Leadership Expeditions

Utah 2007 (picture & Merger article)

No tent, no sleeping bag, no water… no problem!

By: Tyler Baldwin

The sun finally came up. Twelve cold, hungry, and tired people unpacked themselves from the sardine-like huddle. The previous day included many memorable experiences—a 90’ rappel, free climbs down massive 30’ boulders—in a very beautiful and very rugged slot canyon, but the hike has taken much longer than expected. At midnight, 15 hours after leaving camp, three miles of treacherous terrain still separated the hikers from the comfort of their sleeping bags, food, and portable stoves. As a result, the group chose to bivy (sleep outside without tents or sleeping bags) rather than risk injury in an effort to make it back to camp. The decision to bivy was not easy, but the leadership lessons from the previous five days helped everyone recognize how to deal effectively with this extremely difficult situation.

Leadership Expeditions is a new program at Kellogg that is centered on experiential learning. The program uses challenges of being in the wilderness to push students out of their comfort zones and provide unique insights into what it takes to become more effective leaders. The Leadership Expedition trip to Utah was a seven-day, six-night trip that included whitewater rafting and kayaking, backpacking and technical cayoneering. Outward Bound Professional, world-renowned wilderness education vendor, operated the trip.

Many in our group had little experience in the outdoors before the trip began, and they may not have ever imagined that they could sleep on the ground in 35 degree weather with only a rain coat and others’ body heat to keep warm. However, if you would ask those who had this experience, you might find that they learned more about both leadership and themselves in a seven day period than most people would think possible.

Our trip started on the San Juan River in southeastern Utah. We took turns shooting the river on a six-person raft and single-person kayaks making camp on the river’s edge. The leadership development aspect kicked in right from the beginning when we were asked by our guides to choose a leader to set up camp on the first night. It was the leader’s job to coordinate the effort to cook dinner, tie up the boats, and set up the tents. In true MBA style, we didn’t simply pick a leader. We established a selection process to choose a leader for each activity, and we used that process for the rest of the trip as leadership opportunities presented themselves. On the first night, and after each leadership opportunity, we gathered together and discussed how the day went and how the leader performed. It was amazing how leading a seemingly trivial activity quickly highlighted exactly the aspect of leadership that needed work.

After three days and more than 20 miles on the river, we packed our gear and headed to the San Raphael Swell in the sandstone desert. The weather had been perfect on the river, but it didn’t cooperate during our time on the swell. When we arrived at our insertion point, we immediately knew that the weather would impact our plans. Dark black rain clouds loomed off in the horizon and rain fell within the hour. Rain is a major concern on the swell because slot canyons acts like funnels. The ground doesn’t absorb water and even a little rain can cause a wall of water to rush through the narrow passageways. Therefore, like in business, we had to decide how to manage an ambiguous situation. Instead of entering the slot canyons we camped above them and hoped to move in early the next morning.

We awoke to a hail storm and realized that we would again need to delay our decent into the slot canyons. However, we knew we needed to move forward because we had to reach a source of fresh water before the water we carried ran out and our extraction point was more than 20 miles away. So, on Day 4 we hiked on the edge of the canyon rim and then performed a very technical 1,000’ descent on make shift switchbacks, all while carrying 80+ pound packs weighted down with our gear, food, and water. It was the first time several of the trip participants had ever camped or backpacked, and we were two hundred miles from the nearest town, climbing down the side of the mountain, ready to use lightning safely techniques if the storm got too close. After a few hours, the weather finally broke and our progress was unimpeded. That night, we pitched camp and prepared to explore the canyons the next day.

The next morning, encouraged by good weather, we started along the trail to the slot canyons. Led by one of our own who used a compass and topographical map to guide us to our destination, we arrived at the mouth of the slot canyon around 2:00 pm. The walls of the canyon got closer and closer together as we entered. At the closest point we had to turn sideways to get through. Further down, we encountered numerous obstacles to overcome including a highly technical rappel down through a 90’ drop. Some had never rappelled before, and those who had thought that it was one of the most challenging rappels they had ever done. One by one, our group went over the edge, trusting in each other and the knots we had learned to tie. Although some people bounded down the rappel and others inched their way, everyone got down and were empowered by the accomplishment of such a technical task.

Although invigorating, the rappel and the technical aspects of the canyon took much longer than we expected, which led us to the part of the trip that this article began with. The bivy and the events that lead up to it were the defining features of the trip. Although challenged, everyone was in great spirits the next day, which most of us spent recuperating (a group of four hiked an additional six miles the day following the bivy to get much needed water). The final day, we packed up and hiked down one canyon and up another to our extraction point.

On the bus ride back to our hotel, we all reflected on the trip and the many lessons we learned. Although we were never in mortal danger, the experience pushed many of us out of our comfort zones and allowed us to discover more about ourselves than sipping piña coladas on a beach or working on a Fin D case in the LSR. Some of us learned that when were leading, we need to focus less on the process and more on the people, others learned that being easy going doesn’t quite motivate people enough, and all of us learned about ourselves and what type of people we are in the face of adversity. Not bad for a spring break trip!

Patagonia 2007 (picture & Merger article)

BLC Patagonia: What Wet, Cold, and Hungry Have to do with Leadership

By Hilary Nindorf

What the BLC Patagonia trip offered me was an experiment in how I am without creature comforts, email or phones, or autonomy. In some ways, I would liken it to the old school Real World before everyone was beautiful and not so smart, when people stopped being polite and started getting real. At the very least, after a week without showering or looking in a mirror, we certainly would not have been attractive to an MTV tween audience. We ate together, hiked together, and slept together (no, get your mind out of the gutter, it was not THAT kind of trip), and we shared food, chores, and the great wide open. We got to know each other over long hours of traversing scenic terrain, without the crutches of cheap beer and the Keg dry ice machine on which we so often rely. Moreover, we learned to exist as an integrated unit and to appreciate each person’s role in it. If I did not carry my share of the tent, someone would have to bear more and if I ate more than my share, my cook group would have less. This cooperation required a level of teamwork greater than writing a MORS paper with five people or even coming to a Market Strat decision because there was such little margin for shirking. Further, the price of doing so in the group was high quite simply because there was nowhere to hide. While we at Kellogg now seem to favor stressing leadership over talking teamwork, I observed how critical it was to be a teammember first in order to earn credibility as a leader. Cred came from selflessness - filling the dromedary in icy cold water, scrubbing the pots clean with raw fingers, and packing a wet tent fly for seven miles.

We, of course, are human and our humanity influences the type and quality of leaders we are. Our humanity can also limit what we are capable of in a given situation. When we strip away all that we know, all that keeps us safe and warm and dry, we can be left uncomfortably exposed. It is not often that I find myself in such situations in life but I had several of these instances on the trek, times when I was so preoccupied with my own warmth, hunger, or discomfort that I could not chop the vegetables for dinner, slacked with tent staking, or found myself without the energy to be unsupportive of a fellow camper in need. As unpretty as this admission is, in retrospect I now have clearer insight into my pressure points and into how my stress manifests itself externally. I also have a renewed acceptance for my own limitations.

Extending this introspection to others, it emerged how important it was to recognize the needs of others and to help him be at his very best. Easier said than done, but this is at the core of leadership: understanding, accepting, and motivating others. A good deal of the challenge of our trek stemmed from just how different our group was, in everything from prior camping experience to cooking ability to physical endurance to culture. While we were glued together by our passion for the outdoors and an interest in contemplating leadership, every day we navigated maps, assessed hazards, and prepared meals with people very unlike ourselves. Just like in our professional lives, while leading a like-minded team is not that hard, leading a team of assorted backgrounds and unique expectations can be. Understanding each other was crucial to achieving the group’s objectives and to making progress toward accomplishing our own personal goals.

Dawn to dusk days kept us very busy. On our last afternoon, we finally took a moment to stop doing and sat by ourselves in a beautiful spot: by a rushing river in sight of a towering glacier-capped peak, amidst soaring trees. Finally, my mind could wander to topics bigger than layering appropriately, TP rationing, and drying my soaking socks. In this brief respite, I thought about being thrown together with fourteen others, and in the span of a week gaining friends. I appreciated how little I truly needed to thrive (apparently, a mere 40 pounds of raingear, quinoa, and raw cornbread), but yet how many things I had back in Evanston. And looking around, I was overcome by just how fortunate I was to see and experience a spectacular corner of the world some only see on Discovery Channel’s Planet Earth. From this in particular, I felt the immense weight of responsibility on my shoulders as a future business leader to serve as a guardian of places like Patagonia and a hint of sadness in how this wilderness might change within my lifetime. As the trip wound to a close, these insights highlighted the true value of the trek to me: a reminder in what is important and the opportunity to recommit to it. And, we all need to be reminded, not just as leaders but as individuals, as well.