High-altitude lessons

Just like workplace success, summiting the world’s highest peaks requires the support of a high-performance team, according to Scott Kress, mountaineer and president of Summit Team Building in Toronto.

“Teamwork is the single most important factor in organizational success,” he said. “It is what separates the good from the great. (But) there’s no shortcuts to the top — if you want to be a high-performance team, you have to earn it.”

Speaking at a recent SCNetwork event in Toronto, Kress said many parallels exist between scaling mountains and the business world. In both instances, individuals can overcome obstacles and fears with the support of a team.

“We’re all climbers,” he said. “Every single one of you is climbing a mountain — career mountains, health mountains.”

The path to high performance begins with relationship, before developing into trust, commitment and accountability, said Kress.

“Relationship is the foundation of any high-performance team. Relationship allows us to build trust with one another. When we trust one another, we’re going to communicate openly and honestly.”

The ingredients to a world-class team are leadership, well-defined roles, shared resources, transparent communication and united effort, he said.

Lessons of Cho Oyu

While working towards his goal of climbing Mount Everest — the world’s highest peak, at 8,848 metres — Kress decided to take a run at the sixth-highest peak in 2001. Known as Cho Oyu, the 8,188-metre mountain is on the border of Nepal and Tibet. 

For this adventure, Kress assembled a group of random hikers due to a lack of interest from his usual crew. The group of five included a professional guide.

“Every high-performance team needs a leader,” he said. “A leader is a coach and mentor, helping the team get to the top.”

Each summit attempt takes months to complete, with time spent acclimatizing at base camp, followed by subsequent hikes between camps in an effort to allow your body appropriate time to adjust, said Kress.

This time allows for team development, which occurs in a stage cycle of form, storm, norm and perform, he said.

“If you did a good job in forming — you have clarity around goals and roles and responsibilities, strong relationships built on trust and communication — when storming happens, you deal with it and move on,” said Kress.

“If you haven’t done a good job in forming, when storming happens, that’s when teams start to fall apart.”

“Norming is when you’re good. You’re not yet great, but you have potential for greatness. High performance is where you ultimately want to be. Life is good when you’re on a high-performance team.”

Unfortunately, the Cho Oyu team got stuck in the storming phase and never bonded, he said. Much of the issue was due to the guide’s leadership style, which included fear and intimidation.

“Leaders have got a disproportionate influence over team culture,” said Kress. “Like it or not, people are watching everything you do, consciously or unconsciously. Studies have shown that people will take on the characteristics, behaviours, values and beliefs of their leader within five days of that relationship beginning.”

The shallow relationships of the team ultimately led to disaster in the final stages of the climb. The team split, choosing different strategies to attempt the final summit, he said.

Ultimately, no one made it to the top of Cho Oyu after one member revealed she had a serious injury, and the guide called off the climb immediately.

“We had the skills. We had the fitness, the experience, the knowledge,” said Kress. “But not a single person made it to the top, and it was all because we couldn’t work together as a team.”

The failure stung, but also provided lessons for future climbs, he said, as ineffective leadership and lack of an overall vision saw the team come undone.

The Everest experience

In 2008, Kress decided to take his shot at Everest. For this adventure, he built his team around himself and a solid friend, and then made educated choices from there — all the while keeping servant leadership front of mind, which meant tracking down a guide who would do everything in his power to ensure the others’ success.

This mindset was powered by a team strategy of vision, action and reflection, he said.

“Mount Everest is a pretty black-and-white world. High-performance teams succeed. Low-performance teams fail.”

This climb wasn’t easy, but the team worked hard to establish deep relationships early, swapping hiking partners daily and purposefully discussing issues such as conflict resolution and communication styles in an effort to build a “deliberate success model,” said Kress.

Every week, the group gathered for 30 minutes to reflect on their vision and uncover any potential conflicts. This helped set the foundation for what rapidly became a high-performance team, and allowed the group to push through many obstacles, he said.

The trail leading to the top of Everest was treacherous at times, with the team needing to use ladders to scale ice mounds or cross over yawning crevasses.

If that wasn’t enough, the five team members also encountered military resistance and searches by armed personnel as the Chinese government was determined to carry the Olympic torch to the summit with as little resistance as possible ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

Satellite phones and personal cameras were temporarily confiscated, cutting off communication between climbers and their families, and climbing restrictions were also imposed. Both occurrences were major emotional blows, said Kress.

Restricted to base camp, lower-performance teams began to crack under the pressure, he said. Meanwhile, Kress’ team worked hard to remain in a positive frame of mind, even throwing a small party for those awaiting the Olympic torch to complete its summit.

“Climbing Everest, you’ve got to be strong,” said Kress, citing another workplace parallel. “You’ve got to be physically fit, but that’s just your ticket to the door. Once you get there, the difference between success and failure is… how you deal with the environment mentally and emotionally.”

The Olympic torch would eventually summit, and phones and cameras were returned before hikers were allowed to resume their treks.

And Kress’ team went on to summit the highest mountain in the world.

“For me, it was a pretty amazing experience,” he said.