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  3. Ocean adventurer Peter Blake taught lessons every leader should know

Ocean adventurer Peter Blake taught lessons every leader should know

游客2023-07-24  28
问题          Ocean adventurer Peter Blake taught lessons every leader should know
                         —Full Steam Ahead
    Rocketing through sunlit seas in mid-Atlantic, Peter Blake had been radioing daily race reports to listeners all over New Zealand. Blake heard a terrific crash and felt the boat slow. Racing on deck, he found a mass of wreckage--the lofty mast had collapsed.
    But Blake sat down with his shattered crew and had a cup of tea. "This is what we’re going to do," he said and explained his plan. He added: "If anyone wants to get demoralized (削弱士气), come and see me and we’ll do it together." There were no takers.
    Making a temporary rig (桅杆) out of the wreckage, the crew sailed over 6000 kilometers, following a different route to find better winds, and drove themselves so hard they reached Cape Town ahead of more than a third of the fleet. Just over six weeks later, with a new mast, Blake sailed into Auckland and won the next leg (旅程的一段) of the Whitbread Around the World Race.
    Blake turned disaster into triumph. It was an amazing feat of leadership.
    Over the next two decades there would be many more such inspiring deeds. Blake would win the world’s toughest ocean races, as well as the desirable America’s Cup, becoming a national hero and the world’s greatest sailor. "Peter brought out the best in us," says Don Robertson, a close friend and shipmate. "We were astonished by what we could achieve."
    With his laid-back manner and big smile, Blake (who died in tragic circumstances three years ago) built up teams that dared to reach for the stars and win. He was a great leader, and the lessons of his career can be used by leaders in all walks of life.
                                      It’s the Team That Counts
    When Mark Orams grew up, he wanted to sail with his hero. But his job interview was not what he expected.
    "Blake and I talked for half an hour about ordinary things, like the food we hated," Orams says. "I said it was onions; he said macaroni (通心粉) cheese."
    Orams felt he’d failed, because Blake hadn’t asked a single question about his sailing. Two days later Blake called him in again, shook his hand and said. "Welcome aboard!"
    Orams was proud and puzzled. "It wasn’t until I was at sea with him that I realized fitting into the team was more important than know-how."
    As Blake put it, "You can learn as you go, but getting on with people is something you’re born with."
    When Blake put together a team for New Zealand’s America’s Cup challenge in 1995,  he began with an inner circle of himself and three friends. They chose the fifth team member and then all five chose the sixth, and so on, up to nearly 100.
    Every member was an equal partner. At one meeting, Blake introduced the receptionist. "This is Michelle, who runs the front desk, and she’s just as important as any of you in the boat," he said. "There are no number ones in this team, no small jobs."
                                        Learn to Delegate
    Peter Blake never had to say he was a boss or a skipper (船长). He’d walk into a room or step on the deck, and everybody knew.  But he didn’t try to do or control everything himself. "There’s no point in having a dog and doing your own barking," he’d say.
    During a two-handed race around Australia, Mike Quilter was alone at the helm (驾驶舱) when a massive weather front (气象峰) appeared. Blake was down below, asleep, but a long piece of string had been tied to his toe so Quilter could wake him if he needed help. "I was relying on Blake to be Mr. Cool," Quilter says, "so, I pulled the string. ’Here’s the front,’ I told him."
    "Blake said, ’Yep, that’s it!’ Then he closed the hatch (舱口) and went back to bed, leaving me to cope. So I did."
    "When Blake gave you a job to do, you felt special because he let you get on with it," says shipmate Don Robertson. "Individuals were willing to bury their egos because they knew they could speak their minds and be listened to. As a result, everybody rose far above their usual ability levels."
                                      Don’t Forget to Have Fun
    Blake missed the one race New Zealand lost in the qualifying rounds of the 1995 America’s Cup because of tendinitis (腱炎) in his elbow. In a TV broadcast, crew members said, "You should have been here in your red socks," referring to the good-luck charms,  a gift from his wife, Pippa.
    Soon knitting factories in New Zealand were mass-producing red socks.  Thousands were sold within days. The Prime Minister wore red socks, as did the governor general. And half of New
Zealand wore their red socks while watching their country’s boat Black Magic win the America’s Cup on television.
    Red socks became Blake’s signature--and a symbol of the fun that was so important to him that he wrote it into Team New Zealand’s Mission.
    "Non-Kiwis could never understand us," says Glen Sowry, a crewman. "A racing yacht is a stressful environment, but humor was the lightning rod. It was a way to let off stress."
    During stopovers (中途停留地) in around the world races, the crews played hard after a month at sea. Blake loved a party as much as anyone. "Have a good time," he’d say. "But be sensible and look after your mates."
                                      Manners Matter
    Even in emergencies, Blake never gave a direct order without a "please" and "thank you," says crewman Simon Gundry. "He showed me that as long as you include those two words, you can say what you like in between."
                                      Lead By Example
    In great leaders, actions speak louder than words.
    Thundering through mountainous seas, sailors are on a knife edge between exhilaration (极度兴奋) and disaster. The fury of the wind never lets up. The air is thick with icy spray. Men are wet, exhausted, numb with cold and sleepless for weeks at a stretch.     In this world,    skippers often lost crew members at every stopover.    But in all of Blake’s races, no sailor ever wanted to leave.
    One dreadful night, in driving spray, Mark Orams was fed up. He hated the watch captain who told him to change the sails every few minutes. He hated the boat. He hated life.
    Then Orams felt the presence of a fifth man on the freezing deck. "I wondered who would volunteer for this stuff," he says. "Then I realized it was Blake giving us a hand,  his fingers freezing like ours. It was a defining moment, which changed my attitude towards difficult challenges for ever. After that, I never complained." [br] According to Mark Orams, it was Blake’s presence on the freezing deck at that defining moment that changed his attitude towards___________.
选项
答案 difficult challenges for ever
解析 空白处应该是名词短语，作介词towards的宾语。对照原文，答案应该是difficult challenges for ever。
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