Bright Side Of The Road

For most of the past week in I was in Wisconsin, spending time with my fellow quality department members at the company headquarters. One afternoon we had a team building exercise that was a car rally. This rally provided a few hours on a Thursday afternoon to drive a course that made use of some scenic roads, showing me places I had not seen nor likely would not have had the opportunity to see, as well as the team building intent: to rely on others to get you where you needed to go.

We were scored based on information found on the course. We counted signs, kept track of the number of T-intersections we came to, copied information onto our scorecard. No smartphones or GPS systems were allowed, and the largest part of the score was the accuracy of our mileage. We did not finish first nor last, but we did finish and enjoyed drinks and dinner after the rally, comparing answers to questions specific to the Wisconsin countryside.

The details of the first car rally I was in is lost in the wisps of memory. It was in Santa Barbara, that much I know for certain. I was not the driver or navigator, likely a whimsical back seat passenger in either a Fiat or a Porsche, depending on who was driving, watching for signposts, learning rally basics. We set out on the rally course separated from the car in front and in back of us by a few minutes, each convinced they were going to make the best time of the day.

The finish of the event included stories from other competitors. We found out where we had gone awry, what instructions we had misunderstood and where we had followed the course correctly. The results were announced and well, how we did that day is immaterial, especially as I don't remember that part either. I had become addicted to the process, trying to out-think the instructions, split the time clock right down the middle and be in the running for the overall best performance.

Time-Speed-Distance (TSD) Rallying was very different from how most people think of motor sports. Each car was given a set of written instructions and sent off at intervals, all on public roads. The goal was to follow the course, maintain the given average speed (always legal, of course), and arrive at the checkpoints where our arrival time was clocked, giving us a score based on how close we were to being on time.

It was not a competition of speed, but rather of precision driving and navigation. The driver relied on the navigator to provide the instructions while the navigator relied on the skills of the driver. It was exciting, sometimes frustrating and always fun.

I started driving and my best friend became the navigator. At first, both of us mainly concentrated on staying on course and following the directions, more by feel than anything. I added a tachometer to the car for more accurate tracking of speed. As we gained experience, the difficulty of instructions (sometimes purposely misleading) and timing became easier to overcome. We soared to the top of the Novice category, winning the March March rally. Winning as a Novice meant we had to move up to the intermediate group, which is where we stalled and remained until we each moved away.

What mattered then and now is that the rally concept requires people to work closely together while doing fundamentally different things. Communication, trust and interdependency, building relationships and learning about one another, the foundations for the success or failure of a team.