When we’re responsible for the personal development of others, we have two choices. We can treat people like students, with programs and resources, teaching and correcting, guiding and managing, passing down knowledge from our seniority. Or we can treat people like colleagues, inviting them into the trenches with us, promoting their independence alongside us, letting them see that we’re in it together. In my experience, the second is by far the most effective.

Here’s an example:

My brother David, 11 years older than me, was a hot shot racing sailor in college. One summer day when I was about 10 years old, it was so windy that, to my great relief, my sailing class was canceled. Then David said, “Get your boat rigged up, it’s time to learn some heavy weather sailing.” “No way”, I said, over and over. But David won the argument and we headed down to the beach.

I had seen photos in David’s ocean sailing books of small yachts with nothing up but tiny handkerchiefs of storm sails, racing down the slopes of mountainous ocean seas to their doom, as I imagined, in the trough at the bottom of the wave. Our little bay, covered with whitecaps on waves maybe two feet high, seemed like much worse conditions to me and my little square-nosed pram. I was scared.

The pram wasn’t big enough for the two of us but David was planning on coaching me through this horror show, so he set out in our rowboat, HEZEKIAH, a heavy, flat-bottomed, slab-sided workboat. On mild days I loved to row HEZEKIAH, chasing my toy catamaran, a model I had that really sailed. Sometimes it sailed so fast I could hardly keep up, and sometimes it would capsize and I would rescue it.

The irony of the role reversal was not lost on me, as David rowed beside me with instructions and encouragement. I just hoped I would be better at staying upright than my toy.

HEZEKIAH was as easy to row in these conditions as a donkey. David pulled valiantly at the oars but rowing against the wind and waves was really making him work. I saw that this was actually as hard for him as it was for me. Sometimes, when I lost control of the boat and drifted helplessly, sail flapping violently, David would be able to rest for a bit, drifting downwind beside me, helping me learn how to maneuver out of my predicament. But once I got going he’d have to follow me upwind again, and after a while I was getting good enough that I just kept sailing away from him and he’d call me back around.

That was the amazing part. I was getting good at it. After a couple of hours I could keep my pram under control and make progress against, or rather with, the violence of the wind and waves. It was a revelation, the realization that I may be frightened, but I can proceed on that basis.

The situation David offered me for my learning was as valuable as the wind in fostering my self-discovery. He didn’t take me to the yacht club in the next town where he taught and had all the facilities of the sailing program, to send me out in an unfamiliar boat on unfamiliar waters while he followed along in a motorboat with a bullhorn, as he did with his racing team. Instead, everything in the situation was familiar, just amped up a few notches, and he was right in the middle of it with me. This let the wind be my only obstacle, and made David my close ally. The single focus and the intimacy of our mutual effort were able to hold me long enough to wear out my fears. The yacht club option, or anything else that added complexity and separated him from me, would have overwhelmed me, and I would have bolted for shore, believing that the wind really was too much for me.

Intellectual learning is important, but we learn best when we’re physically and emotionally part of something, and right there with those we need to learn from. What more can we do to invite our people in?

I’m offering a once-a-year opportunity to share the heart of the leadership experience with me, at sea, during the Nova Scotia Sea School’s Professional Development voyage, September 17-21, starting from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Join me for this program for a broad range of people who lead groups: entrepreneurs, educators, corporate and government leaders, community development professionals. It’s a challenging adventure voyage mixed with leadership principles and discussion, and lots of learning from your peers. For more information, go to: http://cranestookey.com/leadership-development-at-sea-with-crane/, or contact me at crane@cranestookey.com.