by Grant Hawthorne

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GEIF Manager, Grant Hawthorne, reviews the Breakfast Meeting on May 25, 2000. The speaker was management consultant Humphrey Walters.

Hearing Humphrey Walters' terrifying descriptions of being continually battered by 70foot waves in the South Atlantic you'd wonder why he put himself through such agony. Why would anyone in their right mind volunteer to race the toughest sea route round the world? Simple: Humphrey Walters was a man on a mission. The mission? To test his management theories to destruction.

For those of us who have endured more than our fair share of "management theory", Humphrey Walters' presentation to the May Breakfast Meeting was like a breath of fresh sea air. It's all very well to have a man in a suit telling you how important "teamwork" is, but when that theory has been tested in a life and death scenario it takes on a whole new meaning.

Humphrey was part of the crew of the Ocean Rover in the 33,000 mile BT Global Challenge. The crew was randomly picked from a group of volunteers - an experience which "taught him more about human nature and team-building than 30 years in business". When your "buddy" is, quite literally, your lifeline you don't let him down.

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