By Mark Liston From AGRR Magazine

I completed a half-marathon in Grand Cayman on Sunday. I’m not a runner. I’m not even a long walker. I’ve never walked a 5K – much less a distance four times that far. I’ve never been around the racing community to watch what happens at an event like this.

This opportunity happened because of our Saturday morning exercise group. Each Saturday morning we get together so we can walk/run/cycle for an hour just so we can have breakfast. Some of the group are avid runners; others are avid cyclists. The rest of us are avid breakfast eaters who understand that we first have to do some walking for an hour to earn our meal.

The first of the year, one of our group members told us about a marathon to fight cancer and invited us to stay at her family home in Grand Cayman if we wanted to participate. Thirteen of us accepted her generous offer and spent months preparing to run/walk/bike.

It turned out that there were lessons during the days leading up to the Sunday race.

One morning Mary Kay and four other guys went out to see if they could catch some lobster or conch. No luck on the lobster, but one of the guys in the group was able to grab five live conch. All of a sudden he yelled out for help. In the process of diving for the conch, he got too far from the boat and overexerted himself. He simply ran out of strength and was struggling getting back to the boat. Mary Kay said it was very scary. Everyone swam out to help him (and saved the conch).

Teamwork.

Simultaneously at the house, two of the women went to the ocean for a paddleboard ride. One of the guys in the house noticed they were going out farther and farther. One of the women fell off the board – then both were in the water. The currents and winds were much stronger than either anticipated, and they were drifting out to sea. Both women are great athletes but they didn’t have any luck kicking back. Two of the group jumped in a kayak and went out to bring them back to shore.

Teamwork.

One racer in our group arrived on Thursday only to find his racing bicycle damaged by the airline. He is paraplegic and has a special recumbent hand cycle. It was impossible to find another wheel on the island to replace the damaged one. He reached out to a fellow rider in the race with a similar bike. A friend of his, who was joining him in the Caymans, spent Friday in New York City trying to find a replacement wheel to bring to Grand Cayman. He was unsuccessful, but it turned out that a spare the other rider had worked for the half-marathon race.

Teamwork.

The race, itself, was amazing. Having never done this, I had no idea of the teamwork that goes into producing an event of such magnitude. The teams of volunteers providing water, Gatorade, and oranges for the runners/walkers, along with bands at one-mile intervals were vital. In fact there was an award for the best water station team!

Teamwork.

Finally, the biggest leadership lesson was experiencing the way in which runners/walkers/cyclists supported each other. The hundreds of people at the finish line cheering every person coming across gave me goosebumps. I wonder how many of us cheer our employees as they come back to the office at the end of each workday?

Teamwork. It’s a nice term. When practiced in real life, however, is an awe-inspiring leadership lesson!

IMAGE: Mark Liston

For more on this story go to: http://liston.agrrmag.com/2016/12/05/leadership-lessons-teamwork-cayman-style/