By Craig J. Cantoni

This article was published by The Wall Street Journal on October 2, 1995, with the title, "Learning the Ropes of Teamwork."

Affixed to the top of the 30-foot telephone pole was a wobbly round platform, 12 inches in diameter. The objective was to climb to the top of the pole, step onto the platform, stand up straight, and then jump off, trusting that the belaying ropes held by the other team members would break the fall. One woman with vertigo was so afraid of climbing the pole that she had begun crying. A man was so terrified that his legs were visibly shaking.

A training program for telephone workers? A tryout for the circus? Army paratrooper training? No. It was one of the exercises in a two-day "ropes" program, designed to teach managers how to work together as a team. Thousands of managers from private and public sector organizations, including the U.S. Postal Service, have attended similar programs at a cost of millions of dollars.

The idea behind the training is this: Get managers out of their comfort zones by placing them on high ropes and structures, where they have to depend on their fellow team members for encouragement and safety. The hope is that what they learn about trust and teamwork will be retained long enough to be applied in the workplace when they return home.

Is the training effective? If judged by the enthusiasm and almost cult-like fervor of many of the participants, the answer is yes. And it is a resounding yes if judged by the ability of the instructors to use the tactics of peer pressure and group-think to convince people to do things that they would otherwise not do.

If judged, however, by the ability of team members to confront and resolve deeply imbedded issues of trust, cooperation, performance and leadership, the answer is an unqualified no. It is one thing to trust your domineering boss to help you walk across a 50-foot-high plank; it is quite another to suggest how his management style gets in the way of team effectiveness. In the same vein, it is relatively easy to let a political shark blindfold you and help you climb over a high wall in the artificial environs of a rope course, but it is considerably more difficult — and foolish — to trust him back at the office.

The problem with trying to build effective teams by having managers climb ropes and poles together is that the real work of business teams is not climbing ropes and poles. A football team wins the Super Bowl by learning teamwork on the football field, not by playing basketball. Likewise, the real practice field for a business team is the office or factory, not a ropes course in the mountains of Colorado.

For that reason, teams are frequently great on the ropes course but lousy in the boardroom. One executive group, for example, would go once a year to a ropes course, where the participants would superficially exhibit mutual respect, trust and supportive behavior. But hiding beneath the surface were some longstanding interpersonal issues and differences of opinion on the direction of the business. Left unaddressed, those hidden and forbidden issues would eventually drive the company into the red.

When the chief financial officer, one of the most fearless people on the ropes course, was asked why he had never raised these issues with the CEO, a look of fear flashed across his face as he said with a stammering voice: "I ... uh ... umm ... well ... you know how he is. He'd ... ahh ... kill the messenger."

For this particular team, the ropes course had turned into a form of playacting, a convenient way of avoiding the real problems affecting team performance. It took a continued decline in business results for the CEO to finally ask a teambuilding professional for help in surfacing and resolving the team issues, including concerns about his leadership style. Through a series of interviews and team meetings, the professional was able to help pull the team together and develop a plan to return the business to profitability.

Strong leaders have the courage to admit fallibility, to be open to feedback and to get outside help in addressing the tougher issues affecting team performance, especially if the issue is their own behavior. They have the confidence to keep teambuilding at the office where it belongs, and the wisdom to keep pole climbing at the telephone company where it belongs.