Chapter 29      

‘No triangles’ takes effort and persistence

As I've already shared, we did have moments of conflict and personality clashes. Conflict isn't necessarily a bad thing, however. It's how it's handled that can cause the damage or create the benefit. Conflict can be great for generating a really thorough analysis of an idea or proposal. After all, if not everyone agrees on something, it's valuable to listen to, and try to understand, the differing viewpoints. This can lead to an even better outcome that covers points perhaps not yet considered.

Different strokes for different folks

The conflict that was most challenging for me wasn't caused by the obvious diversity within this disparate group of individuals. There was very little conflict caused by differences between the men and women, say, or the baby boomers and the Gen Ys. These more overt differences (age and gender) rarely caused concerns. The bigger challenges related to the diversity of thinking styles and preferences and the varied types of work experience.

The ‘big picture’, creative, often extroverted types really irritated some of the more subdued, ‘fine detail’, often introverted people. And vice versa. Neither style was better or worse; they were just different, and these differences in style sometimes caused conflict. Throughout winter I committed time with individuals to continue the work we had started on the journey down — understanding each other, our differences, what makes us tick.

An interesting quirk of Antarctic expeditions is that there is a mix of people with widely varied work experience. People who have been self-employed their entire careers (and have never reported to a manager) work alongside those who have always worked in teams within larger organisations. It created an interesting opportunity for me to coach the ‘sole operators’ to share their knowledge and skills as part of a team while encouraging the ‘team people’ to have the confidence to show their initiative and not wait to be told what to do next.

To build mutual understanding we created a calendar of ‘showcase’ events. These were designed around a half-day session where each team would run through ‘a day in their life’. They would outline what they did each day; what their critical tasks were; and what their major aims and projects were for the year. And of course, it wouldn't be an Antarctic expedition if we didn't make each event memorable by serving great food!

As you will have gathered, the topic of food was never far from people's lips and was a focal point of our community. To take advantage of this, I let each team select both the catering and the venue for their event.

On Plumbers’ Day we spent a few hours in their shed learning about plumbing work and then sat back and enjoyed a delicious spit roast and roasted potatoes. For his day, Doc hosted us in his surgery and we had a high tea with cream cakes and a fantastic array of other cakes and slices. On Station Leader's Day we spent the session in my office and topped it off with canapés and bubbly.

As well as creating some great memories and sharing a few laughs, these ‘day in the life’ events were an important tool for building strong teamwork through shared understanding. Every person fully appreciated the role of every other member of the team. After these sessions I no longer heard that old refrain, ‘Yes, but what do they do all day?’

No triangles, and difficult conversations

I was very clear from the start of the expedition that I expected people to sort out interpersonal spats with each other, and only if they couldn't resolve the issue should they come and involve me.

There were several reasons for this tactic. Firstly, it was to encourage mature conversations and acceptance that we will, from time to time, get on one another's nerves. But if the other person's behaviour truly affected us and our enjoyment of our time on station, then something needed to be done.

Secondly, I wanted to protect myself from the emotional burden that goes with trying to sort out personal disagreements and issues in a workplace. It is not the role of any leader to sort out every conflict between staff; they are old enough to sort it out themselves and you will exhaust yourself trying to smooth over every little spat. Of course, the big exception to this rule is behaviour that involves bullying or harassment — that's clearly an issue where a leader must step in and act decisively and immediately.

However, for those everyday, garden-variety niggles that are common to every workplace the leader's role is to coach people in how to address the issue themselves. It took several attempts for me to hone this skill. The first time I tried to coach my staff about ‘no triangles’ was a miserable failure. Phil came to see me and said, ‘Matt really annoys me when he speaks to me in that tone of voice’. I asked him if he wanted me to speak to Matthew and he replied, ‘No, I'm just telling you so you know.’

Hmm… I thought, does the word ‘dobbing’ spring to mind?

‘Well Phil’, I said. ‘It's now the second week of August. You've been with Matthew for the past nine months and we've only got 12 weeks before we head home. If you want to enjoy the rest of your time in Antarctica, I suggest you go and have a chat about it directly with him.’

I gave him some tips such as ‘pick the right time of day, don't grab him first thing in the morning as he comes downstairs for breakfast’ and ‘be empathetic and try to understand where he is coming from’. He went away and returned the next day and told me: ‘I followed up that issue with Matthew.’

‘Great!’ I replied, ‘how did you go?’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I sent him an email and …’

I honestly don't know what he said after that as my head was just full of a voice saying ‘No, no, no,’ with a couple of Homer Simpson ‘Duh!’ noises thrown in. I gently explained to Phil that you never, ever broach these topics over email. I explained that as email has no tone or context it is very easy to misinterpret someone's words and often they can appear harsher than the author intended.

So I went through my coaching tips with him again: pick the right time, stick to the facts, be empathetic and so on. But most important, speak to him! So he did, and the next day he found me and told me, ‘Well, I spoke to Matthew.’

‘Terrific’, I said. ‘How did it go?’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I waited until he'd had a few beers …’

AAARGGHH!!! Yes, there is a reason they are described as ‘difficult’ conversations. The conversation itself isn't easy, but nor is it easy to coach people on how to have the conversation. After this episode, I put down what I reckoned we needed to do for these difficult conversations and we implemented the rule of ‘no triangles’: you don't speak to her about him, or I don't speak to you about her. Go straight to the source. Show courtesy and respect and create ‘no triangles’.

Most people do not set out deliberately to upset someone at work (or at home). They just don't. Usually we aren't even aware that we may have upset someone, and it's a horrible feeling when we find out we have. And it's worse when we find out the person went to a third party to discuss it rather than coming directly to us. The decent and respectful thing to do is to be brave and go directly to the person. It's not always easy but it creates open and honest communication, which in turn builds teamwork.

Return of the sun

Slowly and steadily the light returned to Antarctica. It was a blessing to look out my window and not just see myself reflected against the inky blackness. The plateau behind us emerged as a vague shape, then the outline of the hills surrounding the station, until there was a blue-grey light that got brighter and brighter each day.

The day the sun returned we threw a party. A well-planned party, a welcome back party, and there was a lot of celebration. We headed out onto the ice and it was an amazing feeling to stretch our legs and feel the rush of cold air on our faces again.

Spring approached us at a gallop and took me largely unawares. I was used to the slow change of seasons back home, but when the amount of daylight increases by around 20 minutes each day I found that at the beginning of the week we had one hour of sun per day and at the end of the week three! It was an incredible time and slowly the sun started to have an impact on the temperatures.

It was amazing to see just how quickly the niggly behaviour disappeared with the eternal night. As a unit we went from cabin fever, sluggish, quiet and irritable to high energy and excitement. With the sun came the opportunity to de-ice the equipment, dig out the massive snowdrifts around the station and get back on top of life.

But the morning of my performance review dawned cloudy and bleak. Despite my lack of superstition, it made me uneasy.