Wanna build a strong team? Go to Uganda

Back in September of 2017, I took a two week trip that changed my life. And it changed the way I thought about teams.

The two week trip I took was to Uganda. I went with a Christian church group, imagine little Jew boy with a bunch of Christians, going to Uganda, on a service project to help entrepreneurs start plan, build their businesses, it was an incredible experience.

What we spent two weeks there, and we, because of everything we had been through, the bonds we built with each other in such a short time were incredible.

When I talk about everything we've been through, it wasn't just getting there, and teaching together and living together and eating together.

But we had an interesting situation right towards the end of the trip, we were going to reward ourselves for a week and a half plus of just day and night, incredible effort.

We're going to reward ourselves by going first hiking in a game preserve. And then the next day going on a safari. So we take a four mile drive to this game preserved from Kampala, Uganda, and we go hiking in Africa. So what's hot, it's Africa hot. And as we're taking the hike, and seeing just gorgeous scenery, beautiful animals, starts to rain.

Well, it's Africa hot. So the rain is kind of nice. We're getting wet, but it's refreshing.

What we don't know is what that rain did to the roads while we were hiking. So we finish our hike. We're about to go back to the place we were staying for the evening getting ready for this amazing safari the next day, we get on the bus and all of a sudden, a 10 minute bus drive, supposedly a 10 minute bus drive.

We're now 30 minutes in.

And we're all looking at each other. See what's going on?

Well, what we didn't know is in this game preserve, which is basically a big circle with the game preserve in the middle of the road is on the outside, while we were staying here. And we had to get here 10 minutes away, this road washed out the bridge washed out.

So instead of doing this 10 minutes, we had to do this, which was a three and a half hour drive. Now, not only did a 10 minute drive turn into three and a half hours, but it was a treacherous drive.

At one point. The driver who was this tough guy from Uganda, he was there to not only drive us but protect us. All of a sudden he stopped. And we all looked at each other. And we kind of angry that the ride was taking us so long. We didn't know what was going on. And he stopped. And then he looked back at this group of Christians and the one little Jewboy. And he said, everybody, please pray.

And then he pauses for five seconds and goes and the bus goes like this almost tilts over, and then comes back through some flooding.

We made it through.

We didn't go on the Safari the next day because the roads were still washed down. But I tell you that story, because it's going through things like that, that make your team stronger.

I'm not saying you need to go on a Ugandan safari to build your team stronger.

But as leaders, sometimes we shield our teams from the hard stuff. And it's going through that hard stuff, creating experiences through the hard stuff that bond us as a team. We need to be vulnerable and honest as a team.

There's something called the Stockdale paradox that I learned from Jim Collins and the Stockdale paradox says, We need to confront the brutal facts while at the same time having incredible faith that we will ultimately be successful. Trust your team with those brutal facts. Go through those difficult times as a team, as a team and you will build stronger bonds as a team. If it helps to go to Uganda, go do it, but build that strong team through those difficult experiences together.