What do coastguard survival training and building a high performance culture have in common? Three very powerful ways to get people working together as a team.
Not many people know that back in the day, I worked as a lead singer on cruise ships. It was an amazing time in my life. I got paid to do what I loved and traveled the world for free. I was on cloud 29! Until I worked for one specific cruise line that required us to go through Coastguard Survival Training before we were allowed to work on the ship. They had us arrive at 5 am and get into freezing cold water in their training pool. Then, we were taught how to work together to turn over a 30 person raft in case the ship sank and we had to lead the passengers to safety. We spent all day learning each role of flipping over the heavy raft. Two people pushed up on one side of the raft, while two others pulled on a rope to get the raft to flip on the other side. The others waited to catch the raft as it fell down so that no one would get trapped underneath it. As if that weren’t challenging enough, the instructors thought it would be a good idea to pretend like we were in the middle of a storm and started throwing buckets of water on us. Each challenge had us working harder together to overcome them. It was team collaboration at its best.
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There were three major lessons I learned that day about how to work as a team:
I believe that challenges are healthy for teams to experience in the workplace. Nothing bonds people together faster than overcoming challenges and succeeding together.
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Those who struggle together, are those who succeed together.
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Betsy Allen-Manning
Leadership Speaker | Best Selling Author | DISC Human Behavior Expert
www.BetsyAllenManning.com
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You’ve learned it, now go live it and make it a great day because you deserve it!
