It is rare that Everest is climbed solo. Even if a climber is alone on the mountain, there is a team at home that has given this person the support to do what he or she is doing.

Everest is climbed step by step and each person must take those steps on their own. Nobody can do this for you. However, it is the team that gives the individual the power to perform.

As I was approaching the summit of Everest on that beautiful day in 2008 I was alone. I was alone in my thoughts and I was alone in my movements. Yes there were other people around me, but essentially I was alone in my own small world. I was performing alone, but I was climbing off the “backs” of my team mates and they were climbing off my back. The team had been essential in my success as they helped to give me the mental and emotional strength to do what I was doing. Without the team I never would have been able to accomplish what I did.

I had another critically important team with me that day. Back home my wife and two children were waiting for news of my ascent, but they were with me every step of the way. Death is common on Everest and many climbers will just sit down and never get up again. There were times when I wanted to sit down and give up, there were times when my body faltered, there were times when my mind wandered. This is when my home team came into play. Thinking of them would snap me back into the moment and force my body and mind to perform.

Everest is not often climbed by teams anymore. It is climbed by groups of people loosely bound together by a common goal; the summit. However, they are not bonded to one another and there is no common vision in most cases. This can work out just fine when the sun is shining and life is good. But when the mountain throws a curve ball these groups fall apart.

It often becomes “every person for themselves” with a few Sherpa and guides trying to help whomever they can. You can see the results of this in many of the tragedies on Everest and other high mountains such as K2. Having a strong and tightly bound team does not guarantee safety, but you have a much larger operating zone. You can tolerate greater extremes and come out on the other side.

In times gone by when small independent climbing teams worked together there was a very strong team bond. This is what was referred to as the “brotherhood of the rope” (It is not that different from the mariner’s code where ships will divert their course to help another ship in distress regardless of time and financial cost). These climbers worked very closely together and supported one another. Today the common practice is to climb Everest with a group of strangers. These people do not have the same bond to one another and there is not the same level of commitment.

If a climber becomes sick or injured it is the responsibility of the guide to deal with. Climbers within teams often will not sacrifice their summit chance to assist a fellow team member and this is even more prominent when it is a stranger in distress. People die every year as others walk by. Often there is little that can be done, but in some cases this help can save a life.

Ultimately being part of a high performance team will make any activity easier, safer and more enjoyable.

True Patriot Live expedition update:I have so far raised $2300 for True Patriot Love towards my $10,000 goal. Please go to www.expeditionhimalayas.ca to learn more and go to http://www.canadahelps.org/GivingPages/GivingPage.aspx?gpID=19224 to donate to this worthy and patriotic cause.

My last blog focused on the destructive effects that poor leadership can have on a team. This blog will look at how to achieve success through good leadership.

There is more to team success than leadership ... team members do play a critical role ... however, great leadership can make even a dysfunctional team great. How? Great leaders are very conscious in their approach and use what we at Summit Training call the “Deliberate Success” approach“.

Deliberate Success involves developing yourself into the great leader you want to become, while simultaneously helping those you lead develop into the great team you want them to become. In both cases it consists of three simple (and deliberate) steps: Vision, Action and Reflection.

1. Create your VISION of success. This includes both the results you intend to get, and the values you intend to follow. Create a clear definition of success for your team and for yourself as a leader. It is not good enough to say you will be ‘high performing’ because that really has no meaning … or, rather, it can have any number of meanings. You need to be very specific as to the results and the culture that you want to have. After all, if you cannot define it, you cannot measure it. And, if you cannot measure it, you have no idea whether or not you are doing it. As Stephen Covey writes in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “Begin with the end in mind”.
2. Take ACTION. Make a deliberate, focused plan and implement it. These actions must be directly connected to your vision. Deliberate and specific actions are essential to success. You can just do what you do and hope for the best, or you can do the right thing and get your desired result. Make sure you schedule your actions. State what you will do, when you will do it, who you will do it with, why you are doing it and what you expect as results. Without this level of detail, there is a very high chance you will not follow through.
3. Reflect. Without reflection, it is easy to lose your way, to stray off course toward some “shiny object” that catches your attention. Periodically ask yourself if you are achieving what you set out to do. Is your vision still the right one for you? Are you being who you said you would be? Are your actions getting you the results you had hoped for? If not, why not, and what do you need to change?

Great leaders will take this very deliberate approach to build a high performance team. While there is a great deal more to leadership than this, you can consider this the foundation.

True Patriot Live expedition update: I have so far raised $2000 for True Patriot Love towards my $10,000 goal. Please go to www.expeditionhimalayas.ca to learn more and go to http://www.canadahelps.org/GivingPages/GivingPage.aspx?gpID=19224 to donate to this worthy and patriotic cause.

It is an honour to announce my participation in the True Patriot Love "March to the Top" expedition this October. True Patriot Love www.truepatriotlovefoundation.com was created to honour and support members of the Canadian military and their families. The March to the Top expedition will pair 15 wounded and ill Canadian soldiers with 15 civilian business leaders. Each civilian will be paying for the total cost of their partner soldier to participate in the expedition, and raising awareness and funds for the much needed work funded by True Patriot Love. These men and women have risked it all and sacrificed their chances for a “normal” quality of life, all in an attempt to defend democracy and pursue world peace. It is the least we can do to support them in their hour of need.

This team of climbers will trek to Everest base camp and then embark on a summit attempt on Island Peak. Amputations, burns, gunshot wounds and post traumatic stress disorder that they have endured in battle will add to the grueling challenges that they will face on the mountain.

My role will be as the Captain of the civilian team. Based on my previous mountaineering experience and my team building skills, I will endeavour to assist in the formation of this team, and to do my best to help each team member to stand on the summit of Island Peak. I will be blogging daily while on the expedition and you can follow along right here on this blog.

Joining us will be a documentary team from the CBC who will be filming the expedition. The documentary will be aired on CBC in January of 2013. The goal is to raise awareness of the challenges our soldiers face when returning from combat and peace keeping missions around the world www.cbc.ca/marchtothetop.

Part of my mission for this expedition is to raise funds for True Patriot Love. Please go to www.expeditionhimalayas.ca or contact me directly to learn more about this expedition and to make a donation as part of my goal to raise $10,000.00.

Leadership plays a significant role in the overall team success for several reasons. Leaders, good ones at least, define the vision, mission, values, goals, roles, and expectations for the team. Referring to Tuckman’s stages of team development (Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing), these are all things that need to take place in the forming stage. This is the foundation from which all else will be built. Start with a shaky foundation and your team will crumble in the first storm.  Build a solid base and your team can withstand great force.

A leader’s job ultimately is to make the team successful. Leaders are coaches and mentors; they help keep teams on track, remove barriers and prepare the ground so the team can perform unhindered.

Conversely, leaders can also create a toxic environment that leads to total team destruction and failure. Sometimes this is due to incompetence and sometimes leaders simply use bad tactics because they think they are right.

In my soon to be released book, Learning In Thin Air (the same title as my keynote), I share stories of good and bad leaders and the impact they had on overall team success.

On one of my first real big Himalayan expeditions I was unable to get any of my long-time climbing partners to join me. I was forced to sign on with a professionally led trip. This trip brought together a group of highly-experienced strangers with a common goal, and then added a team leader. We would not be using Sherpa support and our leader was not a guide, but someone there to coach and mentor us, and to help us navigate our way through the complex world of 8,000m climbing. Our leader did not lay a foundation of trust and communication, but actually alienated all of us, drove a wedge between team members and destroyed trust. There was no plan, no vision and no sharing of information. This very long story ends in epic failure. Not a single team member made it to the summit and it had nothing to do with skill, experience, fitness or weather. It had everything to do with the toxic environment created by our team leader and the resulting total breakdown of team function.

At the time I placed the blame solely on our leader. But, in time, I realized that my own inaction had also played a part in our failure. I had done nothing to counteract what was happening within our team. I just sat back and played the part of the helpless victim.

I learned immensely from this experience and have applied this learning to all future expeditions and in business as well. In my next blog, I will share a success that grew from this leadership failure.

As a climber and a team and leadership specialist I want to take some time to discuss the recent tragic events on Mount Everest. You may have heard in the news about the deaths on Everest over the last few days. Everest is a dangerous place and deaths are part of every climbing season. However, this year there have been 11 deaths and the season is not even over. This is considerably higher than most years. When I summitted in 2008 there was only one death. So what makes this year different than other years? What is it that causes climbers to die on Everest? There are no simple or complete answers to these questions, but there are several factors that play into them. Over the next few blog postings I will reflect on and explore this tragedy based on my 25 years of climbing experience and, particularly, on my personal experience on Mount Everest.

As with everything in life some of the factors that are leading to climbers' deaths on Everest are outside their circles of influence. But many are not. I will touch on both in my blog.

I see three main factors that lie within our circle of influence that are causing issues on Everest: 

1. overcrowding,
2. inexperienced climbers, and
3. lack of team work.

Outside of our circle of influence is a big one: climate change.

Some of the topics I will discuss include:

• Why is Mount Everest so dangerous?
• Why are so many people going to Everest in spite of this danger?
• Is there an overcrowding issue on Everest?
• How is climate change impacting safety on Everest?
• Is inexperience playing a role in the deaths on the mountain?
• What role does leadership play in success, failure and death on Everest?
• How to be a great leader.
• What role does team work play in success, failure and death on Everest?
• How to build a high performance team.
• How can one prepare for a climb of Everest?
• What is a smart risk?

Journey of a Lifetime!

"Men Wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success”

As the story is told, this was a employment advertisement put into the London newspaper looking for members for Ernest Shackelton’s Nimrod expedition to Antarctica. Apparently thousands of applications were received for what in print seems to be a rather bleak job. However, the enormous enthusiasm surrounding this ad reflected the human desire to explore, to adventure, and to push personal boundaries.

People often ask me why I climb. Why I spend my free time in cold and inhospitable locations. Why I put my life at risk. This is a difficult question to answer, but the basic response is because I love it. It makes me feel alive.

In mid November of this year I will join two friends in an attempt to climb Mt. Vinson, the tallest mountain in Antarctica. To date I have successfully summited the tallest mountain in 6 of our 7 continents. Climbing Mt. Vinson, providing that I make it to the top, will be my final summit of the “7 Summits.”

Before my departure, my blog’s will focus on my daily preparations, my gear, my thoughts, my family’s thoughts, my drivers, and much more. Once on the expedition I will do my best to send back daily blogs reporting on our progress and my personal thoughts and insights.

As a leadership and high performance team specialist I will also share my insights into this world and how some of my personal experiences can be used to better understand how to lead and build high performance teams.

My good friends at Adult Essentials (www.adultgummies.com) will be supporting me on this journey. Daily exercise and nutrition are a critical factor in success. The stronger I am, the greater my chance of success and the more I will enjoy the experience. My challenge however, is that like many of you, I Iead a very busy life. Between business and family commitments it is difficult to find time to train and I do not always eat as well as I should. This is where nutritional supplements come into play: to help me balance my dietary needs while finding time to train physically for this trip