The Efficient Team - notes from a cliff-top and a rainforest
Whilst conceptually bizarre, a cliff face is a great place to study efficient teamwork. Your team are literally tied together and cannot escape until the job is done! Every step, every action, affects the entire team whether they like it or not. Mountaineering efficiency has more to it than not treading on toes, or bumping someone annoying off your ledge. Other than an element of patience, great mountain teams unite the core requirements of knowledge; skill; and experience, at speed, to reach their goal. The longer they are tied together, the greater that need becomes! The longer they are out there, the greater the exposure to the elements (and to each other), and the more they need to work in harmony. If you take too long, the initial goal or summit is replaced by the need to survive. Take it from someone who has spent a lifetime meeting deadlines in inhospitable and dangerous environments – from being strapped together on sweltering desert rockfaces; to abseiling through electr