Yesterday I wrote about “Consistency over Innovation“, learning from Eddy Merckx and the owners of a wonderful spinning studio in Cayman that:
“In business and leadership, we laud innovation so much that sometimes we forget the value of consistency. In the right circumstances, it can truly be better to choose a focus on consistency rather than seeking to innovate.”
In other circumstances, it is also really valuable to always be looking to stretch and grow as a human, a leader, and in your business offerings. For this musing, today I acknowledge the awesome Arno de Jong of AlpAdventures, who’s very being is about stretching and curiosity. I just took my three boys to spend three days and two nights with him and reflecting here on key leadership lessons from this amazing guy!
I first met Arno de Jong in January 2017 at that year’s edition of “Snowhow”, the creation of my dear friend, the amazing Carrie Bedingfield, and billed as “the 2-day adventure for entrepreneurs to move and breathe”. Now, the first rule of SnowHow is you don’t talk about snowhow, so we don’t talk about the experience or what the adventure entails, but it was led by Arno as our guide and I always knew I’d come back to what he and that community call “Dream Valley”.
So, fast forward to August 2018 and I decided to take my three boys to spend three days and two nights in the Alps on a custom trip with Arno. We hiked over mountain passes, stayed in mountain huts, rode across ridges on bikes, finishing with rafting down an alpine gorge. Amazing!
All the way through this, Arno was there with all of his decade-plus of mountain experience. He is a certified guide and has many more qualifications than I can list here. He brought all of that to planning, in detail, an amazing adventure for us.
All of that said, over the three days we chatted for hours, and I have clarity that it is not his ability to be structured and to plan that makes Arno so special. No, it is that he has two core attributes that are part of his DNA and that he brings to everything he does, and they lift him from great to elite in what he does.
Those qualities are a) Curiosity and b) Stretching, and they go together here.
As the saying goes, Arno has forgotten more about guiding than most know, but he is always fresh in the experience he brings. Why?
First, he has an insatiable curiosity and in so many ways. He is always looking to learn more. Those who know me (or even have read more than a few of my hundreds of posts) can imagine how much I enjoy time with Arno, as we are both always looking to both share and to learn from each other in many different ways.
Second, Arno teams that curiosity with a desire to stretch and be stretched. He is always looking for that for an in himself and for his guests. I emphasise in this that Arno is absolutely and 110% focussed on safety and security for his guests, and at the same time he will give you an experience where you will feel stretched and have an amazing experience. After all, his business is not called “AlpTours” it is called AlpAdventures, and to me, there is no adventure without feeling you have been stretched.
For our trip, my three “flat island” boys and I were immediately taken over several mountain passes and walked up and down several thousand meters of elevation and 37km of hiking within 24 hours of arriving in Dream Valley. We are all fit, and at the same time at moments it certainly felt challenging.
Oh, and in that 24 hours, we slept so soundly in a mountain hut for over nine hours. We were worked hard that day and loved it!
After the hiking, we were taken right away onto innovative mountain bikes with electric motors. None of us had any real mountain bike experience, and, unusually, we found going downhill tougher than uphill. Again, “flat island” people.
After all of that, a two-hour river rafting adventure was easy for us on day three!
So, to take this to leadership, a live example inspired by Arno and the mountains. From both prior experience developing and leading such programmes and from more recent conversations with key people around the world, I’m currently marinating on an idea of a year-long Leadership Growth Programme that is immersive and transformative. Broadly this will involve a group of around twelve people who will come together for about six sessions of two full days per session, spread across a year.
Having spent time with Arno last week, I’m actively looking to collaborate with him to take the group to Dream Valley on either the opening two-day session or the second one. We will spend two days and two nights with Arno and truly experience our own individual potential. To do this with Arno feels perfect, as he models Curiosity and Stretching and so will both create an experience ideal for leaders to grow and inspire the group by his very presence and being. This Dream Valley session will give an experiential foundation for leadership transformation for each person across the year.
So, integrating again with yesterday’s post, what do you bring most naturally and what does your organisation need in leadership? Curiosity and Stretching, or perhaps Consistency?