It’s your job to lead a team of 120 scientists, engineers, mechanics, carpenters, cooks, medics and more through a yearlong expedition to Antarctica. This was life for AFG Next Keynote Speaker, Rachael Robertson.
At AFG Next 2022, Rachael Robertson talked about the challenges of living in the arctic and spotlighted the leadership techniques she learnt and tested under some of the most extreme conditions on earth. If you didn’t make it to AFG Next 2022 and see Rachael in person, here is a snapshot of some of Rachael’s significant insights.
Build your team around their attributes
When building a team, Rachael speaks of hiring for the attributes you need from a role, not just the technical skills. When selected for her leadership role, Rachael explained how she was selected based on resilience, empathy, and social and emotional intelligence. She explains that skills can always be taught and developed, personal attributes are often far more permanent and difficult to change and getting this wrong can be a disaster for your team.
Respect Trumps Harmony
Working in a harmonious team where everyone gets along all the time is the dream, right? Wrong. According to Rachael Robertson, if you’re overly focused on harmony, you’re on the wrong track.
Harmony is excellent, but harmony alone just isn’t strong enough. People become afraid to disrupt harmony when you focus purely on harmony. People stop innovating. People stop speaking up when they need to. People brood over their problems. People become silent observers. People take their conflicts behind the scenes. The result? Harmony can quickly become toxic.
Rachael points out that you don’t have to love your colleagues. You don’t even have to like them. But you must always treat them with respect. Respect means accountability, empathy, challenging ideas and an appreciation of the skills and competencies of those within your team.
No Triangles
When working in an environment of respect, Rachael advocates for using the ‘No Triangles’ rule, which means that the team is strongly encouraged to speak to whomever within the team directly before circumventing conflicts with management or another of the group. Rachael believes this method empowers teams to solve their problems and difficulties and approach conflict with empathy, resilience and respect.
Research shows a culture of
No Triangles:
- builds respect
- encourages innovation
- creates trust
- holds accountability
- improves morale
- improves mental health
Watch the bacon
Have you noticed the petty feuds that can plague workplaces? Kitchen dishes piling building into a festering heap with everyone insisting it’s not their turn… does that ring any bells? These can be the warning signs that you’ve got a respect breakdown.
At the Davis Station, Antarctic Research facility, Rachael told of the tale of the crispy bacon vs soft bacon. Two of her teams had developed a rift over how their bacon was cooked. While this might seem trivial, within the isolation of Antarctica and the extreme proximity of that environment, minor conflicts grow large. Over weeks the relationship between these teams has reached toxic levels. And after investigation and some discovery, Rachael found that the bacon was only a symptom of a more significant issue. The real problem was that one of the teams had not been refuelling the vehicles after using them at night because they believed they had the more challenging shift. The lack of refuelling made the other team feel like they had to do extra work, which wasn’t theirs to do.
They had a respect problem.
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