(Originally written for and published at: www.ecoprimalquest.com).

Recipe for Team Discord

Too many cooks in the kitchen doom Hombres de Maiz

June 30, 2006

By Ken White

Take 1 Mexican sports instructor and 1 German schoolteacher. Keep them together for 6 years.
Add 1 Guatemalan banana farmer.
Add 1 more Guatemalan.
No, scratch that.
Add 1 Argentine.
Oops, belay that.
Add 1 Canadian biomedical engineer just 3 days before the race starts.
Mix quickly, although not thoroughly.
Marinate in sweat, sand, sunscreen, and electrolytes.
Bake and broil for 14 hours a day.
Soak for several hours in swift-moving water.
Bake; broil; and marinate some more.
Leave outside for several days and nights.
Serves four, but can crumble.

The conflict
I spent 11 hours yesterday grinding out part of a hot, long mountain bike leg with Team Hombres de Maiz, who graciously welcomed me into their company. Even though it was immediately apparent that they were having communication and leadership issues, those problems did not appear unresolvable. However, their polite and accommodating facades kept the underlying conflicts at bay for only so long.

When I left them just after dark, the Hombres were preparing for a short rest just shy of CP26. Back at PQ HQ, I wrote the "recipe" above as the intended introduction to light-hearted look at how the team dealt with conflict.

Late that night, I learned that Hombres had pulled out of the race just a few hours after I departed. As they explained this morning, the presence of a guest had functioned like a control rod in the reaction. Almost as soon as I left, their conflicts escalated past the breaking point.

From conversations with them during and after the race, a profile emerged of team riven by ineffective communication and challenged by circumstance.

What matters
In adventure racing, leadership matters. Followership matters. Knowing who is in which role, and when, matters. Leadership style matters as well. But what matters most is clarity about leadership style.

The same can be said for goals. And for the capacity to adapt to changing circumstances, leadership styles, and goals. Teams who have trained and raced—and grown—together evolve ways to work through the inevitable rough patches. Teams who do not prepare, or are thrown together at the last minute, face an enormous emotional challenges on top of all the physical ones races like PQ present.

Team Hombres de Maiz dropped out of PQ about 250 miles and five days into the race. At the time, Hombres were still in the top 25, with all team members healthy and strong, and the team still making reasonably good progress along the course.

As team members Francis Bruderer, Luis Canseco, Nina Ostman, and John Markez tell it, their withdrawal left each team member with serious misunderstandings about what happened, and serious misgivings about how to understand the experience.

Team formation
The team’s name, "Men of Corn," honors the Mayan creation myth, which explains how the human race was created not from dust or twigs, but from the durable staple at the heart of Mayan culture. Team Captain Francis assembled the team with a mission of pride and ambition to honor that heritage.

Francis: "We wanted to prove something—that a team of the best Mexican and Guatemalan racers could be in the top15 at a race like Primal Quest. We had the capability of being top 15."

When several teammates and alternates had to drop out in the weeks leading up to the race, Hombres found themselves scrambling for a fourth teammate. With literally hours to spare, John Markez flew in, and the dynamic shifted. No longer a Central American team of compadres, Hombres was now a tentative alliance of friends and strangers.

Francis: "Most teams have time together to learn each other. Like Luis knows when I am down, and how to deal with this."

Nina: "I would not race without [my husband] Luis. I feel safe with him, and we can take care of each other. We understand how to race with each other."

John: "I came down here open to any style of racing. My expectations were based on a written description and a 10-minute conversation. Our pre-race conversations set fairly high expectations…. But when we got out on the course….."

The struggle begins
Hombres stayed near the top of the leaderboard until the kayak leg, bouncing around the top 10.

Their first incident erupted on Day 2 over a seemingly minor thing: where to camp out and how long to sleep. But it cracked open two fissures: who would make decisions, and how hard the team would push.

Francis: "Everyone has a role: navigating, food and water, when to rest, etc. We didn’t have those roles defined, so they overlapped and were not respected. When you have a breach of that respect…all four team members missed their roles. As team captain, I should have been more strict."

John: "So far, I’d been really relaxed and positive, But I’d been seeing four-hour transitions and just for this next section, [I decided] I’m really going to push. I’m going to try to get them to be more efficient and really race. It didn’t really groove with them…. There’s a completely different style of racing when you’re trying to win rather than just finish. [For example], the idea of giving up a pack [to a teammate] was completely foreign to them."

Francis: "The navigator wanted to control everything to the point of saying who could speak and when. It is clear he is the strongest navigator, but he should not make every decision."

John: "I had to explain too much. I tried to explain everything, but as the navigator, when I said, ‘Follow,’ they just have to follow…. Every new decision where I couldn’t demonstrate with 100 percent certainty where we are was questioned. At one point, [Francis] grabbed the map from me and within two seconds he had made a huge mistake."

Luis: "Someone has to make the decisions. You cannot all the time be arguing. When there are too many cooks in the kitchen, the soup is no good."

Francis: "When we had the first incident at the second kayak leg, we dropped to 20th. We almost withdrew right there."

In the ensuing disarray, the team tried to recalibrate its expectation and race strategy.

Luis: "When you are not in front, you take a new ambition, and you try to keep the team focused on this new goal. But it’s a long competition, and very difficult to do this."

It would not be the last confusion over racing styles and goals.

The tug of war
After the first disruption, and the fall back into the pack, team members began to withdraw into separate camps. Hidden doubts began to bubble up and affect not only communication, but performance.

Francis: "We would love to be competitive and finish the race, but after the first incident I said: ‘Gee, we might have a storm, and you are putting yourself and your team at risk because we are already dysfunctional.’ "

Team communication deteriorated as the stress of heat, lack of sleep, and fatigue increased. Ever-polite and respectful to each other, the Hombres did not find a way to surface and resolve conflicts successfully.

John: "Arguments always happened at night when the stress level was highest. All of a sudden I’m argumentative. I’m usually positive and motivational. This wasn’t a matter of managing others. This time I was in the middle of it."

Spouses Nina and Luis tried to avoid being drawn into this power struggle, but this only intensified efforts by Francis and John to win their loyalties.

Nina: "We were just in the middle all the time."

John: "The first two small mistakes resulted in arguments, so I ended up trying to explain myself and get people on my side when there was no need."

Nina: "These are grown men. They are not like my children. They should know how to settle this like adults."

As they moved forward, team members broached the subject of revised possibilities.

John: "I asked the team a couple of days into the race, ‘What are your expectations?’ I can change based on what is needed…. [But] I couldn’t keep [the team] together—they were just falling asleep everywhere…. I said, ‘Guys, you have the skills and strength to be really good.’ So I tried to push them…. I didn’t really know how to handle the situation…. I imposed my thinking based on having more experience."

The frequent navigation decisions on the long bike leg gave the team repeated opportunities to replay their conflicts. Despite this, just a few hours before their withdrawal, the entire team was still thinking of completing the race successfully.

Francis: "We would like to finish this race, and finish it as friends."

Pulling the plug
The Hombres’ race ended as the course became more difficult; the stress level increased; and night fell. Halfway through a long mountain bike leg, the team found itself once again questioning their navigation, and their ability to make it to the next checkpoint.

Luis: "It was a minor situation. We were looking for CP27 in the dark. Our doubt was having enough water."

John: "[We] crashed for a couple of hours, and when we awoke, there was an argument over when to move and where. I tried to end the argument by justifying my navigational decision, and then I tried to just put an end to the arguing."

Luis: "It was the third time we tried to fix the team dynamic."

Francis: "Safety was paramount—with a dysfunctional team, it was even more important."

John: "I said, ‘I’m not arguing any more.’ While we were talking, [Francis] pulled out the phone. He told HQ he was concerned his teammates were going to separate and run off."

Luis: "Francis said we had to open the radio and contact HQ. After that, we found CP27 in just 15 minutes…we were just 500 meters away."

500 meters away on a marked 4WD trail.

According to PQ rules, if a team uses their emergency phone, they are immediately disqualified. So the Hombres’ ended like it began, without a definitive discussion leading to agreement.

The Aftermath
The next afternoon found the racers replaying the race and their role in the unraveling.

Francis: "It was just like a soap opera. All four of us are responsible for our failure…. All four of us made economical and personal sacrifices to be here—especially Luis and Nina. It was difficult to end the race."

Luis: "You have to have a realistic view of the race, not some idea of an evil dark side, and moving toward the light… We are regular people doing extraordinary things."

John: "I have to learn how not to prove myself over and over again."

Francis: "When you get older, your boundaries become more defined. And when you break those boundaries…there’s no love for the sport that makes it worth living with this…. I am questioning the time I spend doing this. I have four children who all began kayaking and things when they are four years old, and I think I will spend more time with them."