Outward Bound Lessons to Live a Life of Leadership

To Serve, to Strive, and Not to Yield

Mark Michaux Brown

• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781523098323
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Success

This is the first book to describe in detail the principles of Outward Bound, told through the stories of former instructors and graduates who show how to apply them to create healthier, more effective teams, organizations, and communities. For nearly six decades Outward Bound USA's education programs have shaped the lives of tens of thousands of participants. Strangers are put in an unfamiliar and unpredictable setting, where to succeed they must develop a sense of teamwork, resilience, self-confidence, and a focus on the greater good. But, Mark Brown asks, isn't the modern world just as unpredictable and challenging as any mountain or desert? He shows how the same principles that bind people together in the natural world work just as well in cities, companies, and communities.
This book explores the concept of Expeditionary Leadership through the stories of people such as third-generation business steward Laura Kohler, the Home Depot cofounder Arthur Blank, and former United States Senator Mark Udall, whose lives were touched by Outward Bound and who then went on to make a positive difference in the world. They show how each of us can, in our own way, use the Outward Bound philosophy to bravely face the wild unknowns in our daily lives.
From training the first Peace Corps volunteers to partnering with thousands of educational institutions and corporations, Outward Bound has helped build the self-confidence and character of participants who have gone on to live richer, more fulfilling, and successful lives. Outward Bound internationally operates in thirty-three countries and impacts nearly a quarter of a million people annually.

CHAPTER ONE

From the Wilderness to the Workplace

Adventure isn’t hanging on a rope off the side of a mountain. Adventure is an attitude that we must apply to the day-to-day obstacles of life—facing new challenges, seizing new opportunities, testing our resources against the unknown and, in the process, discovering our own unique potential.

—John Amatt, author, adventurer,
and founder of One Step Beyond Worldwide

In a classic Outward Bound wilderness trip, a group of strangers come together to immerse themselves in nature. They create community, achieve milestones, experience peaks and valleys, and then disperse to reenter their everyday lives. Instructors and course directors typically let participants know at the end of the trip that they are just beginning their Outward Bound journey. They have become Expeditionary Leaders and must discover for themselves how they will affect the world.

Outward Bound uses the wilderness as a means to midwife new possibilities about how we can show up in the world. The experience of an Outward Bound expedition gives participants the tools for bravely facing the wild unknowns in their daily lives. A perfect example of taking the philosophies of Outward Bound into a completely different context is offered by Michael Welp, a former Outward Bound leader and the cofounder of a consulting company called White Men as Full Diversity Partners. Michael’s company does transformative work around inclusion and diversity, a core value of Outward Bound. With his partner and cofounder Bill Proudman, also a former Outward Bound leader, he has moved from exploring the natural wilderness to diving deep into the metaphoric wilderness of white privilege.

“We came to the conclusion that we needed to find a way to teach white guys about diversity,” said Michael, who holds a PhD in human and organizational systems development.

There are a lot of white men in leadership, and it’s not sustainable for the minority group to be teaching the majority. So we decided to take a risk and put white guys in a room for three and a half days and have them focus on themselves.

What does it mean to be white and male and, for many, also heterosexual? What do we not know that we don’t know? Do we have culture that others assimilate to? Do we have privilege and systemic advantage? And what is our responsibility with each other to educate our group about that?

It turned out to be a transformative and life-changing “expedition” for the white men who participated. Michael explained: “We just took out the wilderness component that pushes people to grow, and put in diversity as the messy arena that you do the leadership development and human development work in.”

The skills Michael developed at Outward Bound are at the core of his $4 million business that is effecting change in the world at multiple corporate levels. But Michael says the biggest changes he sees occur within the people who attend the programs.

“They start off thinking we’re helping other people with their issues—women and people of color—but they end up having these massive changes within themselves. They discover their culture and how to get free of it, they find the freedom to step out of it.”

Just as Outward Bound did for Michael, so does his company give each individual the skills and the personal transformation to birth his or her own impact on the world.

The journey of Eduardo Balarezo also reflects how Outward Bound principles can lead to a powerful impact in the wider world. Eduardo took Outward Bound to Ecuador in 2006 and served as the group’s president there for five years. A serial entrepreneur, Eduardo emigrated to the United States in 2012, launching the social retail enterprise Lonesome George & Co. to benefit the Galápagos Islands. He also launched the Academy of Agents of Change, a unique educational approach based on Outward Bound principles and social entrepreneurship.

Lonesome George began as a brand that sold T-shirts and other lifestyle apparel. Eduardo committed 10 percent of the brand’s revenue to funding Outward Bound programs and leadership programs for park rangers and other workers at the Galápagos National Park.

Eduardo figured, “Since I had done this with my team, why not do this with the national park and provide them with a better understanding of teamwork, leadership, resourcefulness, and respect for others and everything I knew that came from Outward Bound?”

Lonesome George was not the only new idea to come from Eduardo’s Outward Bound experience. Through the Young Presidents’ Organization, Eduardo was selected to organize a Latin American Center focused on multiple bottom lines (people, profit, planet). He had close to a hundred executives from around the world come to Quito, Ecuador, and delivered a three-day program that used Outward Bound methodology. Most recently, Eduardo launched Mind Shift Impact, a transformational consulting company based on Expeditionary Leadership principles.

“These different experiences with Outward Bound made me realize how potent Outward Bound is. They gave me the courage to leap forward, to say, ‘I’m going to do this. I’m going to start my social enterprise. It’s going to use multiple bottom lines, and I’m just going to go for it.’”

Rue Mapp, the founder of Outdoor Afro, which connects African Americans with experiences in nature, agrees that the values she learned through Outward Bound are a huge part of her work developing African American leaders.

It’s not about how many people I can get outside who look like me, but how many leaders can we cultivate in the outdoors. It’s about cultivating leaders, not getting people outside. The outdoors is just a tool.

How does that leadership translate into other areas of their lives even if they don’t take the outdoors on as their career? How else can those opportunities serve them and their immediate sphere of influence?

In a proud moment today, we are sending off a group of eleven people who are climbing Kilimanjaro. I don’t know what kind of impact it will have on their lives, but I know they will be changed forever. Just like I was changed forever through my experiences. And then when they go back into their community, through their own interests, they’ll decide the types of events they want to lead.

The Birth of a Philosophy

During the beginning of the past century the world was going through extreme upheaval. The majority of human culture in the Western world was moving from an agrarian to an industrial focus. As Kurt Hahn, a young German-born Jewish educator, watched the challenges of the transition, he identified what he called the six declines: fitness, initiative, imagination, craftsmanship, self-discipline, and compassion.

In 1920, he began the Schule Schloss Salem school in Germany with the intention of countering these declines. He placed service to others and compassion at the forefront of his instruction. He believed learning should be conducted experientially—through doing—with an emphasis on serving the greater good of society.

This approach to education was quickly threatened when Hitler and the Nazis rose to power. Hahn then founded the Gordonstoun School in Scotland, based on similar principles. Its alumni include Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.

As World War II erupted, Hahn was asked to develop a training program to increase the survival rates of merchant marines whose ships were being sunk by German U-boats in the North Sea. He designed an intense experience to help individuals rapidly overcome adversity and to support and trust each other. This program became the blueprint for Outward Bound.

Thomas James, dean of the Teachers College at Columbia University, explained that “Hahn likened himself to a midwife” when creating new educational institutions. “He sparked ideas for new endeavors and then left much of the development and maintenance to others.” Thomas is considered one of the most knowledgeable educators about Outward Bound and its impact in the world. A veteran of several trips himself, Thomas also uses many of Outward Bound’s principles in his leadership at Columbia.

This idea of midwifery—giving individuals the skills to birth their own impact on the world and then letting go and allowing others to lead—has not only created generations of Expeditionary Leaders but also allowed Outward Bound itself to “midwife” a wide range of programs that share its guiding principles: to serve, to strive, and not to yield.

These principles, which it originally promoted through wilderness expeditions, are now experienced through a wide range of organizations, such as EL (Expeditionary Learning) Education, an offshoot of Outward Bound that focuses on taking Hahn’s vision into schools and school systems, and Outward Bound Professional, which partners with companies and nonprofits to transform work environments. Regardless of the population demographic or the location of the program, Outward Bound and its offspring remained committed to Hahn’s legacy of moral purpose.

Former instructors and participants like Michael, Eduardo, and Rue are the “children” of Hahn’s midwifery philosophy. They demonstrate how the principles of Outward Bound can be applied in many different environments to create a better and more inclusive world. The other Expeditionary Leaders featured in this book are also the products of this unique and inspiring approach to leadership—an approach that begins with a deep commitment to service.¹

1. For more biographical information, visit KurtHahn.org.

SECTION I

To Serve

The Master doesn’t talk, he acts. When his work is done, the people say, “Amazing: we did it, all by ourselves!”

— Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching

The foundation of Outward Bound’s approach is service. That foundation can be traced back to the early teaching of founder Kurt Hahn at the first school he founded, Schule Schloss Salem in Germany. When Hahn founded Outward Bound in Great Britain, all the participants were trained in sea rescue to instill that sense of service to the seafaring community.

Much has been written on servant leadership. Outward Bound is certainly not an originator of this approach. What this first section offers is a different perspective on serving. Think of it as an alignment between serving oneself, serving others in the workplace, serving the community, and answering a higher calling. Orienting ourselves to service creates a paradox. Serving first requires great humility. But in serving with humility, we actually find a sense of accomplishment, achievement, and fulfillment. It is in this sweet spot that Expeditionary Leaders find their greatest strength and resolve.

CHAPTER TWO

To Serve Others

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

—Mahatma Gandhi

Arthur Blank, cofounder of The Home Depot, first got acquainted with Outward Bound in the early days of the company’s founding. Marjorie Buckley, who attended one of Outward Bound’s first girls’ courses in Minnesota and helped found the North Carolina Outward Bound School, was an early investor in Blank’s new endeavor, along with her husband. It was the Buckleys who came up with the name The Home Depot.¹

Marjorie invited Arthur to the North Carolina Outward Bound School base camp near Table Rock Mountain in the Pisgah National Forest, and there he found a philosophy that aligned with his and his partner’s call to lead through service to others.

Arthur says, “Of all the organizations I’ve been connected to, Outward Bound has had the most significant impact on my life. How do we integrate that philosophy? To serve, to strive, and not to yield is very much a part of everything we do.”

After retiring, Arthur founded the AMB Group, which is best known for ownership of the Atlanta Falcons and the professional soccer team Atlanta United. In addition, the group manages guest ranches in Montana, PGA Tour Superstores, and the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation.

I’ll be 76 the end of this month. Bernie [the cofounder] will be 90. When you get to my age, you realize that one of the great things you can do in this world is be of service to others. Sometimes you can do it at work, sometimes with philanthropy. We’ve been able to couple it; we’ve been able to translate that [value] into all the existing businesses we have today: the football team, the soccer team, the golf business, our two guest ranches, our foundation. They are all built on the same principles of being of service to others.

Regardless of the focus of the endeavor or the product or service of an organization, Expeditionary Leaders like Arthur know that they are ultimately responsible for the well-being of other people—those they lead, those they encounter—and for the web of relationships that flow from their center. It is an awesome and humbling responsibility.

“I’ve been blessed financially. It’s my opportunity and responsibility to make a difference in other people’s lives in every way that I can,” Arthur continued.

A large part of my work now is the foundation, but [the “of service” atmosphere] is the essence of all of our businesses. It’s always about making people happy in their lives. We focus on fans for the football team and the soccer matches, guests at the ranches. We have to do other things correctly—we have to ride horses correctly, we have to sell food correctly. There are other fundamental skills that go with it, but the underlying essence is making sure people are happy. That’s being of service to them.

Bringing Purpose to Work

Modern engagement theory has identified a sense of purpose as being critical to people’s intrinsic motivation. Intrinsically motivated employees work harder, produce more, stay longer, and live healthier lives than those who are motivated through external circumstances. In fact, purpose has been cited by numerous business authors and researchers as an integral part of creating a successful organization.

Crafting purpose comes from a leader’s own value system. Expeditionary Leaders understand this and make it central to the focus of the organizations they lead. Outward Bound has lived in the space of deep, meaningful purpose for more than half a century.

Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus were dialed in to this focus long before social scientists and authors put a name to it; they used this deep sense of purpose to build The Home Depot and revolutionize the entire home improvement industry. “One of the awards I am most proud of we received in 2000, the year I got ready to retire,” said Arthur.

In that year, Home Depot was ranked first in social responsibility by the Harris Interactive Survey. At the same time, company stock was up 45 percent for the year, earnings 48 percent, and sales climbed 47 percent.

It shows you can serve both masters. Many people believe that if you focus on making money, you can’t focus on doing good in the world. The truth of the matter is that we need to give work purpose beyond just financial. Doing good work and driving the right kind of behavior in business, like people serving others, can produce good financial results. It creates the right kind of chemistry and stimulus for the people we are serving, and then we have the opportunity to take that success and reinvest it back in the community.

Do You Go to Work or to Mission?

“This concept of service that [Outward Bound founder] Kurt Hahn felt was so important,” said Laura Kohler, senior vice president of human resources, stewardship, and sustainability for Kohler Co. “Outward Bound is purposeful. It builds leaders for the future. It builds character in people.” This is also what Laura is doing at Kohler: creating a common sense of “why we are here” that attracts people who, like herself, feel called to lead the change toward greater sustainability.

Laura’s first experience with Outward Bound was as a teenager on a mountaineering course with the Pacific Crest Outward Bound School. She returned to Outward Bound as an instructor for Voyageur Outward Bound School’s Chicago ...