The journey is demanding; it requires a true desire for growth and results and the dedication to persevere.

For those willing to meet the challenge, it is rewarding beyond description.

Lessons from Human Flight

High Performance Sustainable Learning

By Robert B. Moore and Jack H. Jefferies

1989, THE two authors began an applied research collaboration that continues to this day. Using organization development and sports psychology principles, we intended to develop a skydiving team into a high-performance, sustainable learning organizationan engine for creating a sports dynasty. Working with the U.S. Skydiving team, we applied our knowledge of organization development principles as the team prepared for the 1991 World Championship Meet. One author was the team coach and the other the team captain. We immediately became a dominant team in the U.S.A., but it took four years of training based on these concepts to build a dynasty at the world level that continues today. Our overarching goal was to realize our potential and to improve the sport of skydiving as whole. These goals were realized on our successful journey, and this article shares some of the learning gained through our experiences. In early 1990, the coach began the study by collecting data and reporting it to the team. The initial evaluation included a series of individual and group interviews, personal style assessments, and team-building workshops. The assessment resulted in the following analysis: 1. Team leadership was charismatic and centralized. Team members were both afraid of and wanting to please the leader, which inhibited team communication and learning. This dynamic drained significant energy from the team and
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damaged group cohesion. 2. Interpersonal skills were weak across the team. There were no procedures in place available for resolving conflict or for giving and receiving constructive feedback. The leaders dominant style inhibited the flow of ideas and seriously reduced technical learning. 3. There was no clear value set, no agreed-upon working principles, and no shared vision beyond winning the next competition. There was little focus on interpersonal, group and organizational dynamics. 4. The team had considerable technical talent, high individual achievement motivation and the simple belief that leadercontrolled hard work would overcome all obstacles. Based on this assessment, the coach introduced the following concepts to the team. He established a continuous learning strategy that incorporated communication, a shared game plan, and leadership trainingall with the intent of improving and sustaining development at the individual, team and organizational levels. The team agreed to an operational design based on this plan and committed to LEARNING STRATEGY regular review and learning. P Plan Learning is key to sustainE Execute ability and success over the long D Debrief term (Senge, 1990 & Wheatley, L Learn 1992). Fundamental to our
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Lessons from Human Flight: High Performance Sustainable Learning

approach was the commitment to learn as much as possible and to incorporate the learning directly into action plans. To accomplish this we extensively used a strategy called PEDL (plan, execute, debrief and learn). PEDL is an iterative, cyclical process that creates meaningful change over time. The team constantly questioned and reshaped its mental models, procedures and dynamics through open and ongoing dialogue. While the content varied over time, PEDL provided the foundation for sustainability and achievement. A positive view toward growth and development made it possible to focus on getting the best at the personal, team and organizational levels of the system. We intentionally committed to a positive psychology (Orlick, 1990) by accumulating and celebrating small wins into a chain of successes, which built confidence and momentum. The team envisioned its future from the best of what was, innovating what had never been achieved before by pulling together snapshots of best performances into an image of what could be.

Figure 1: STRATEGIC SYSTEMS THINKING

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THREE LEVELS OF SYSTEM Illustrated in the center of the model (Figure 1) are three levels of system: personal, team, and organization. The organiAU T H O R S

ROBERT B. MOORE, Ph.D., is the Co-CEO and President of Oneteam. Bob has over twenty-five years experience as a business leader and consulting psychologist. He. currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Champlain College and chairs the Strategic Planning and Academic affairs committees. Bob earned his doctorate from the Fielding Institute. He was the Coach of the 1995-2000 World Champion U.S. Skydiving Team and has coached the last nine U.S. National Skydiving Teams. He was a 1995 U.S. National Silver and Bronze medalist in the sport. Bob can be reached at: RobtBMoore@aol.com. JACK JEFFERIES, MSOD, has twelve years of experience in organization development and sports psychology. He is highly experienced in large and small group dynamics and has worked in Europe, South America, Africa and Australia. Jack is a world class athlete and has won multiple world championships and national titles as Captain of the US National Skydiving Team. Jack earned his graduate degree from NTL/American University masters program in organization development. He can be reached at: JJeffer528@aol.com.

zation level includes the team and all its major stakeholders. From the beginning, the teams success strategy was constant improvement at each of the levels, integrated and synchronized by a shared game plan, high-quality leadership and communication. We believed that excellence at each level would result in excellence on the playing field and create a sustainable winning dynasty. The focus was on internal cooperation and constant improvement to enhance performance (Moore, 1993). Paradoxically, winning came from a focus on being the best we could be by improving ourselves and our systems, rather than focusing on beating the competition. Leadership Leadership was key to aligning the three levels of the system. The team used three forms of leadershipformal, shared and consultativethat combined to sustain growth and unity of purpose. 1) Formal leadership provided direction with compelling messages that developed clarity and passion, resulting in commitment to a unified purpose. 2) A shared leadership model developed trust, respect, accountability, and leadership skills. 3) The teams coach provided consultative leadership that helped individuals and the team and the organization improve. Roles, rules, boundaries, and processes were established to engender a safe environment of warmth, freedom, guidance, encouragement, and healthy friction (Horney, 1991). Initially, a seasoned competitor on the team, who held the formal designation as captain, provided directive leadership. He provided the message necessary to help crystallize the teams long-term vision and the level of commitment required to achieve it. The team shared leadership wherever possible, making each player responsible for team performance. We set in motion a rotating captain schedule where each week a different player
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had responsibility for managing the training or competition schedule for that week. This provided a wonderful way to distribute the burden and concern that comes with the position. It also facilitated a keen awareness of good followership, as team members realized the value of small things like getting to meetings on time. The rotation also provided an excellent learning platform for gaining insight into individual player strengths and weaknesses and allowed leaders to emerge for different situations, based on their individual strengths or their need to develop. In high-stress situations, such as competition at the World Championships, the team placed people in positions that played to their strengths. In lower stress training periods, the rotation allowed for development in areas outside of the individuals comfort zone. Another aspect of shared leadership was the partnership between the coach and the team. The coach provided systems design and facilitation but the direction and focus were outcomes of dialogue between the coach and the team. The coach, a consulting psychologist and OD consultant, was viewed from the beginning as having the role of systems consultant. The team was self-directed and responsible for sport-specific expertise and for the teams own learning. Communication Communication created the coordination and openness to optimize continuous learning at each level. We wanted to develop an organization in which individuals could assume full responsibility for their development in an environment of support and encouragement. To begin, we established a Contract for Working Together (Moore, 1993), in which we committed to be honest, to use differences as assets, to be open to and willing to give constructive feedback, and to hold ourselves and each other mutually accountable for aligning our behavior with our stated intentions. In addition, we committed to process our behaviors at the personal, team, and organizational levels, and we designed specific, overlapping methods to facilitate that processing. Open, structured communication was applied at all levels. Communication quality inside the team separated the team from the competition by enabling team members to confront, understand, and use conflict and difference for learning. We institutionalized communication processes through disciplined practice over time until regular, open communication became an integral aspect of the organizations culture. The structured communication processes permitted all three levels of the system to work in concert to achieve success. The teams communication processes all had a similar underlying format that involved structured disclosure and feedback. For example, during technical debriefing sessions, each team member was required to first discuss what he liked about his own behavior in a given performance and only then discuss ways that same performance could be improved. Following everyones turn, teammates had an opportunity to make sugO D P R AC T I T I O N E R | VO L . 3 6 | N O . 1 | 2 0 0 4

gestions or point out things unnoticed. This format developed everyones ability to give and receive constructive feedback while ensuring all necessary information for performance improvement. Over time this type of communication produced a high responsibility low defensiveness environment. The ability to challenge underlying assumptions in this way led to a higher level of creativity and quality processes at every level. A Shared Game Plan The dream of winning the World Championships brought the U.S. Skydiving team together and focused our collective energy. Creating a clear game plan that all members understood and were committed to helped transform that energy into action. The group established a long-term vision of creating a winning dynasty and positively changing the entire sport. Vision creation through a collaborative process ensured that the teams vision supported each individuals values and goals. This alignment of organizational and individual vision was instrumental in generating commitment and accountability. A shared game plan and goals generated commitment to the organization and its members, along with deep motivation to achieve the vision. Establishing the game plan became an ongoing process that shifted the teams direction as the environment changed and the organization matured. The teams plan had both near-term and long-term components. The nearterm plan had a focus on winning the upcoming World Championship. The long-term focus was on building a winning dynasty that would go on indefinitely. The development of a shared game plan was facilitated by the coach but owned by the team. We used pre-season offsite retreats to clarify and form the plan and to set goals for the season. Shared vision was largely generated through visualization techniques that involved relaxation exercises, with a focus on imaging the successful future. These were followed by discussions on the individual, team and organizational levels, resulting in deep commitment to creating the desired future. A midseason retreat was designed to make adjustments based on collected data and team dialogue.

PERSONAL BEST At the individual level we applied the PEDL methodology using not only the technical debriefing sessions described earlier, but also personal goal-setting and individual journaling. These techniques reinforced personal responsibility and learning in a nurturing environment, and provided encouragement and support as well as challenge. The underlying belief was that individuals needed to actively challenge themselves and receive teammate feedback related to their goals and their performance. Individuals set goals and received feedback in team meetings that became very candid and non-defensive over time. This process facilitated proactive behavior in their personal and pro5

Lessons from Human Flight: High Performance Sustainable Learning

fessional growth. Teammates did not hold back when giving feedback as to the level of challenge in the goals that others were setting. Stretch goals became the norm along with the attitude that the goals would be met or exceeded. Further, these goal-setting sessions became a vehicle for a caring dialogue that sustained both personal and team learning. To increase individuals openness and self-awareness, we constantly strove for selfdisclosure, feedback, and experimentation with new behavior. The principle of coach-to-learn became an important way to accelerate individual learning as well as deepening awareness of team dynamics. Team member responsibilities included coaching other teams. In order to support this, we provided training to the team on coaching, interpersonal skills, facilitation and sports psychology. This training took on heightened meaning and responsibility for team members when they knew they had to teach it to others. This train the trainer methodology was so powerful that it became a major income source for the team and helped change formation skydiving worldwide as the U.S. Skydiving teams ethos was spread through coaching and successful event participation.

incorporated based on their merit, not on who suggested them. This process contained the double benefits of increasing creativity and innovation, along with team cohesion. Content input was gained by bringing in outside experts to coach the team. We did this intermittently to add new ideas to the mix and to stimulate team learning. The focus was on technical aspects of skydiving, exercise physiology, and physical training, as well as on courses in coaching skills and sports psychology. All of these opportunities reinforced the concepts of innovation and learning, so vital to sustainable high performance. The team also used visualization and imaging to great benefit. We visualized technical success each morning to start the day. This learning strategy combines deep relaxation with visual images of completing a high performance sequence or achieving organizational goals. Visualization, combined with viewing videotape of best performances, increased the teams capacity to perform and sustained learning at a higher level than could be accomplished through physical practice alone (Csikszentmihlyi, 1990).

TEAM BEST Team best was promoted by a shared game plan, regular truth-telling sessions and adherence to the principles of selfdirected teams. Shared leadership and effective coaching created the optimal environment for development. The pass-therock truth-telling session was a powerful methodology for improving team functioning. In this process each team member takes a turn telling the truth about what is going on for him. This disclosure can be about any topic and the only requirements are that each person takes ownership for his or her statement and that no one can speak during another persons time. Each team member takes his or her turn and then discussion as a group is opened up. The objective is honest, forthright disclosure to create understanding. These sessions proved invaluable in providing the communication necessary to raise conflicts, clear the air, refocus, and support one another. Regardless of personal style, no one had to carry conflict or personal burdens alone. This process continually reinforced team cohesion and caring. It also reinforced our stated belief that our ability to cooperate, resolve conflicts and support each other was directly linked to our capacity to compete externally. The U.S. Skydiving team is a self-directed team. One of the bedrock principals of self-directed teams is to adhere to the belief that those doing the work know most about it (Hackman, 1990). We honored this belief and supported it through systems design and process. In order to avoid the common pitfalls of hierarchical control, or strength of personality issues, we set up technical methods for innovation and testing of new ideas. At regular intervals we solicited ideas from all team members and then tested and measured those ideas. Innovations were then
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ORGANIZATIONAL BEST We obtained organizational best by focusing on the whole system and including all stakeholder groups closely associated with the team. Decision-making processes were implemented to consider the entire system, and a unifying culture of excellence pushed the entire organization to grow. Utilizing various methods over time created the best communication and understanding possible with all stakeholder groups. These methods included retreats, one-on-one connections, and inclusion in relevant PEDL processes. Initially, we knew we had to include spouses and significant others in building a collaborative learning system. Professional athletes have significant job stress, much like that of most managers and executives. Long hours, demanding challenges, travel and frequent changes in schedule are just a few such issues. Spouses and loved ones are more understanding and supportive when they are attended to in positive interpersonal ways and when their goals and desires are being addressed as part of the system. Consequently, along with key sponsors and other stakeholders, they were invited to attend a retreat at the beginning of each season. We intended this process to help facilitate alignment with all stakeholders in support of the teams game plan. We included opportunities to debrief about the last season and to set new goals going forward. This was very useful in creating an inclusive, open environment. Planning sessions where we set goals at personal, team and organizational levels followed these retreats. The teams decision-making process helped achieve organizational best. At both the team and organizational levels, major decisions were made by consensus. This process worked well and was reserved for significant issues and concerns. For
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less significant issues, individual decisions were made with input from team members. The delineation between these methods became clear with practice and use of PEDL. While slow at first, the decision-making process produced a high-trust, high-commitment culture throughout the system. Team and organization meetings became efficient and effective and stakeholders came to take the teams word as gold.

A I R S PE E D C O M PE T I T I O N AC H I EV E M E N TS US Nationals 1994 1995 1996 4 person gold 4 person gold 4 person gold 8 person silver 4 person gold 8 person silver 4 person gold 8 person gold 4 person gold 8 person silver 16 person gold 4 person gold 8 person gold 10 person gold 16 person gold 4 person gold 8 person gold 10 person gold 16 person gold 4 person silver 8 person gold 16 person gold 10 person - silver World cup or World championship 4 person -gold 4 person -gold 4 person - gold 8 person - gold 4 person - gold N/A 4 person - silver 8 person - gold 4 person - gold

OUTCOMES Through all of the techniques described, the team built and maintained a unifying culture of excellence that optimized the entire organizations performance. The outcome of these efforts is a high-performance sustainable learning organization that has maintained itself at the leading edge of the sport for twelve years. The team consistently meets its goals of winning national and world championships. The system has also achieved a high level of impact on the sport as a whole. The predominant models used worldwide in the sport for technical, team and systems development are now those created by the U.S. Skydiving team. Excellence at the individual level is achieved by creating a sense of personal responsibility reinforced within a nurturing environment. Team members are encouraged, supported and challenged in an atmosphere that creates high self-esteem and low defensiveness. Individuals develop the ability to self-disclose and to give and receive constructive feedback that brings perceptions and assumptions to the surface. Ever-increasing selfawareness accelerates personal and technical learning and creates a culture of high achievement through caring and challenge. Excellence at the team level is achieved with a shared game plan and unity of purpose, combined with mutual understanding, respect, and support. Maintaining focus on a desired future state allows the team to change course and adjust methods as needed. Conflicts are addressed in a healthy manner and the team is able to refocus and support individual members, which reinforces team cohesion and caring. An innovative culture exists along with a commitment to efficiency and effectiveness. These combine to increase the teams capacity to learn and change over the long term. Excellence at the organizational level, achieved with communication and understanding amongst subgroups and stakeholders, aligns the organization with the vision and fosters a culture of trust and commitment. The study supports the concept that a sustainable high performance learning organization requires thinking in terms of whole systems. Making the whole successful requires keeping all of the parts in alignment with leadership, communication, and a shared game plan. The learning strategies must be clear and used with discipline in an environment of safety and support to obtain sustainable growth throughout the system.

1997 1998 1999

2000

2001

4 person - gold 8 person - silver

2002

4 person - silver 8 person - silver

CONCLUSION Creating a sustainable learning organization is a journey without an end. It is not the territory for those who are timid or ambivalent. The journey is demanding; it requires a true desire for growth and results and the dedication to persevere. For those willing to meet the challenge, it is rewarding beyond description. While we certainly believe in the model outlined here, this article barely touches on the commitment, trust and feelings of joy that come from being in a truly supportive learning environment. The competitive accomplishments of the U.S. Skydiving team, while significant, pale in comparison to the personal growth and feelings of abundance that exist in the system.

REFERENCES Csikszentmihlyi, M. (1990). Flow. New York, NY: Harper and Row. Hackman, J. R. (1990). Groups that work (and those that dont). San Francsico, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Horney, K. (1991). Final Lectures (D. H. Ingram, Editor). New
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York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company. Moore, R. B. (1993). Working together. Paper presented at the Lotus Development Corporation, Boston, MA. Orlick, T. (1990). In pursuit of excellence. Champaign, IL: Leisure Press, a division of Human Kinetics Publishers, Inc. Senge, P. M. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. New York, NY: Currency Doubleday. Wheatley, M. J. (1992). Leadership and the new science. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

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