HR Magazine was invited to join the ‘Shackleton Challenge’—a highly unique training day to stimulate team-work and facilitate team-building in a challenging, rewarding and exhilarating fashion. The day was organised by AETG and conducted by Colin Tan, Managing Director & Chief Executive Coach, MetaNoia Intervention.
After being fed and watered, the participants were tasked with a monumental challenge; to retrieve a lifeboat from Antarctica. And not just any lifeboat—the James Caird, used by Sir Ernest Shackleton to get help from South Georgia Island after getting his ship and crew stranded in one of Earth’s most hostile environments. This little life-saver is in reality safely stored at Dulwich College—Shackleton’s secondary school—however for this scenario, it has been stolen by a syndicate who promptly hid it somewhere near the South Pole. Of course, this artifact representing great leadership ability and teamwork had to be retrieved by a team of HR professionals.
Five teams were instructed to plan an expedition to Antarctica—including resources such as food, fuel and tents, as well as vehicles, routes and different environments and weather patterns. Even the brief was highly detailed, far more so than you might expect from a half-day training session. Each team was then tasked with appointing a leader and making a selection of professions which could deal with various disaster scenarios (think doctors for frostbite etc.).
The information provided was quite overwhelming, and figuring out the best way to approach this behemoth task required immediate team-work and direction from the elected leader, facilitating communication and serving as a swift ice-breaker. Teams were then left to their own devices in completing the tasks at hand.
After a lot of running back and forth (in snow-shoes no less!) to the trade post to exchange food and supplies and frantic planning and executing, the challenge drew to a close with a number of teams solving the riddle that revealed the location of the James Caird.
After the conclusion of the game, all the team leaders were asked to comment on their team-members and the team dynamic. The facilitator then shared some inspiring stories and solid advice as it pertained to the team’s performance. The Chief Executive Coach had been paying close attention to the teams during the challenge and shared key insights regarding items that the teams could improve on and what they did exceptionally well. Similarly, the teams were asked to comment on their leaders, which provided Tan with another opportunity to really dig into the leadership style—good and bad aspects—of the leader in question, highlighting key leadership aspects that make for an effective captain.
All in all, the Shackleton Challenge was a unique training experience that felt like a grand game, complete with competitive spirit, team-work and desperation to finish before the other teams. Ultimately, however, the day served as a good reminder of what makes training effective in the first place—learning to collaborate more efficiently, building better teams and evaluating key strengths and weaknesses of both individual members and leaders, and the group as a whole. The Shackleton Challenge provides great insight into the key leadership styles and team dynamics that build an effective workforce and is an effective team-building exercise for leaders and teams of all shapes and sizes.
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
