Into the Wild

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"I disagree with Perry," Andy said. "It generates $600,000 worth of business. We shouldn't just mess around with it. We should focus on getting it right."

Patti was taken aback. "Anytime you change something you're going to get a lot of feedback," she said. "My question is whether the workbook is viewed as a success or a failure."

"I don't see it as a failure," Andy replied. "I just asked you to get user feedback." They began arguing about whether she had obtained enough feedback on the mockup of the new workbook from the dealers who use it. She thought she had; he disagreed.

As they went back and forth, the rest of the group sat quietly, listening and occasionally looking off into the distance, at the mountains or at the sky. Besides Perry, most hadn't realized that Andy and Patti were so tense around each other--there wasn't time for this type of issue-airing during weekly executive team meetings. "It was a little awkward," Chris told me later. "A bit like watching your friend's parents fight."

"What I hear you saying is that yours is the better perspective, and mine is the lesser one," Andy said.

"It's just different," Patti said. "And that dealer workbook, it feels right to me."

"I hear you saying that, but what I need is usability. I have to have that, or I'm dealing with complaints."

"The workbook is much more usable than before. And you're saying it was a failure."

"I don't think it was a failure," Andy said. "I think the process was a failure because we had conflict over this. What I admire about you is that you take something and you make it your own. But I feel I gave you my input of what's important, and you take it, and then you go do your own thing."

Perry interjected. "Andy, what I hear you saying is that you don't feel respected."

Andy nodded. "The No. 1 thing I feel is disrespected when we have these conflicts."

Patti stopped. She nodded and said, "Okay." And she thought: Oh my God, he's right.

At this point, Perry stepped in. "You know, yesterday I was in a big downward spiral," he said. "My feet hurt and I didn't eat when we stopped and I was so pissed about all the waiting to make camp. It wasn't until last night that I understood that my perspective was really limited."

Then he added, wryly, "And I guess what I do in those situations is, I take it out on Nancy."

Everyone laughed. And Nancy took it as Perry meant it--as an apology.

One Month Later: Timbuk2 headquarters, Mission district, San Francisco, sea level

We all hiked out together after that, and after one more night in our tents, we got back on the bus. Everyone survived. Injuries were minimal. Perry got a tick bite, but it didn't turn into Rocky Mountain spotted fever and his feet healed. I mildly sprained both of my ankles, but I could walk out.

Timbuk2 also survived in the absence of its leaders. And when they all returned, it was obvious to Kristel Craven, the company's director of logistics, that it hadn't been a vacation. "I could see from the looks on their faces, it had been a lot of hard work," she said. "But it also seemed to me that everyone seems a little bit more comfortable together, like there's more trust than there was before, and that's never a bad thing."

Indeed, each member of the team that went to Wyoming describes their relationship as tighter, closer, warmer.

Andy and Patti turned a corner in their friendship and their professional relationship. Same with Nancy and Perry. And Tony and Chris, the two newbies, are now much more integrated into the team. "I feel like I've known them for several years," Tony said.

There's no question in Perry's mind that the trip was worthwhile. "It created a familiarity that wasn't there before," he said. "Maybe you grab lunch with the people you work with, but it's different when you drink out of the same water bottle and someone teaches you the proper way to make pancakes over a camp stove. I feel now like I'm working with friends." As for his own personal experience, his feelings are a bit more mixed. "I had been interested in this as a theoretical question: Could you break people down and build a team? But it's different when you're actually doing it, being hungry and super tired, and having the bloody feet." He couldn't help thinking about his meltdown on the trail. "That was great CEO behavior right there," he said, with a rueful laugh.

But as embarrassing as it was, the experience gave him a key insight into the way he approaches leadership. "I'm not used to being in situations of uncertainty where I have little experience or authority," he said. That day on the trail, he was in the unusual position of being uncomfortable, vulnerable, and not in charge. "I came out of it thinking what it must be like to be just an employee at Timbuk2, to not be a manager and to be in a situation of uncertainty and without authority." It remains to be seen exactly how his new rank-and-file employee empathy will affect his management style, but he's been giving it some thought.

There are two big tests of any team-building exercise: whether its benefits are long-lasting, and whether the company would invest in doing it again. On the first measure, it's probably too soon to say. As for the second, the signs are encouraging. Perry says that Timbuk2 will probably do the whole thing all over again next year, sending a different group of employees. He's not so sure he'll join them, though. He's not eager to haul a backpack 30 miles in the Wyoming backcountry anytime soon.

Alison Stein Wellner (alison@wellner.biz) is an Inc. contributing editor.

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