Eight Steps to Being a Great Leader
How Winning Works – 8 Essential Leadership Lessons from the Toughest Teams on Earth, by Robyn Benincasa
Review by Sharry Miller
Whether in business or personal life, we’ve all had the misfortune of being part of a team that just doesn’t work: parents who can’t provide a united front with their teen children; sales teams that don’t meet company goals; partners who can’t agree on business goals or methods. In How Winning Works – 8 Essential Leadership Lessons from the Toughest Teams on Earth, Robyn Benincasa proposes a solution for us all.
Benincasa spent years as an urban firefighter and adventure racer, being part of some of the toughest teams on Earth. She had the opportunity to observe teams that fell apart at the first challenge, and was part of teams that were victorious after facing one life-threatening challenge after another. Along the way, she figured out what made for a winning team.
In How Winning Works, Benincasa describes eight elements that work together to create human synergy, the idea that “as we strive together toward a common goal, we actually become better because of one another.” These elements are:
Total Commitment
Empathy and Awareness
Adversity Management
Mutual Respect
We Thinking
Ownership of the Project
Relinquishment of Ego
Kinetic Leadership
To teach you about these leadership skills, Benincasa takes you through the jungles of Borneo, the heights of the Himalayas, the rain forests of Ecuador, and brush fires of Southern California. She draws on her experiences as a member of various adventure racing teams, and as a firefighter. She not only tells vivid stories of her adventures, but also clearly lays out what her teams and others did right to become winning teams, or did wrong to become losing teams. She then applies those lessons to the business world.
While Benincasa wrote wonderfully about her experiences, and clearly described how to be a great adventure team leader, her ability to apply those lessons to the business world was not as strong. Most of her examples applied to sales teams (also part of her background), but she did not go beyond that business model into other arenas where reaching sales goals is not the primary team objective. I did not come away with a clear idea of how to apply her overall model to my work in state government, although certainly aspects of it would be easily applicable. That said, as I look back at my copy of How Winning Works, I see many places where I marked inspirational quotes or excellent messages that I want to go back and mull over more. No self-help book has the sure-fire cure for everything, but most have nuggets of wisdom. How Winning Works is worth mining for those nuggets.
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Sharry Miller is a writer, glass and mixed media artist, and state government employee in Valdez, Alaska. A life-long Alaskan, she loves to explore her region, and the world, on foot and bicycle. She blogs about living her life with bold enthusiasm at http://sharrymiller.typepad.com.
Sharry is a key member of the Women’s Adventure book club. Join the club to discuss your thoughts on How Winning Works and other adventurous reads: https://www.facebook.com/groups/womensadventurers/
