The talk
At my first high school practice, my high school football coach asked me a question before he let me on his offensive line. He said, imagine you are hanging off the side of a cliff by a rope. A thousand feet of rock below you. One person is on the other end. Who do you want it to be, and what are they made of?
Strength, sure. But strength runs out the second pain and fatigue set in. What you actually want is grit, gumption, guts, and guns. Perseverance. Steadfastness. Someone who goes to the bottom with you before they ever let go.
Most teams are not made of those people. Most teams are made of people quietly ranking each other. This talk gives a room the language to tell the difference, and the challenge to become the one you would want on the other end of your rope. The idea came from my coach, not from me. I just spent twenty-five years finding out he was right.
I close with the night in November 1999 when the Aggie bonfire collapsed. Twelve Aggies lost their lives and twenty-seven were injured. We spent that night and the days after pulling the stack apart by hand. I do not tell that story to make a business point. I tell it because it is the truest thing I have ever seen the word mean.
What the room is buying
A team that stops keeping score and starts covering for each other, holding one physical image they will still repeat a year later. Two clients, five years apart and in unrelated industries, wrote about it unprompted. One made it a pillar of their strategic plan.
45 to 60 minutes, expandable to a half-day workshop. For every audience.
Many of our team is still talking about his challenge to be a "Team of Ropeholders" that can accomplish anything.
JRJ Construction