effectively to create a common culture and identity. The effects are not automatic, and there are instances in which corporate values statements are little more than superficial window dressing. They make attractive wall hangings, but little else. In consulting to one organization, for example, I was once asked to create a corporate values statement because the senior management team was too busy to participate in the process. As one remarked, “You’re the expert, you take care of it.” Faced with this lack of engagement, I declined.

I have seen other organizations, however, in which statements defining organizational values were taken seriously and used with great impact. At Johnson & Johnson, I was asked to help create a survey that would measure the extent to which its Corporate Credo was practiced throughout the organization.

I interviewed employees throughout the company and found that they not only knew the Credo but also used it as a guide for making business decisions. The Credo was cited, for example, as an important source of guidance during the Tylenol crisis. It was a foundational building block for the culture of the firm, and it helped define the shared identity of every member of the organization.

Maintain the Bonds of Communication

Establishing a shared identity is an essential first step in creating unity, but more is needed to reinforce the team message. To maintain a sense of connectedness, the bonds of communication need to be nurtured in every way possible.

On January 25, 1990, a Boeing 707 carrying 159 passengers on Avianca Airlines Flight 52 crashed on a wooded hill in Cove Neck, Long Island, after running out of fuel. On impact, the plane sheared into two sections, with the nose of the aircraft resting on the house deck of a terrified elderly couple.

The scene was horrific. Debris and wreckage were scattered everywhere. Oxygen masks hung from the trees, screams filled the air, children were crying, and there was little light to aid the rescuers.

The seventy-three who had died in the crash were mixed with survivors, children were separated from parents, and many of the passengers spoke only Spanish. The potential for confusion was enormous. In spite of the danger that the aircraft would explode, police, firefighters, physicians, paramedics, and local volunteers worked together to pull the passengers from the wreckage. Joan Imhof, a key figure in the rescue effort, vividly described the scene:

The focus was on saving lives. Ordinary people were doing things they had never done before, working side by side with surgeons in this nightmarish environment, applying tourniquets, and comforting survivors as best they could. Words are just so inadequate to explain the situation. People pushed away all other thoughts and focused on doing what needed to be done.⁶

The rescue effort worked almost seamlessly. For hours, workers pulled people out of the aircraft, separated the dead from the survivors, and tried to reunite terrified children with their parents. The teamwork was extraordinary, but it was also physically demanding and emotionally wrenching. As she worked to save lives, Joan was struck by the way the rescuers were interacting:

People would pass each other, reach and take a hand for a moment. Or they would look at each other, make a brief comment, and then move on. Sometimes they would embrace or nod, then continue applying bandages or moving bodies to the makeshift morgue. People needed that brief, but meaningful, contact to continue working with determination. It rejuvenated us.

Afterward, she met with a surgeon to discuss the events of the night. They stood in the hospital hallway talking about the rescue, how many limbs had been saved, and what the experience was like. At the end of this animated conversation, she realized that they had been talking in the middle of the hallway, oblivious to the traffic that went on around them, never breaking eye contact, and holding hands.

This spontaneous contact, whether it took the form of an embrace, a comment, or simply eye contact, served as the connective tissue that held the team together as its members worked successfully to save lives. It was an extraordinary rescue effort, made possible—in part—by the ability of each individual to maintain contact with the other members of the team.

Members of the Avianca rescue effort could look at each other, talk to each other, and even embrace. But the bonds of communication can be used to bind a team together even when human touch or face-to-face contact is impossible.

American POWs held in the Hanoi Hilton prison in NorthVietnam were isolated, placed in solitary confinement, tortured, and subjected to systematic efforts designed to fragment the group. The prisoners maintained their integrity and sense of solidarity, however, using what became a second language known as the “Tap Code.”⁷ Tapping on the thick walls between prison cells, the POWs communicated with an alphabet matrix consisting of five rows and five columns of letters, as shown in Figure 5-1.

“A”—the first row, first column—was sent with a tap, tap. “B”—the first row, second column—was sent with a tap, (pause) tap, tap. Each letter of the alphabet thus had its own unique code. “K” was omitted and “C” substituted.

Figure 5-1. The Tap Code.

Tapping went on throughout the day and night. As one POW described it, “The building sounded like a den of runaway woodpeckers, with everyone tapping.” To signal another prisoner, a POW would tap the sequence familiar to every American—“Shave and a haircut”—and wait for the response: “Two bits.” The North Vietnamese tried to intercept the messages but, unfamiliar with the tune, they invariably tapped the wrong response and could not figure out what they did wrong.

The prisoners tapped the equivalent of War and Peace several times over during their time in captivity. They built up speed, tapping at rates of five or six words per minute. They were also ingenious in finding different ways to use the Tap Code. They swept in code with brooms. They shoveled in code. They flashed pans across holes in code. They coughed, sniffed, spit, and sneezed in code. Since they often had colds, the communication went unnoticed.

The code was used to pass information, of course, but it was much more than that. Prisoners would tap to other prisoners for years without ever seeing each other’s faces. Yet the POWs were so intimately connected they knew each other’s moods, simply by sensing the sound of the taps. Anger, sadness, and happiness were all interpretable through prison walls by strangers who had never met.

Their captors tried repeatedly to split the prisoners so that they would be unable to gain strength from each other. They never succeeded, though, and the bonds of communication held.

Lessons for Leaders

Few organizational challenges are as emotionally demanding as coordinating an aircraft rescue or maintaining team integrity in a prisoner of war camp. But the need for frequent communication is always important in maintaining a sense of team unity.

Traditionally, we have had the luxury of working in close proximity with other team members. This means having the ability to look others in the eye and communicate face-to-face. Increasingly, however, teams are geographically dispersed entities that rely on other means of communication: email, letters, phone calls, and videoconferencing.

We are just learning how to use these media effectively. I have frequently heard the lament that electronic media are depersonalizing the workplace, draining organizations of the personal quality that is such an important part of human connection. There is growing evidence, however, that people can work together effectively in ways that were never thought possible before the advent of these new technologies. The effectiveness of the Hanoi Hilton Tap Code in communicating nuances of mood suggests that there is nothing inherent in electronic communication that makes it ineffective for bonding. In fact, the burgeoning of romance on the Internet makes it clear that a form of intimacy can flourish at a distance.

The challenge in all this is to ensure that the efficiency of technology is linked with the personal dimension so important for team cohesion. In addition, since different people are more comfortable with different media, multiple channels are needed. A handshake is, after all, a time-honored way of connecting with other humans.

Barry Salzberg, Global CEO of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, is one leader who has been recognized for his exceptional communication skills. Salzberg’s ability to connect with Deloitte employees has undoubtedly contributed to his success: first, as the head of Deloitte’s U.S. Tax Practice, next as U.S. Managing Partner, then as Chief Executive Officer, and now in his current role. Salzberg describes his approach to communication this way:

In the end, it’s all about how people feel. So much of the job is making people feel connected, with real access to leadership—making them feel like part of a community that truly has their best interests at heart. True, we can’t accommodate every request, and we don’t always get it right. But this is definitely the idea [and the spirit behind the approach].⁸

For Salzberg, communicating with employees is especially important during financial downturns, when many are concerned about layoffs.⁹ By talking honestly and openly about issues, Salzberg has helped reduce anxiety while setting a positive example for other leaders at Deloitte.

Salzberg uses a number of different channels to communicate with colleagues. His Ten Things books, available to all employees, provide lessons from his thirty-plus years in business. Each volume reveals ten insights into a wide spectrum of topics including leadership, diversity and inclusion, client service, and leading in “tough times.”

Recognized for his ability to interact directly with Deloitte employees, Salzberg has held “Straight Talk” Town Hall sessions around the country. Participants are given the option to attend in person, phone in to listen, or gain access via the Deloitte website. Salzberg answers any questions posed by his employees: No topic is off limits.

There is evidence that these tactics have paid off. Within Deloitte, employees give Salzberg exceptionally high marks for his candid answers, and for his willingness to be unguarded and available.¹⁰ He has received external acclaim and, as U.S. CEO, was named Executive of the Year (Services) in the American Business Awards competition.¹¹

We live in the Age of Social Media, but for Barry Salzberg—as it was for Ernest Shackleton—there is nothing quite like personal contact for strengthening the bonds of a team. As Salzberg sees it:

Trust is like oxygen for a business. When it’s in short supply, the effect—for employees and customers alike—can be like a loss of cabin pressure on an aircraft. And never has the danger been higher than it is now in the viral conditions of the Twitter Age.

Against these seemingly unstoppable high-tech forces, I am heartened that even today, trust and transparency still can emanate from the ultimate in low-tech: a leader standing flat-footed in a room, listening and offering, as best he or she can, the plain, unvarnished truth.¹²

Keep Everyone Informed, Involved, and Thinking About Solutions

A unified team is one in which every member understands the task to be done and feels a sense of deep personal responsibility for the success of the group’s efforts. For this to happen, each person must have a clear picture of the challenges faced by the team. This implies the open sharing of information, options, and potential consequences of choices. The unity of the Trans-Antarctic expedition reflects, in many ways, Shackleton’s ability to create this broad sense of active engagement.

Shackleton was a proactive leader who took on a great deal of personal responsibility. He was intimately involved in almost every aspect of the expedition, including the routine details of food preparation and how they would live together. He thought through how they would deal with emergencies, such as their plans for quickly striking camp. He wrestled with the life-and-death issues of how they would obtain their rescue—deciding, for example, who would make the open boat journey through the Scotia Sea.

It is remarkable, then, that he was able to sustain this level of personal involvement while creating a strong sense of empowerment and encouraging personal initiative in others. A key element to this duality lay in his ability to keep people psychologically engaged and continually thinking about potential solutions to the obstacles they faced. Undoubtedly, he had dual motives: One was to maintain morale, the other to solicit practical ideas that would contribute to their survival.

How was he able to express his own ideas strongly and, at the same time, keep people thinking about solutions? One of his actions was to create the Directive Committee, an inner circle of key advisers. The Directive Committee—comprising Frank Wild, Frank Worsley, and Frank Hurley—acted as a sounding board for all major decisions.

The Quorum, as Hurley described the group, had unanimously agreed to establish Ocean Camp after the failed sledge march. The committee also weighed the difficult alternatives it faced. These choices were grim ones and the outcomes uncertain. As Worsley described it, the Directive Committee debated and prepared:

… for the worst eventuality of having to stop on the Pack for another winter. … On the other hand if by the end of January we have, as is probable, drifted near enough to Graham’s Land, or the S. Orkneys, we may make one or the other by aid of the leads we hope to have come to. … The third alternative is a risky but a necessary dash to the West at the end of Jan, abandoning boats but sledging the small punt the Carpenter has made. This we would only do if the drift became arrested … so … that we were fairly certain we would otherwise have spent the winter on the floe running the risk of it opening and crushing the boats some dark winters midnight.¹³

Although Shackleton had strong ideas about the right course of action, he listened to the counsel of the Directive Committee, and these meetings influenced his views. In addition, this advisory group helped build the strong core of support that Shackleton would need later when the odds against their survival grew, along with the potential for mutiny and resignation.

As important as the Directive Committee was, Shackleton’s willingness to consult with others was not restricted to this inner circle. As he made the rounds, Shackleton continually asked “whether there was anything we might be doing that we aren’t doing.”¹⁴

He did not, of course, make decisions by majority vote or act on all suggestions. Shackleton was approachable, however, and he gave each person the feeling that he had a role in affecting the course of events. Especially when plans changed—as often happened—the Boss encouraged open discussion and comment. As a result, everyone was made to feel that his opinion counted.¹⁵

Lessons for Leaders

Information really is power. It can be shared openly or it can be closely held and doled out reluctantly. In one case, a culture of financial transparency and open communication enabled a boutique consulting firm to avoid turning a potential acquisition into a divisive issue.

With the CEO nearing retirement age, he was concerned that the transition could be disruptive. He had watched another founder–entrepreneur sell his consulting firm with no employee preparation or involvement and no distribution of profits. The CEO appeared the morning after the sale wearing an expensive Rolex watch and a self-satisfied grin. Shortly after that abrupt transition, the firm fell apart.

Determined to avoid this scenario, the thoughtful CEO worked hard to involve each member of his team in candid discussions concerning their shared future. Everyone had access to the firm’s financial information, including salaries, and everyone was expected to contribute ideas to best position the firm for acquisition. The CEO also met with other former business owners who had successfully sold their firms and then shared his findings with his team. As a result of the CEO’s strategy of open communication and inclusive action, the team was fully aligned in preparation for the sale.

This is not to argue that every detail of a developing situation need be instantly shared and without interpretation. There were times when Shackleton waited until the crew was rested to announce bad news. Every leader needs to be sensitive to the timing and context in which information is shared. However, for a group to succeed at The Edge, all of the essential facts of the situation must be understood and integrated into the collective consciousness of the team.

Leverage Everyone’s Talents—and Deal with Performance Problems Constructively

Shackleton displayed a unique ability to understand each person’s temperament and skills, and then to match those qualities with the needs of the expedition. As a result, all crewmembers contributed as best they could, and Shackleton avoided many performance problems that might have otherwise arisen. There were, nevertheless, times at which he had to bring people back into line. His ability to manage poor performers is somewhat surprising, given his unusual sensitivity to the feelings of others.

This sensitivity is illustrated by one incident that occurred in the perilous journey to South Georgia. The plug tobacco carried by the crew eventually disintegrated through the constant pounding of waves. The leaves washed around in the ballast and mixed with hair from the reindeer-skin sleeping bags, creating an odiferous concoction.

An ingenious seaman collected the leaves, dried them with the Primus stove, and created cigarettes using soggy toilet tissue for rolling paper. When the creator offered this special treat to the Boss, Shackleton would take a few obligatory puffs, then quickly pass it on as soon as the donor’s back was turned.¹⁶

As much as he took great pains to avoid hurting others’ feelings, Shackleton was quick to act when corrective measures were needed. The eccentric Orde-Lees, for example, took to riding his bicycle out onto the ice, amusing himself with feats of trick riding. On one ride he became hopelessly lost and had to be rescued by a search party. Thereafter, he was sternly ordered never again to leave the ship by himself.¹⁷

Orde-Lees’s odd disposition and eccentric ways caused repeated conflicts with others, and he could easily have been scapegoated by the rest of the crew. He even managed to antagonize the agreeable Wild—but he never became the outcast he could have been. As a result, he was able to contribute when and where he could. Thus, on the sail to Elephant Island, Orde-Lees took Blackborow’s frozen feet and warmed them against his chest.

The principal factor in keeping Orde-Lees within the team was Shackleton’s unerring dedication to maintain team unity and his ability to avoid even the appearance of favoritism. He was acutely sensitive to the possibility of splintering and took great pains to ensure that fragmentation was nipped in the bud. Worsley observed:

When there are twenty-eight men herded together in partially enforced inactivity, with nothing but snow and ice to look upon, life is bound to become irksome. The irritation of trying to drift north and knowing ourselves powerless to combat the inexorable laws of nature … was bound to result in a certain fraying of nerves and consequent ebullitions of temper. Little cliques and factions grew up, but Shackleton’s tact and diplomacy soon destroyed that spirit. He would redistribute the occupants of tents … and would remind each man that strength lay in unity.¹⁸

This commitment to avoid bias even extended to his relationship with Worsley and Wild. Shackleton leaned heavily on both of these key figures for counsel, and they were clearly the ranking officers in the expedition’s hierarchy. But they were never seen as “cronies”—all were as one under the aegis of the team.

Lessons for Leaders

Probably no leadership task is more difficult than dealing with poor performers while, at the same time, maintaining sensitivity to individual feelings and team unity. Leading at The Edge involves dealing with that complicated mix, however, and team cohesiveness is never advanced by overlooking individuals who fail to pull their weight.

When it comes to performance problems, I have seldom, if ever, heard a leader say, “I acted too quickly to deal with the issue.” The tendency is to do just the opposite—wait until performance has deteriorated to the point that there is no possibility of recovery or until others have been alienated by being let down by the poor performer. An unwillingness to deal with performance detracts from, rather than supports, team integrity.

As important as it is to deal with poor performers, it is equally important to act in a way that avoids isolating the individual and that gives him or her a chance to recover. Bob, for example, was head of R&D at a leading chemical company. Bob had a star performer on his team—a research chemist responsible for some of the firm’s most innovative, creative, and profitable new products. In accordance with organizational goals, he rewarded Charlie (not his real name) with a promotion to senior management.

Not long afterward, however, Charlie’s performance began to suffer. Accustomed to hands-on work, Charlie was lost when it came to supervising a research staff, and his administrative abilities were severely lacking. Not only was he failing to develop new product ideas, he was also hindering the ability of his staff to do so.

Bob confronted the problem, but he dealt with it in a constructive way. Rather than reprimand his colleague, Bob recognized that the company and Charlie would be better served if Charlie were freed from daily management responsibilities. Bob created a position that had comparable status to senior manager. As “senior research fellow,” Charlie returned to a creative role and his management duties were assigned to an executive who was strong in that capacity.

Bob’s creation of an alternate career path for Charlie not only supported organizational goals but also created an opportunity for Charlie (and other creative members of the organization) to succeed in a situation that could easily have produced resentment and fragmentation.

The best leaders are sensitive to individual needs and skills, and they find ways of using diverse talents. When corrective action needs to be taken, it is done in a way that avoids isolating or scapegoating people. Successful leaders continually drive home the team message: “We are one—we live or die together.”

Expedition Log

Shared Identity

1. What have you done to promote a sense of shared identity for your team?

2. Are your team values explicit and understood by all? Are they used in making decisions?

3. What else can you do to promote identification with the team?

Communication

1. What do you do to stay in touch with the members of your team? Could you be doing more?

2. How would you assess the quality of communication among team members?

3. Are there occasions when the team is able to come together for face-to-face discussion and contact?

Information and Involvement

1. Do all members have a clear picture of the challenges faced by the team as a whole, and a sense of personal responsibility for the team’s success?

2. Are there occasions for open discussion of options and decisions—and of potential consequences of different courses of action?

3. Is there anything more you might be doing to keep everyone engaged and thinking about solutions?

Performance

1. How do you assess your ability to deal effectively with individual performance problems? Are there issues you should be dealing with, but are avoiding?

2. Are there factions, or individuals, within your team that are now isolated or scapegoated? If so, what can you do to bring them into the group so they can be fully engaged?