Mark Blevis

I’m in Edmonton to speak at the 2008 Legal Aid Alberta Staff Conference.  This morning I had the privilege of attending the opening keynote session delivered by Yvonne Camus, a member of the Canadian team of rookies that finished the 2000 Eco-Challenge in Borneo — against all odds.  I came out of her session with two-pages of notes.

For this post, I’ve decided to highlight three of the many significant elements of success in life and teams that Ms. Camus shared during her session.  To learn the others (and there are many amazing lessons to be learned), you’ll have to attend one of her presentations yourself.

Enthusiasm is a renewable resource

Ms. Camus shared many examples to illustrate how enthusiasm can ebb and flow.  It is this rhythm of enthusiasm that caused her to have thoughts of quitting 12 hours into what would be an arduous nearly ten days of jungle, ocean, mountains, caves and all of the accoutrements you would expect would go with a 500km adventure race.  Enthusiasm is directly connected to your dominant thought so if you set quitting checkpoints for yourself or the team, you’ll rehearse the quit in your mind which will kill enthusiasm.  You could probably cross the finish line with little or no enthusiasm, but it’ll take a lot longer to get there.

If two people on the team think exactly alike, one of them isn’t necessary

It’s important that the team be made up of unique individuals, each of whom brings a particular strength, experience and thought process.  In Eco-Challenge, a team is disqualified if one of its members drops out.  That means that individuals have to bring a unique set of physical AND psychological tools that can help inject the team with the energy it needs to make decisions, face challenges and succeed as one.  The Canadian team benefited from both sets of tools from each member during their race.  While much of the success was dependent on the sharing of strength during the course, completing the race occurred because of ideas and the occasional properly worded sentence.

An A-level idea with a B-level execution is less likely to succeed than a B-level idea with an A-level execution

Achieving consensus is not always easy.  Sometimes the group has to compromise on an good idea that everyone can get behind rather than a great idea that only a few can get behind.  If the team as a whole isn’t benefiting from the energy of all of its members, the team may as well pack it in now and save everyone the frustration of trying and failing.

Much has been said and written about teamwork.  Besides what Ms. Camus pointed out in her session, two other quotes come to mind.  The most fresh quote appeared in a video that was played to open the session.  An Eco-Challenge athlete looked back at the camera and said “don’t leave home without your friends”.  The other comes from an interview of Mark Burnett I heard some time ago.  Mr. Burnett said something to the effect of “I don’t know the secret to teamwork success, but the teams that failed all argued about the problem and whose fault it was, not the solution”.