The subtle art of being a world class guide
Some of you might be here reading this because you’ve just read the stream of consciousness that was my career advice blog. If that’s you, thanks for sticking with me! For others who are new here, I was asked to speak to a bunch of aspiring guides at a networking event a while back and it forced me to think about what advice I could give to the next generation of guides coming through. Some of this I distilled into general advice regardless of what facet of the outdoors you’re involved in. Some of the pearls of wisdom that dripped onto the pages of my note pad were far more specific to the nitty gritty of river guiding or expedition leading. So this is part two I guess. Tips from the frontline that are more specific to how you perform your role. Again, I’ve made a real effort to come up with suggestions that you won’t get from a zero to Hero guide school or a Polytech course. These are the dark arts my friend. Lets go….
CONTROL TIME
There are days where I feel you can reduce much of guiding down to this one skill. Once you can effortlessly make small talk, spin yarns, engage customers, ask interesting questions and give awesome interp about where you are, you’ve got some foundational soft skills that give you good control elsewhere. Namely controlling time!! So when you’re guiding well, on the surface, all the above patter can be going on effortlessly. Under the surface, you’re constantly thinking about your timing. In essence you’re either trying to speed things up or slow things down. It’s rare to be exactly on time and lets face it, the old adage is true, “a good trip’s a quick trip”. We’re paid by the day not the hour so we wanna keep thing efficient and seamless for our custies. So what can we do to speed things up or slow things down? The truth is, speeding things up, whilst achieveble, can be harder to pull off than slowing down. Certainly it’s rare to speed things up without sacrificing something (hopefully not safety though team). One of the biggest sins in guiding is having custies waiting on you so being organised and pre-empting what’s coming next is key. Your mind should be at least one step ahead of the game and you should be thinking about ways to keep the show running smoothly with minimal interuptions. Modus operandi should be running the quickest, smoothest and most efficient type trip you can possibly run. This almost always means a full and detailed understanding of what your time sinks are and where your dead time will be. Time sinks are often things like getting geared up so what things can you do to speed that shit up? Maybe a full briefing to prevent questions or mistakes (or wetsuits on backwards?!). Maybe it’s about how the gear is packed or the order it’s handed out etc. Loo stops, especially with big groups are time sinks too, lunch time can be similar. What that also does though is create dead time. Time that you cannot really use for another purpose to move the day along. For example, on my day trips, lunch is definitely a time sink and a creator of dead time. So often as guests eat, if i’m looking to speed things up, I will demonstrate how to inflate their packrafts (i’ll eat when they are inflating. Concurrent activity is key. Basic bitches work sequentially). In previous roles I might use the last 2 or 3 minutes of a drive or shuttle to explain the next step of the journey, using that dead time too. Whatever you do to speed things up, it will always come from an intimate understanding of your day and the steps you’ll be taking. Take time to really learn it. Running on full speed/full efficiency is a safety thing too. It’s not just about ensuring your hourly rate is optimised, it’s about creating time to solve problems down the line. Issues pop up from time to time. Sometimes serious, sometimes just inconveniences, but whatever they are, they will be made harder to deal with if you’ve got time pressure on you. Build a buffer in your day to play with.
Operating from this “Buffer Space” should mean that, if anything, you’ll be looking to slow things down at some point. How do you slow things down? Earn your tips. Offer to take photos, take your custies that little bit further, give them the extra instruction and attention to help them improve and enjoy their day more. There are thousands of ways to slow things down and the bonus of these things is, many of them add value to your custies day. The golden rule here though is, all of this time control should remain entirely un-noticed if you’re crushing it. That goes with much of expedition leading to be honest. The better you do it, the less obvious it is that you’ve performed well. If you’ve had to perform some gnarly rescue, people might look at you like some kind of dick swinging rock star and your value becomes obvious…. but truth is, good guiding is preventing the need for gnarly rescues or solve a problem or to go the extra mile for someone. That’s not to say you’re a shit guide if things do go wrong once in a while. I just mean so much of the epic work you’ll do will be completely unoticed except for maybe within your guide team or peers.
MANAGE EXPECTATIONS
This is a good one for preventing any complaints. Truth is, providing you explain everything that guest are to expect honestly and from the get go, chances are they are going to be absolutely sweet with whatever you end up delivering to them. You don’t need to speak in floral marketing talk or promise the fucking earth to people, they’ve already parted with their money and you don’t need to sell them jack. It’s the old cliche about under promising and over delivering and but’s staple of good guiding, especially in complex trips. The more complicated the trip, the more non-committal I often become with details of what we’re up to. I’ll allow myself as much wiggle room as my clients will allow. Earlier on in a trip this is harder for them to swallow as you’ve not earned their trust yet, but it’s better than losing their trust by promising you’ll have lunch at 12 when it ends up being 13:30. I’m happier to say we’ll have lunch at some point.
If you go to Milford Sound here in New Zealand for example to go sea kayaking. You might be paddling with whales, dolphins, seals maybe even yellow eye penguins. But no guide worth their salt is going to open any briefing talking about that shit. If you come back having “only” seen a seal, you’ll be disappointed. However, if the expectation is set that you’re going to go out into a wild and spectacular place and have a paddle around, then seeing a seal is going to make your trip.
Here’s the kicker…. this is a team effort and there is every chance that some prick in the marketing department or a sales agent has promised whatever they want to make that sale. If you’re working for a bigger company with a dedicated sales team, there is a far higher chance of this happening. The value of anyone in sales is judged entirely on their sales numbers. Simple. It’s in their interest to make that sale at just about any cost and there is no downside if they have been chatting shit. There’s no feedbck loop for them. This is why we don’t work with Happy Travels in Queenstown or many other agents at all to be honest. By taking a guides approach to setting expectation, we enable our guides deliver products that will wow people, generate stella reviews and healthy tips for our guides. Reason 240982402 not to work for someone you can’t have a beer with. See previous blog.
UNDERSTAND VALUE
This is a big one!! I guess this is two fold. One is understanding value generated for whoever it is that you’re working for and one is understanding the value created for your pax. I think I covered value creating for who you’re working for well in “Being a Guide+” in the previous blog, so lets look at customer value first and foremost.
So take a real hard look at the products you deliver, at what points in the trip is value delivered? For our Packrafting 101 course for example, value is created the second they book by allowing people to have access to packrafts for rent, exclusive offers on ex-demo boats, links to content to read prior to coming out with us and video content made especially for this product. Then there’s the website, booking system and automated emails making it easy to find this info, process fees and get people prepped. Value is created by being able to “try before you buy” and test the water without having to shell out thousands of dollars on gear, then there’s the transport and the access rights we’ve paid for and safety management system we’ve put together to ensure they’re safe. There’s the chance to meet other lke minded people an dof course the opportunity to learn good habits from the get go that will help you with every river mile paddled after a course.
Most of this stuff is pretty standard stuff and beyond the world of influence you might have as a guide, however tuning in to where value is being created for the customer helps get you in the mindset of areas where you might be able to add value. Your experience and training will help you explain in an easy to understand way, how to navigate the river, your observation and analysis skills will help you correct mistakes or coach folks into better performances. Your hustle to take care of logistics creates more time spent on the water. Your careful design and execution of drills or exercises keep all of you students actively participating rather than 90% of them watching and 10% doing. A story you share might help add clarity or context around certain teaching points to keep things relative. You’re experience having watched hundreds of beginners take their first paddle strokes or watching their career development gives you a well informed point of view to add value here and there.
There’s value everywhere and in someways, it’s easy to add value to our 101’s which is partly why it’s product that we’re all so proud of. However, often the simpler trips are the times where you really have to hustle to create value for your pax. For a simple day trip, value is of course created by the safety plan, the booking system etc, but on the ground when delivering the trip itself, what is it that you’re clients will recognise as value? It could be interpritation or someone to take a bunch of pictures (on their phone or yours) to help them capture the memories. It might be restaurant recommendations or being able to drop them back at their accomodation. Maybe even it’s going above and beyond and carrying some of their gear for them to lighten a pack. Whatever it is, having a genuine and instinctive understanding of value creation allows you to seek opportunities and recognise chances to earn them tips! Quite often value can be added with very little extra effort from a guide. It doesn’t have to be going above and beyond necessarily so seek out those chances.
There’s a delicate balance of value being created in your guiding world. There’s value to you from your work, most obviously monetary, but also the chance to learn improve and grow, maybe even extra qualifications or access to discounted gear. There’s value to your pax as described above and there’s value to the business. Keep it in the back of your mind and check the balance. As mentioned in the previous post, if you’re after a long and successful career, looking for easy ways you can add value to the business or team (especially ways that don’t cost you much time, money or effort) is massively advantageous. If, on the surface you’re offering value to a business by offering to work for them, but in reality you’re only available certain days, don’t want to do certain trips, you’re going on holiday during the busy period, you refuse to help out in other parts of the business where value might be added or insert any number of conditions to your work…. the value your offering is actually minimal and unlikely to be sustained.
MASTER BODY LANGUAGE
This one is huge in river running particularly because a huge part of our communication is with signals. But there’s a more subtle art at work here. Someone can look “online” when running something. It’s hard to explain but sometimes you just know that someone is deliberately where they wanna be or are uncomfortable and working to get somewhere else on the river. Overtime you start to tune into these things when running rivers with people who’s body language you can read like a book. Similarly, there’s no defined river signals to decipher what a prolonged look from another guide might be conveying, but especially when you work in really strong teams that have been with each other for a while, much of the communication is non-verbal. A look, a smile, a raise of an eye brow, a rounding of the shoulders, a lifting or dropping of the head, a sustained period of eye contact, movement towards or away from you or a paddler. Behaviour is communication. If you want to become a scholar of this, have kids. What i’m wanting to get across here is that, it’s awesome to be able to read guides and guest body language for sure… but also be conscious about what you’re communicating through your non verbals. This isn’t just for river guides of course, if you’re briefing a group in any context of the outdoors and you’ve got your sunglasses on, you’re putting up barriers between yourselves an the clients and you’re hindering your ability to build rapport. You’ll look basic AF. If you’ve got your hands in your pockets you are showing you clients that you’re cold, miserable and probably would rather not be there. If you’re full of energy and animated you’re showing the opposite. Leading to read body language is awesome, learning to control your own is getting into that mastery that is super useful.
UNDERSTANDING SOFT POWER
This one actually ties into body language well. What i mean about understanding soft power is figuring out ways you can influence your clients behaviour without explicitly having to say something. For example, I might have a group that is fucking around and (in my guide mind) taking too long to get their shit together in the morning of a multiday trip. What I don’t really want to do is tell them that they’re all useless and killing the day, because I need those sweet sweet tips, but I do want to encourage them to hurry the fuck up in another way. I could for example, make sure that all of my shit if packed up, squared away and I’m ready and then instead of standing next to them faffing and flapping around… I can go stand 50 meters away, bag on my back ready to go. If i’m standing next to them it’s giving them the impression that there’s no hurry, I’m right there and imparting zero pressure and life is all rainbows and unicorns. If I’m standing 50m meters away, I’m putting myself in a position where I can do my best impression of a man in no hurry with the rest of my body language (I can be smiling and standing relaxed) but subconsciously I’m encouraging them to get closer to me if they want to talk, ask me a question or know where we’re going next. It’s a beautiful little trick to on the surface display a calm, patient and considerate guide, whilst your internal monolog is screaming for everyone to pull their fingers out of their asses!
You can see how similar tricks can work based on what eddies you decide to sit in or even how you behave when you’re in an eddie to communicate through your body language and positioning. But this is more than just body language, it’s about your approach to things. This is particularly true when it comes to some safety aspects. You can make safety seem so normal, low key and intertwined with your operation on the river that what is conveyed is that it’s so fundamental and inexorably connected to the way you run rivers. Or you can make it seem like something that is forced, stilted or feels like a grovel which will convey the idea that this can’t be actually how you run rivers for fun. Likewise, if in your professional life you talk about the importance of a particular behaviour, like wearing a suitable PFD or not running trips solo, but in your personal paddling you’re wearing an Astral V8, a climbing helmet or off on your own all the time, your words become hollow. Whilst you’re not explicitly asking people to do something unprofessional, the soft power that your behaviour exerts definitely gives people recourse to be muppets.
COMMUNICATE QUICKLY WITH YOUR BOSS
This one i learned in my 2nd ever season as an outdoor guide back in 2006. One of my good friends got a job in the operations team for a big outdoor events company instructed for. I was stoked for him to have got the promotion and eager to do anything I could to make sure that I made him look good in his role too. I asked him if there was anything I could do to be a good instructor. Anything that isn’t obvious from the frontline. He said just answer questions, email or texts, as soon as you can. I took it onboard straight away to try and make his job easy and to make me an easy person to give work to, but I hadn’t realise how massive this is or how uncommon it can be. Being slow to reply to questions around availability especially is worse than consistently saying “No, I’m sorry I can’t help that day”. A “no” allows your boss time to move on to the next solution and in and of itself is useful. A nil response can put big pressure on the whole system. Sometimes it’s not possible to answer, but i hadn’t realised how detrimental it might have been in my career to reply late or be non-comital until recently. Don’t fall into that trap.
READ EMOTIONS AND ANTICIPATE NEED
Similar to understanding body language, being able to read people emotions is a huge thing in delivering happy guests, epic trips and being invited back for more work! If you can anticipate those emotions and needs that will come up later on, even fucking better! This is one of the arts that separates good guides from elite ones. So first with emotion, people will often echo and reflect behaviours they see in others, especially from people they perceive as being in a position of authority. We are communal animals at heart and want to be accepted. An evolutionary adaptation to improve our chance of acceptance into our tribe is mirroring behaviour. So, again, this goes back to soft power and body language. You can chose how you are read. If you can register emotions such as un-ease or fear, you can counter that (or better yet nip that in the bud through anticipation and prevention) by displaying calmness, reassurance, clarity, trustworthiness etc. Sometimes when I’m walking through a particularly challenging part of an expedition and the conditions or weather is making thing pretty miserable, I’ll start giggling with my customers. Sometimes we have those laugh or cry moments and if you can turn the miserable moments into ridiculous or silly experiences, your life managing that group is easier. Emotional intelligence is massive. It’s not always about making things seem “brighter” than it really is in order to prevent complaints either. I’ve been involved in rescue where the casualty starts to relax and think that things are safe despite still being in the river. I’ve, in those moments, used urgent body language and tone of voice to convey that shit isn’t over yet in order to keep them switched on until we have the situation under control and they are out of the river. It might come across as harsh and there’s an epectation that you’re going to re-assure them sometimes, but if they’re re-assured, they relax, if they relax they’re gunna get in shit. I need them to stay frosty for another minute or two. Then I can tell them sweet little lies about how brave they were and how nothing like that will ever happen again. To some extent, we can influence the emotions of others, so be conscious of it and see if you can use it to your advantage. It’s like Jedi mind tricks. Best done subtly and to make small adjustments it should be said. Trying to change someone’s emotions 180 degrees or after they’ve become intrenched in a feeling is super fucking cringy. David Brent level of awkwardness and completely transparent. Better in those instances to allow people to process through it rather than gaslight them into feeling better. Use your powers wisely padawan.
Anticipating needs is way less of a dark art and just shows some high level of empathy. When someone’s been on the river for hours and your trip is about to end, if they discover their guide has left some cold beers in an eddy at the take out you’ll be elevated to god like status. Or for us on our day trips, providing a little poncho towel to get changed behind shows a level of ‘thinking things through” and attention to detail that will keep you in everyone’s god books and gamefully employed throughout your career. Doesn’t just apply to your custies too. Look out for your team mates too. I’ll never forget one big search and rescue operation I was involved with years ago where we were out in the cold and dark for hours searching above the snowline for some missing skiers. When we eventually the search was called off one of our team mates had gone and sourced our team a massive box of snacks and drinks etc to keep us going. We’d all worked a 12hr shift before the search had even started and had all missed meals. This was next level anticipation. Incidentally, the company we worked for offered us a vouchure for a cup of coffee that could be redeemed under certain terms and conditions the next day if we were working. I’ve not worked for that company again and I offered the chick who snaffled us the food an opportunity to train with us. Levels.
THE ART OF THANKS
I learnt this one after working with an incredibly experienced expedition leader way back in the olden days where I roamed the world at will. Now, I’m British (the old type of British, not the Brexit loving, insular, human rights denying, genocide supporting version of the last decade) so manners and the importance of “please”, “thank you” and “sorry” is hard wired into me. I thought I was pretty good at it…until I worked with this incredible ex-copper turned expedition leader who had turned “Thank you” into an art form. It was so good it was almost a weapon! Let me explain. When she was running an event we were working on, a London to Paris cycle ride for example, she had a way of thanking you for the most banal and routine parts of your job in a way that had you ready to run through a fucking brick wall for her. Display even the most mediocre level of competency and she was make it seem if the world had stopped for just long enough for her to tell you how much it was appreciated and what it’s meant to everyone in the team.
Now to this day, I don’t know if she’d genuinely just been working consistently with a bunch of strategically shaved chimps previously and was blown away that someone could hear a simple instruction and follow it through without causing an international crisis…. or whether she’d develop this technique as part of her man management arsenal. To this day, I’ve never met anyone who has been so skilled at saying “thank you” that it was noteworthy or remarkable. But i remember thinking how powerful it was and how I was definitely stealing that trick. Very useful for eliciting good reviews and tips from your guests, but also a fantastic way of helping you recruit people to help you out in any and all future endeavours.
FIRST 7 SECONDS
Here’s one that I’m not sure is true or not, but it’s had its uses for me over the years, especially in burn out management. This was told to me by a guide who was often called “Shut The Fuck Up Pete” which speaks to my uncertainty of its veracity. Suspend disbelief for a moment though and indulge me. The story goes, as humans, we decide whether we like someone, or whether we are indifferent to them (not dislike) within the first 7 seconds of meeting each other. Whether this is true or not I’ve treated it as if it was and what I’ve found is it’s a phenomenal tool for beating burn out.
If it’s three quaters of the way through the season, or midway through peak season and I’ve not had a day off in 8 weeks, there are (thankfully remarkably few) occasions where I struggle to summon the enthusiasm necessary to deliver a trip that I’d be proud of. HOWEVER, if I can force myself to focus on the first 7 seconds of my meeting and deliver a beaming smile, a firm handshake, a bounce in my step and try to crack a smile in others…. then I corner myself into having no fucking option but to follow the tone i’ve just set for myself. Sneaky mother fucker that Huw fella sometimes. The best thing is though, it’s not all delivered through force of will, your custies reciprocate and give that energy back that you’ve put out there. This makes them more fun to hang out with, the atmosphere fun and the whole day goes better. Don’t get me wrong, it’s no substitute for a day off and some deep deep restorative sleep, but it’s an incredible band aid to get you over the line when you need it. Or even sometimes when you don’t. Try it.
DON’T LIE
In expedition leading, your integrity is like your virginity, you only lose it once. People aren’t fucking stupid and they will know when you’re bullshitting, often even if they humour you and don’t call you out on it. Nobody is as good at it as they think they are and you’re better to show strength of character that comes with telling an uncomfortable truth than straight up lying. That’ll earn you respect. To be effective leader you need to be liked or respected. Preferably both but if you can only have one, take respect al day every day. Especially if you’re in for a prolonged trip with a group or going into an environment with an elevated risk profile. You might be able to get away with it in the short term potentially, but it can seriously damage your ability to lead which can become a safety issue down the track. Pack that shit in.
YOU’RE THE WIERDO
I learnt this one from a younger guide not long ago (showing the importance of beginners mind that I was banging on about in the other blog). Often you’ll hear tired guides complaining that somebody didn’t get how to paddle or that a customer was asking some funny question or holding their paddle upside down or getting into their wetsuit sideways. Here’s the thing, in our world, it’s a given that everyone you work with understands how to read water or pack a sleeping bag… but these skills has little value in the rest of the world (or even in ours sometimes!) so of course Jane from HR does’t know how to put her fucking tent up. She’s a “Normal”. We are the weirdos. It’s not up to them to suddenly understand in a flash how our world works, it’s up to us to meet them where they are. Another reason to “Never go full retard” if you’ve read the other blog.
Anyways, that’s it, that’s all. If you recognise any of the guides I’ve referenced here, let me know your guesses and I’ll see if Im at liberty to confirm or deny. Any other hot tips, lemme know in the comments below. Chur
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