Business Lessons from the Climbing Wall
Rock climbing offers a unique experience, as it is one of the few sports where age and gender are non-factors. Kids have an incredible strength-to-weight ratio and some of the best climbers are women!
How awesome is climbing? This is an extreme sport where the only thing that really matters is if you are a good climber or not. The best climbers push themselves to their limit and watching them climb is a thing of beauty. To newcomers, the jargon and gear needed for rock climbing are daunting, coupled with the possibility of a failure that can hurt or kill you, depending on the situation.
A short story about finding a climbing partner
I logged into mountain project (a website used to find routes and climbing partners), sent out a few emails, and got a few replies. One person was looking for a climbing partner that weekend, so we exchanged information and set a time and date to meet.
2 days later of no communication
On the weekend, I sent him a text saying, “Hey, man, still on for 8:30 a.m. by the welcome sign?” He replied with a cool, “Yep. I’m double checking my gear now.” We met as complete strangers. I was looking for someone with an “epic beard” and he was on the lookout for “a white top, black bottoms, and ugly shoes.”
We shook hands and entered the choreography of double-checking each other’s harness, gear, and knots. He hopped on the wall and began climbing a 1-pitch, 85-foot route. After he topped out, we signaled each other as I was ready to come up. I climbed while clearing the gear, and when I met him at the top of the route, he said something that cracked me up: “Well, it’s a good thing you know what you’re doing! Glad I’m not dead.”.
‘Glad I’m not dead’ is a funny thing to hear when you’re sharing a tiny ledge with a stranger 85 feet above rocks. For reference, the human body has a near zero % survival rate from falling above 85 feet.
Modern business culture can benefit
from a few rock-climbing lessons
- Be prepared for every potential problem and have tools ready if you need them. Whether its having a small knife to cut your hair caught in a belay device or an easily accessible back-up email server, both can avoid heartaches when implemented before you need them.
- Trust your team and build one focused on members’ strengths. When climbing, your strengths are mostly the same, but in business, as was mentioned herein, a wide variety of skills can be present and it’s your job to focus on them. Once a team is assembled, trust all members to do their job appropriately. I know my story goes against this, but knowing my abilities, the difficulties of the route, and guessing, I was confident the ascent would be a success. Now that we have built mutual trust, my fellow climber and I are planning much more intimidating climbs.
- Know when to sprint and when to coast. In climbing, the hardest part of the route is called the crux and typically involves an unusual or dynamic move that stands out because it requires more energy than previous transitions. Saving energy for these sections is crucial. Personally I think I can benefit from this in that I correlate working hard all the time with good work, regardless the appropriateness of the task. For reference, see “How to burn out at work.” :)
- Falls happen. They suck and are terrifying. Even if you do everything right, you may fall and bounce off rocks a few times before the rope catches you. Doing something wrong can be deadly, so be prepared in business for hiccups and do everything you can to mitigate damage. If any damaging event occurs, pick up and use what information you have and then move past it.
- The last, and most important cultural aspect, is that modern businesses can benefit from rock climbing to pass on crucial information in an intelligent and functional-specific way. Climbing is a skill that makes me hearken back to an age now long gone. In line with those thoughts, knowing how to do something and teaching it to others is a primary function in life. As I have noticed in my short time in the professional workforce, the acquisition of skills is appreciated but sometimes encouraged. Everyone can be a teacher and student at the same time.
