Give me your hand. Let me take you to a journey that shows you seven virtues that I think should be lived in a Team (like a Startup) beside motivation, working hard and following the vision. Let me show you on the example, of a short story how these could influence Your Team (Department, Startup, Sports Club) or even Your Every Days’ Life. You just need to read it and think further, adopt it to your life, to what happens to you.
Contents
- A Team challenged by the Nature
- The Journey begins
- The Incident
- The Island
- The Dream
- Challenging the Authority for Progress and Motivation
- Multitasking to get things done
- Improvise for the best Solution
- Trying New Ways bring new Opportunities
- Take the risk or you will always wonder what would have been
- Stay Positive and Positive will return
- The Village a Rescue?
- New Chances through Networking
- The 7 Virtues in a row
A Team challenged by the Nature
The Journey begins
We were crossing deep blue seas with our small sailboat, passing beautiful untouched islands. On some of them aborigines are still living. It was a beautiful team-building event. The coach was the captain, but we learned to work closer which each other. We learned, understanding each other even better. Everything was close to perfect, until our sixth day.
The Incident
The next thing I know is when I woke up. The sun was shining again. I smelled fresh air like directly after rain. My clothes were wet and I slowly received my awareness back. From the feelings in my head and my position, it is obvious that I hit the mast with my head and still had some headache. I sat up, looking for the others. Marcus, the coach, and Victor were not yet awake again. Sven was down on the small reef, caring for Peter and Martin. We saw, they were ok, just looked a bit more taken. Everyone of us inspected the boat. The mast was broken. There was a whole in the ground. The spare rubber boat was destroyed as well. We saw a friendly looking island close to where we were. As next thing, we tried to use our mobile phones, but the batteries were already very low and there was no signal anyways. At least we tried to send an emergency call, as well as emergency messages, but we were not sure, if anything succeeded. After maybe 20 minutes, all of us were awake. We discussed about what to do and quickly decided to take the snacks we had left, to take some planking of the boat and to swim to that island. We were not aware about what will happen, not aware about who will be there, but this was the only logical idea. So we started our project.
The Island
As it was already getting late when we were back in the camp, we just collected some wood. Luckily we had a smoker with us, caring for a waterproof lighter, but without cigarettes left (good for his health and the nature). We managed to get some fire and ate some fruits. This was not much, but enough to survive. While eating, we discussed about what to do next. Our coach as well as Martin (who was our team captain) wanted to wait some days on the island, as somebody should be looking for us already. The others wanted to look for a way out. For the first night we agreed to stay, everything else had been decided the next day. We also decided to swim back to the wrack the next day, to either get some more stuff for making a big fire or to build a boat to try to reach the next island. No solution could guarantee a success. With the hours passing, we were wondering what the first night below the stars of this lonely Island could bring.
The Dream
That night I had a dream, a dream incredibly close to the current situation. I was on that island, alone. The others were not around. There were binoculars laying on the ground. I took them, watched through them and saw a car staying on that island. Some surfers came along and I started swimming. So I jumped into the water and was swimming and swimming, already very exhausted in some point. The island was coming closer. Suddenly I woke up. Furthermore Martin was waking me up, asking if I want to join swimming back to the wrack to get some more stuff from there. I told him about the dream and he said, “It is just a dream”, But he does not know that once I have a dream, it grows. It grows quickly and I work on making it come true, like the business idea three years earlier. Well it finally failed due missing experience, but at least I learned from that and I can say, I tried.
Challenging the Authority for Progress and Motivation
Multitasking to get things done
Improvise for the best Solution
Back on that island, we had the seed, planted in our mind. We wanted to find a way out and collected some wood as well as food which we stored at a place close to the camp. Once we had a lot of stuff, we came together again and discussed the next steps. In addition, Martin and Marcus who were laying in the sun, swimming and relaxing, joined the discussion again. One thing was clear: No one of us had a clear plan about the design of the raft, to get our project working. We discussed to start with a frame: Two big stems on the side and one in the middle. These stems should be connected by four not that big stems on top with the ropes. When we were looking for the material, we directly saw this might be difficult. Victor and Sven were looking for the perfect solution, so they went back into the wood looking for some better material. The rest was discussing about how to improvise. This is important, because the environment does not always give a perfect surrounding, the perfect materials or the best words with a reasonable price available for your online marketing campaign. So much of the time on that island reminded me on the time when I was an entrepreneur. I missed those times and was highly motivated.
Trying New Ways bring new Opportunities
Take the risk or you will always wonder what would have been
I already fell in love with this adventure. I felt things back when I was entrepreneur. We tried to enter new markets, we took some risks, but we did not completely succeed. How would this venture end?
We came closer to the island. Some waves hit our boat from the side. Different flows unexpectedly changed our position. We did not consider the influence of flows before, but we knew, we only had this one chance. To be honest, we did not even know if we could ever drive back with that raft to the other team members. We motivated us all the time with the dream on our mind to find a way out.
Coming closer to the other, bigger island, we did not see any human life or civilization. We needed around two hours to come there I guess. The first thing we did was sitting down in the shadow and reloading some energy. We were full of adrenaline and we reached our target. We were so happy about it, but we also knew: Now we are a group of only three friends left and we did not have the equipment the others have. All of us three thought, taking this risk was worth it, wondering, what the next hours or even days will bring, because otherwise you were always wondering, what might have happened.
Stay Positive and Positive will return
The next morning someone woke me up, poking with a stick in my face. I was scared, screaming why Peter and Victor also woke up. It was a Philippine teenager with his father. They did not understand us. We did not understand them. They were nice. They walked with us anywhere. As we only communicated with signs, we did not know, what we had to expect, but my instinct told me: We can trust them. Also in business you cannot always understand, why cooperation partners do anything, why employees choose that way for a solution. Sometimes you just need to trust partners, believe in the good and stay positive. Usually if you predict something bad will happen, my experience shows, you are unconsciously acting in a way that turns the results to what you predict to happen. You learn to see those things that might show that you were right, although this is not fact yet. When you e.g. drive with a car, coming to a curve, you look to the ending of the curve and drive there. Try to think about it, when you do tasks next time. Stay positive to develop your venture positively and trust your partners.
The Village a Rescue?
They told us, the notebook would only work for a few hours. Each month is a ship coming, bringing new batteries, food, medicine, water and sometimes cloths into that village. They told us, they never heard about mobile phone or even internet. It was interesting, making a deep dive into their culture. We told them about the others and asked them, if they have a stable boat. They told us about a person that knows a person that was using radio sometimes to talk to someone on another island who knows someone who has a good motor boat, stable in the open sea. The father asked us to stay and switched of the notebook. He gave us some fruits and some meat and left for some time.
We ate. The food was awesome. I still do not know what kind of meat this was. Maybe it is better for me, not to know that. We played with the daughter and some kids from the neighborhood. It was a strange feeling, being in a village without modern hi-tech solutions, without electricity, no cars, but some bikes. Apes and parrots were everywhere around. A dense forest on the one side, the big sea on the other side.
New Chances through Networking
The motor boat came. We looked for that island on a map. There was only one possibility, as on the other side was only the island from the person with the boat. We drove there. We came closer. Our friends made a visual fire. They were happy we found them. We were happy, they were ok and we drove back to the village. We helped the people there with different things. When they wanted to fix anything in building, we supported them. We exchanged experience, using translating software and were a bit sad when the big boat came, bringing us to San Jose. The people there were lovely. If they had internet, I think we were still connected. This is how networking and trust in good finally brought us home. A good network can simplify a lot, especially for startups. You meet people that know people that can help you to find recruitment, better offers or even investors. Networking gives chances.
The 7 Virtues in a row
1) Challenging the authority (if you may know a better solution),
2) Multitasking (to be able to react and response quickly),
3) Improvising (to stay efficient in processes),
4) Trying New Ways (to find the best solution, and not regret to not have done),
5) Taking Risk (to open your future to new chances),
6) Staying positive and trust your Partners (to steer the project to the best solution) as well as
7) Networking (to continuously look and be open for support).
It is up to you if you accept and live this. I think, this can develop your possibilities to be successful.
Great input, I’ll try to implement some of this soon. Keep going, I love your drive.
Pingback: Recommended: How to build a team with Knowledge - Coachiendo