Splitting Hairs - Shackleton Selection Weekend

There is a question I have asked myself repeatedly during the search for the final team member for Charlie Paton's Sub 100 South Pole Team. How can you accurately observe and assess candidates while knowing your presence indirectly influences their behaviour? I’m certain many other selection processes have experienced a similar paradox; you need to see the candidates performing, but while being watched they are likely to modify behaviour to a greater or lesser extent. Having just finished the final selection weekend I think we may have stumbled into the solution to this age old dilemma. 

By chance the final selection weekend left us with 3 similar pairings comprising the final 6, this after the unfortunate withdrawals of Craig & Barry for different reasons. We needed to know how the participants dealt with fatigue, ambiguity, boredom and constant goal shifting, after all these components will be present in the Antarctic with greater consequences.

In this blog I will explain our thought process and also my personal perception of the candidates and their specific behaviours. It is worth emphasising this does not reflect the thoughts of the rest of the selection team.  

It was during the first weekend held at Crickhowell that we noticed very subtle shifts in behaviour when candidates perceived they were under assessment, some did this unconsciously others perhaps more consciously. Some added words to their sentences while others withdrew conversational content and engaged in a ‘poker’ style guarded approach. Some would become more cheerful, others more withdrawn in our presence. I wrestled with ways to dissolve our very obvious contamination of their natural behaviours, which we needed to learn about. Added to this we (myself and Phil Kelly) believed it vital that Charlie should see the candidates at their most vulnerable, which in and of itself was challenging enough to manufacture given their undoubted resilience.  The answer to our challenges actually presented itself in an analogy innocently mentioned to me in passing a few weeks prior to the weekend.

‘It is widely accepted that when a bank robbery takes place with 10 people present the police will be given 11 different stories. The theory being all 10 of the ‘victims’ will tell a different version events, the 11^th story is the ‘true’ account of the security cameras.’

Charlie and me discussing the candidates. 

Here in lay our thought process for the selection weekend. If we removed ourselves from this behavioural equation paradox completely, to the point the candidates thought we were completely detached from their experience, they might act in more natural way - warts and all! Added to this during our small intersections there would be a marked difference in their behaviour that would be very apparent to the members of their own team. This would be the most important ingredient because we weren’t their to 'see' with our own eyes we needed them to 'see' for themselves each others weaknesses; cruel perhaps, clever most certainly.       

As mentioned the final 6 fell into 3 similar pairs. 

The first pair, Tom & Callum, fall into the  Transactional Analysis Driver bracket of ‘Be Strong’, both are capable physically and mentally. They also both occupy an unusual 'Alpha' male trait, which is an almost quiet and understated leadership style, reserved predominately by ‘Be Strong’ drivers with high levels of confidence and humility in my experience. Because of their ‘Be Strong’ drivers neither are particularly comfortable during interviews, perhaps their driver characteristic of ‘less is more’ linguistically doesn’t lend itself naturally to interviews? Interestingly in many ways they are similar to Charlie himself. 

The second pair, Mike & Stuart, share a detailed, logical and analysis orientated thought process. Both enjoy individual sports and I suspect both enjoy the detailed planning associated in their respective past times. In every ‘cerebral’ focussed challenge over the two weekends they out-performed the majority of their counterparts. Stuart solved the ‘Sign lines’ game during the middle of the night with limited sleep and in the shadow of Snowdon. Although the success of the task was actually communicated through Mike who understood Stuart’s logical thought process and was able to explain the plan to the group making him a great conduit for Stuart’s analytical solution. 

The final pair are the ladies, Carrie & Hannah. The other males appeared from the outside to hold great respect for both and neither tries to occupy an obvious default position of women in a social group dominated by men – the ‘mother hen’ role. Physically very different although both incredibly strong of body and mind, they share many personality traits including endless enthusiasm and an enduring sense of humour which perceived from the outside does not irritate other candidates, which can sometimes be the case. What was most evident is something that was missing as opposed to something that was present; there was an absence of internal dialogue from either to compete with the males to ‘prove’ their individual credentials.  My thoughts throughout are this behavioural trait absence, often found with women participating in ‘male’ dominated activities, is a major contributing factor to their acceptance from males within the group alongside their individual personalities. Conversely, it is also a major contributing Human Factors in many mountaineering / ski touring accidents in the sense that to ask for help from male counterparts is considered a confirmation of inferiority in strength, either mentally or physically.   

                                       Stuart and Mike at the second campsite.

During a brief interludes with the teams it was important that we observe as much Meta detail, looking closely at the things usually considered benign and meaningless. You can learn an incredible amount by observing someone erecting a tent at the start of the weekend then watching the difference as fatigue sets in. Where and how do they start the job? How long do they look at the task before they begin the sequence? Which order do they choose their pegs? Which way is the tent facing? Do they think logically or do they rush trying desperately to beat fatigue? How many pauses do they take and how long are the pauses? Do they still retain the ability to conduct concurrent activity or is their capacity to dual task reduced? All of this can be observed in one small job. Our job was to see all of these moments with the help of Craig, Clive and Steve who all contributed outstandingly to the information flow to Charlie. This flow of information was relentless throughout the weekend; the detail of discussion was truly phenomenal to be part of. Furthermore I believe we created an accurate blue print of how to really expose personality in candidates of heightened ability and capacity, not something easily achieved.

The final part of the equation was the need to find out exactly what had happened in our obvious absence. I had suspected that some would become frustrated at the lack of external verification of their efforts. Imagine performing at the top of your game with herculean effort while nobody is watching. Its like scoring the winning goal in the FA cup final with nobody bothering to watch the ball hit the back of the net. Mixing this approach with sleep deprivation and information flow restriction, your left with a pretty potent emotional cauldron, not unlike Polar exploration. Our plan was to ask a core of identical questions on how their teammates performed, Phil Kelly provided much of the questioning while Craig took notes and asked occasional questions alongside Charlie’s input. I was concerned mostly with watching their body language, specifically when we asked how they enjoyed our lack of presence and when rating their teammates. This was uncomfortable for some but nonetheless absolutely vital, without doubt we are jointly responsible for a potential life or death decision. It was very necessary, Phil Kelly made a great analogy of having millions of pounds on the table and trying to separate the pennies – effectively by this stage we were down to splitting hairs. All six were good enough at this point; we knew it and so did they. Because of this a certain amount of clinical harshness was needed, added to this we (the selection team) had a duty to Charlie to help him make the right decision. I don’t think we could of provided him with any more information given the short time we all had together. What is certain is that all 6 were amazing and sometimes the smallest things separate candidates at this level, splitting hairs is easier said than done – believe me!  

Visit our website to see what else we're involved with?