Not much time to write this week. I’m off in Alabama crawling around in the bowels of the Earth teaching cave rescue to a bunch of enthusiastic students. The level I teach focuses on teamwork. And sometimes you find teams forming in the most interesting ways.

Yesterday our focus was on some activities in a cave (this one known as Pettyjohn’s) that included a type of a litter known as a Sked. When packaged it’s about 9″ in diameter and 4′ tall. It’s packaged in a bright orange carrier. It’s hard to miss.

And yet, at dinner, the students were a bit frantic; they could not account for the Sked. After some discussion they determined it was most likely left in the cave.

As an instructor, I wasn’t overly concerned, I figured it would be found and if not, it’s part of the reason our organization has a budget for lost or broken equipment, even if it’s expensive.

That said, what was quite reassuring was that the students completely gelled as a team. There was no finger pointing, no casting blame. Instead, they figured out a plan, determined who would go back to look for it and when. In the end, the Sked was found and everyone was happy.

The moral is, sometimes an incident like this can turn into a group of individuals who are blaming everyone else, or it can turn a group into a team where everyone is sharing responsibility. In this case it was it was the latter and I’m quite pleased.