Some people say, "There is no 'I' in team," but when individuals work together towards a common cause, they can move mountains! They can also navigate whitewater rapids on Colorado's Arkansas River, leverage their strengths and have tons of fun doing it!
Members of the Arkansas River Outfitters Association (AROA) are consummate teambuilding pros and guides in outdoors experiential learning. Many times each day, they give rafters a sense of accomplishment with benefits that lift all boats back on the job or in the community.
Colorado's Arkansas River is one of the biggest classrooms in the world. There are six major rafted sections with more than 80 named rapids covering 101.8 miles. "AROA outfitters are able to take first-time rafters down any of these stretches because guides are trained to manage the risk appropriately," said Mark Hammer, Owner of The Adventure Company.
A UNIQUE EXPERIENCE OUTSIDE ONE'S NORMAL ENVIRONMENT
Managing risk in an unfamiliar environment is a signature element of most teambuilding experiences. Mike Kissak, Owner of American Adventure Expeditions believes, "By its nature, rafting is all about teambuilding. It's an experience outside their normal day-to-day environment - whether it's the office, athletic field or church," he said.
Mark Anderson is the Owner of Journey Quest, a Christian wilderness ministry. He believes in hiring people with strong facilitation skills. "I want people who aren't afraid to open their mouth, who are good communicators and extroverted," he said. "We spend an extra 50 hours training them over and above what we're expected to do by the State of Colorado. It's also important they're not afraid of water!"
Well trained guides are important because rafters face challenges that vary a great deal based on water depth, speed of flow, grade of the rapid and skill level required from each classification:
Class 1: very small rough areas requiring no maneuvering
Class II: some rough water and rocks, small drops, may require maneuvering
Class III: Whitewater with medium waves, three to five foot drop and significant maneuvering
Class IV: Whitewater, large waves, long rapids, rocks, considerable drops and sharp maneuvers
Class V: Whitewater, large waves, continuous rapids, large rocks and maybe a large drop, requires precise maneuvering. Requires expert whitewater experience.
Kissack continued, "Every rafting trip offers a different kind of experience. When you're dealing with a big group, it's important to be realistic about everyone's abilities," he said. We've got something for everybody, but when you're dealing with a big diverse group you want everyone to be comfortable out there."
ROLE REVERSAL AND ROLE EQUITY
Comfort is a relative term. Facilitators often try to disrupt that sense of familiarity by assigning participants different roles. When you take your team on a rafting adventure, it plunges them into positions where crew members are instantly equal to one another. The mail clerk's contribution is of equal value as the CEO. The tests teams face in whitewater takes them far beyond your typical role-playing exercise.
Andy Neinas, Owner of Echo Canyon Rafting Expeditions, believes teambuilding is often misunderstood. "It's much more than a 'trust fall' where you rely on others in the group to catch you," he said. "It has more to do with role equity or creating equality among all team members. It makes no difference who you are or what your position is. Each person contributes equally to create a successful experience for the whole. A river experience forges that understanding."
Anderson agrees mutual understanding is a very important outcome. "I've been taking groups down the river for 24 years and think you should be clear up front what goals the team is trying to achieve," he said. "Often the goals are set by the leader before they arrive. Most want to understand each other better. And while they realize they're not all gifted at the same thing, they learn to function as one to get down the rapids. Both the left side and right side have to work together."
BUILD SKILLS, SET STRATEGY AND HAVE FUN!
Clear goals and working together towards a common purpose are just a few of the skills that grow from navigating rapids on a raft. Most people learn better when they're having fun, so entertainment is a big part of AROA member teambuilding experiences.
Echo Canyon offers the competitive and hilarious Battle of the Bighorn where teams work together through multiple challenge stations and a memory puzzle while racing down Bighorn Sheep Canyon. Neinas describes it as "Whitewater raft trip meets the circus!"
"We intend it to be entertaining and make the point it's not who crosses the finish line who wins. Everyone mistakes our industry as muscle-bound and athleticism. So we made it cerebral," said Neinas. "There are lots of intellectual exercises and penalties for not successfully completing a challenge. You have to decide as a group what makes the most sense. We don't unveil the winner until the very end. And it's not often the first boat across the finish line actually takes first place," he said.
Anderson encourages problem solving along with the fun. "We host a lot of youth groups. There's a lot of laughing and trying to control emotions, especially when a raft might get stuck," he said. "They have to figure out how to collectively get the raft off the rock. They might learn that bouncing up and down works, so then every time we'd go through a rapid they'd start bouncing on the tubes!"
Neinas observed, "Everyone has an ego, so we're playing that card. Sometimes competitiveness takes over, so we have to talk people down and say, 'Look folks, this is meant to be fun!' We have everyone sign the paddles and that becomes the trophy. We also created the Red Light Award for the team that comes in last. We borrowed it from the Iditarod, where it's given to the last place musher. It's also the lantern they used to hang on the back of a train. This is entertaining public humiliation, but it's fun! When people start off wanting to have fun, it makes our job easy and 99.9% of them want to have fun."
HOW TO DEFINE SUCCESS
In addition to fun, it's those "ah-ha moments" AROA members hope rafters will discover on each guided trip. "Every day is teambuilding," said Bob Hamel, owner of Arkansas River Tours. "You learn how to deal with the consequences of the river."
Winning crews learn that no one skill alone (physical, mental or social) will guarantee success. One group may be physically stronger than another, but if they are moving in the wrong direction they'll just get "sideways" faster.
Team cohesiveness, problem-solving, self-awareness and collaborative decision-making is the return on investment or ROI rafters achieve from a trip on the whitewater. Nothing says,
"We
're in this together" better than putting paddles in motion on Colorado's Arkansas River!
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