Business lessons from snow camping with Boy Scouts

This weekend I spent Friday and Saturday in the company of 11 young men and 4 adult leaders on an overnight snow camping expedition in the mountains.

This involves digging a cave in the middle of a snowfield, and spending the night in it.  For us, the temperature dropped to about 5 degrees.  I’ve done this before, but that doesn’t mean I am acclimatized to January nights at almost 10,000 feet.  Like all such adventures, we had a mix of success and failures.  On the ride home today, it got me thinking about some of the comparisons between our experience and entrepreneurial business.

Here is my list:

1. Leadership is a huge key to success. All other things being equal, it is ability of the leader to inspire, drive, motivate, organize, build confidence in, respect, and appreciate his team makes the difference between success and failure.  Last night I watched a wise and experienced scout leader use all of those tools to keep a wet, tired and shivering young man not give up and feel good about his decision.
2. If you are in a difficult or tenuous situation, you are much better off keeping the troops well fed.  A positive distraction, well timed, can do wonders for the attitude of everybody.  The difficulty of the task may not change, but at least your approach to it is positive and healthy.
3. Don’t let someone who has not already walked down that particular path make the key decisions alone.  It results in a finger-pointing frenzy.
4. The value of insulation cannot be overstated.  Those who were too quick into their snow caves without providing themselves with adequate protection from the cold and wet beneath them were soon sorry.  It was a little thing – that didn’t take a lot more time or effort – that made all the difference.  In business, asset protection planning is the same way.
5. It can get dark and cold well before you are ready.  Planning with foresight is essential.
6. If you are haphazard in your planning and execution, it takes a long time to clean up after you.
7. At the end of a task, there is tremendous value in taking time to de-brief, press team members for input on what they have learned or would do differently next time, and to emphasize key performance points and standards.

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