We’d like to take you on an adventure - in more senses than one. This is the first of several articles charting a project from beginning to end. In this instalment, the project has decided on its vision and plans. None of the ‘staff’ have filled in the Team Management Profile Questionnaire, because they haven’t been recruited yet...

If you’ve got a strong team you can overcome any hurdle

Captain Sean Chapple knows a lot about teamwork. He joined the Royal Marines in 1984. “From the first day you’re trained in the buddy-buddy system. You join as a member of a team, not as an individual. When you wake up on active service you check that your mates are OK, that their equipment is in working order.”

And since 1987 when he led an expedition to climb Mount Kenya he’s put teams together every couple of years for exploits ranging from the Grand Canyon to a 4-man circumnavigation of the principal East African States to the first ski crossing of Iceland. Next year Sean leads two teams to both Poles in a project called Polar Quest.

Polar Quest

March 2006: an eight strong party will ski 300 miles to the Magnetic North Pole, a trip that will take 30 days. The team will include novice and junior members of the naval services. Members of the independent Exmouth Community College expedition will fly to meet the team at the North Pole. November 2006: An experienced six strong party will cover the 1400 mile return journey to the geographic South Pole – a 65-day trek.

Adventure training is part of the Royal Marines’ ethos; it’s seen as instilling qualities of personal courage, mutual dependence and leadership. Sean experienced the latter first-hand when he was leading the 1998 Polar North expedition and equipment failure forced him to make a critical decision: “Should we turn back or go on? We decided to turn back. Safety was more important than achievement. Understanding when to change course is a key leadership skill. People like Ernest Shackleton are a source of inspiration in this respect. The trip was a successful failure and I learnt much from it”

The spirit of adventure...

...is what motivates Sean, but he sees this latest project as involving much more than this. “I approach each expedition as a start-up business. There’s no manual, no pot of gold, no staff, just a blank sheet of paper. I have to move from detailed organisation to realisation - and the downside isn’t financial loss but, potentially, injury or death.” Asked if what he’s doing has any relevance to more conventional organisations, he says an emphatic “Yes. Watching out for each other, finding your limits, having the courage of your convictions and trusting decision-makers are common to any successful venture.”

Even the process of organising the expeditions – moving from a key presentation to getting the right staff - will strike a chord with other managers.

In July 2004, Sean gave a half-hour presentation to the Royal Marines Major Expeditions Committee. It stressed the benefits to the members of the expedition as well as the benefits to the service and wider society.

“My vision is to provide an opportunity for youth and serving members of the Naval service to join a major Polar expedition and through communications technologies allow others to experience the adventure and interact with team members from the comfort of their classroom, home or office.”

Sean had developed a very specific mission: “to promote the spirit of adventure through interactive and commemorative ski-treks to the Polar Regions in 2006”.

Commemorative events for earlier British polar explorers will be held on both expeditions. The interactive element is Polar Watch. This uses cutting-edge technology to allow the outside world to follow the teams from training to their return on an interactive website.

Approval for the scheme came in the following month and since then Sean has been organising the project at the same time as doing his regular job. This includes raising the money, 90% of which has to be gained through business sponsorship. Then there’s recruitment...

“I am looking for teamwork plus effective intelligence.” The recruitment drive started in November 2004 and culminated in a weekend shortly after we talked to Sean. 400+ naval services applications were sifted down to a short list of 50 who went through a hugely strenuous programme. No-one was forced to do anything, not even the Saturday 4.30am gym circuit, the first session of a 17-hour day. Assessors used the Marines’ huge experience, a checklist and frequent meetings to evaluate the candidates against set criteria.

“I was looking for self-starters; people who could motivate themselves and think on their feet. I gave them very little guidance and watched how they set about solving problems. I was starting with people who had gone through basic military training, so assumed some basic levels of fitness and discipline. I looked for exceptional qualities of teamwork and motivation. Rank didn’t play a part. Relevant experience did. The trip to the South Pole will be longer, more arduous and more dangerous than the one to the North Pole so we need more experienced members for that leg. But the whole idea is to give people the chance of an adventure, to test themselves against the unknown.”

Fitness also played a role, but Sean’s opinion is... “You can make someone fit but changing character is less easy” ...so, an in-depth understanding of character and how characters fit together is crucial to success. Which is where the Team Management Profile is going to fit in.

Sean looked at a number of different instruments. Why did he choose the Team Management Profile? “I had it administered to me, read my report and swapped it with a colleague. I also asked my wife to look at it. It’s astonishingly accurate and insightful. There were one or two issues I didn’t recognise about myself but my colleague and wife said they were spot on.”

Some candidates will be suspicious of these sorts of instruments but Sean feels the Profile is very good at overcoming anxiety at being judged. “It’s not job specific for a start. That’s a strength. You don’t have to translate it into military vocabulary. It directly addresses concerns everyone shares.” Finally Sean found a number of competing instruments too simplistic: “Our work is founded on teamwork. We have huge experience of how people work together in sometimes extreme circumstances. The Team Management Profile acknowledges that complexity but makes it accessible.”

What are we going to see in future reports from Polar Quest? How is the instrument going to be used? “Initially we’ll use it to set up sub-groups to handle discrete areas like fund-raising and logistics. For instance we have to raise £500,000 and work out what weight of equipment and food we’re going to have to man-haul across the ice by the beginning of next year. Each sub-group has to work effectively together. We’re still working out the details of our training but look at it this way.

Every expedition member has to do their full time job during the planning stage: when they’re on the expedition they are given the time off but contribute 30% of their salary to costs. We’ll only have team meetings every six weeks and our first cold weather training is in October. Between now and March 2006 we have to keep motivation high, weld a strong team, make provision for drop-outs. I’m going to need something that makes that process manageable and effective. Watch this space.”

And finally, is Sean prepared to say what his team roles are, given the huge range of tasks he undertakes? “I’m a major role Assessor-Developer. My related roles are Thruster-Organiser and,” Sean grins, “Explorer- Promoter.”