Camaraderie, friendly support and encouragement are top hallmarks of adventure sport. We’re all competitive for sure, but there’s a palpable undercurrent of positivity and respect for our fellow athletes and crews.
We could teach our politicians a thing or 2 about working as a champion team!
Can Winston Peters and David Seymour make up? Is it even possible to teach our politicians to truly work in harmony as a champion team?
Winston and David, grow up!
Stop tossing your lego bricks at each other.
You could a lesson or two about powerful teamwork from NZ’s world champion adventure teams.
Firstly, let’s take a look at the history of politics from the time that humans first walked the earth; through biblical accounts of holy wars; through the annals of rampaging invasions, rape and pillage; Trump's ego (still echoing); to the recent politics between Russia and Ukraine, and the Gaza strip. The defeatist amongst us would throw our arms in the air and say that we’re forever doomed because politicians are drawn to politics, as flies are drawn to poo, by their out of control egos.
Let’s face it, our DNA in the 21st century is what’s left after millennia of raiding, killing and DNA desecration. The nice peaceful people didn’t survive, the raiders killed them all off, along with their peace-loving, harmony-seeking genes. The DNA that has been subsequently propagated by genocide after genocide, is the stuff that you and I are made of. It’s evolution, for better, or in this case for worse. We are now genetically predisposed to competition, war and ego.
Modern day humans need very little to have ego switched on in our DNA. It’s our circumstances, upbringing and environment that determine whether we exchange hugs, lego bricks, sticks and stones or nuclear missiles with each other.
Politicians are switched, loaded and locked. Hell shall freeze over before we see team-work and harmony between David Seymour and Winston Peters!
However, optimists like myself never give up hope that we might yet find the key to world peace, and many of us still hold rosy visions surrounded by harp-playing cherubs, of our politicians shedding their juvenile tantrums and poo-filled nappies, and putting down their lego blocks. Turning instead to constructive debate in the House, and going on to agree on policy to make NZ the best little nation in the world.
So here I go with some suggestions from the world of Adventure racing where NZ is indeed the best little nation in the world, indisputably the world’s best at creating harmonious victorious teams:
Idea #1
Enter them as a 4-person team in the GodZONE adventure race. Seymour, Peters, Luxon and Shaw. That’ll learn them!
They will need to cast aside their errant egos and put all of their earnest energies into working in harmony with their fellow flesh and blood. For not doing so will mean map-reading mayhem and inevitable hypothermic death amidst NZ’s snowy precipitous peaks, raging river rapids and wild wilderness... But wait, the GodZONE has just pulled the pin… (ironically some disagreement with DOC.)
Idea #2
There’s nothing, absolutely nothing better to garner trust, cooperation and mutual respect, resulting in true brother-hood, than to trust the other person with your precious life on the end of a rope, dangling 300 metres over a mountain precipice. We observe the true and transparent nature of a person in times of unpredictable trauma, when their life, health and very existence is under immediate threat.
Can their genes be switched from tossing lego blocks, to loving harmony?
I'll take them on a mountaineering trip. (maybe I'll take my sharpest rope knife?!)🤣
Seriously though...
What top traits of team-work can we transfer from NZ's best Adventurers?
They leave Ego behind. Just straight up, honest transparency
They communicate clearly, directly, and truthfully. No games, no "beating about the bush".
They take the courage to speak up when they need help or have an opinion to share.
They're all on the same page, same goals, same agenda. Done by talking it through weeks or months before the race.
They trust each other implicitly, not just on the end of a rope, but also emotionally in terms of the weaknesses all of us uniquely have.
You and your team?
How much stronger could you be as a team?
How much more efficient could you be?
How much more fun, enjoyment and satisfaction could you have?
Get me in to work with your team. Call me now:
021 487 639
steve@stevegurney.co.nz
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