The Three C's

This weekend I went on a hike, an adventure weekend filled with challenges to test and build character.

It was challenging and quite fun.

However on the last day of the challenge, we woke up to the words:

‘The water is coming!’

You see, we pitched our tents next to the river, and as you might have seen on the news the Cape experienced a level 9 storm over the weekend.

The water was coming.

We managed to get our tents and ourselves out of the way of the river, only to discover that the bridge we needed was washed away, stranding us without food for another 24 hours.

Here’s the lesson, the whole weekend we faced engineered ‘challenges’ to test and build character, but when a real crisis hit what surfaced was the true creed and the true community.

Crisis exposes Creed and Community (as my friend Bernard would say).

It was interesting to see how fast three distinct responses formed, three distinct communities with three different creeds.

There were the doers, who started building a bridge by hand with rocks.

There were the critics, standing on the banks commenting on why exactly the bridge won’t work and why the doers are building it the wrong way.

Then there were the complainers, my least favorite group, complaining about what should’ve been done by the organizers and how inept the local municipality is in saving rich people from missing dinner.

A crisis will show your team’s true creed (culture and beliefs) and community.

Next time it hits, and it will take notes and adjust accordingly.

What is written on your wall and website isn’t always what shows up under stress.

pierre

PS: The flood is also the reason I missed a couple of days of letter writing. I hope you’re safe and well. And in case you’re wondering, I was carrying rocks.