5
EW SHOW DAILY
ASCRS•ASOA Symposium & Congress, San Diego 2015
Editors' note: Mr. Deegan has no finan-
cial interests related to his comments.
Mr. Deegan also began to seek
out opportunities to learn from
experienced expedition leaders,
and joined an expedition to Mount
McKinley with John Barry, a former
U.S. marine and expert in alpine de-
fense. This expedition turned out to
be one of Mr. Deegan's most difficult
climbs.
"The summit was static, but ev-
erything else was in a state of flux,"
he said. Weather conditions were
worsening, crevasses were opening
up, and the team members' health
was in jeopardy, but Mr. Barry's lead-
ership got them through the ordeal.
"The way that John dealt with
all these variables wasn't by pushing
on in the blind hope that things
might get better," Mr. Deegan said.
"John had the courage to periodical-
ly press the pause button. This gave
him time to evaluate our situation
and to modify our plan based on
what was happening to us and what
was happening around us."
Every day, Mr. Barry brought
the entire team together to discuss
what was going on and to solicit
their thoughts before making a final
decision, Mr. Deegan recalled. Mr.
Barry asked the less experienced
team members to speak first to get
their thoughts before opinions of
more experienced climbers could
sway them.
"John led us by empowering us
to lead ourselves," Mr. Deegan said.
With that empowerment, they were
able to squash small problems before
they became bigger issues, he said.
One of the lessons he learned
from this experience was that a less
experienced person is in a better
position to propose a novel solution
to an existing problem than a more
experienced person, because a more
experienced person becomes accus-
tomed to doing the same thing the
same way day in and day out. Mr.
Deegan recommends that leaders
of all organizations sit down with
new staff members to ask them what
anomalies they see in the organiza-
tion.
"It doesn't matter whether you
represent 50% of your team, or 10%
of your team, or 1% of your team,"
he said. "There will come that day
when your observation, when your
suggestion, when your decision, or
your action influences the outcome
of a situation by 100%. And it's for
that reason I believe there's no
room for passengers on any type
of team." EW
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