Performing at their peak
Corporate groups turn to Burt Gershater for individual motivation and to inspire teamwork

By SCOTT WALTERS
Sun Business Editor

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When Wells Fargo and Norwest banks went through a merger a couple years ago, there was no margin for error..

Yet the challenge for Paul Olson, who now leads Wells Fargo's northeast Arizona operations, was trying to bring together two teams who thought of one another as competitors.

Wells Fargo had already experienced operational problems previously during its acquisition of First Interstate Bank, with customers' deposits not always going where they were supposed to and the bank's image taking a hit in the community. Olson didn't want to see the same thing happen this time around when Norwest and Wells Fargo joined.

"In this merger, it was not one company buying the other, it was truly two companies coming together. The two cultures were business, both were very successful," he recalls.

"Both companies knew that Wells Fargo had a problem last time we couldn't afford to have any problems. None. Period," says Olson, who at the time oversaw about half of Norwest's northern Arizona operations.

To avoid trouble, Olson turned to Burt Gershater, a Flagstaff-based certified professional counselor who working with businesses on their team-building skills. The banking executive had utilized Gershater's team‑building exercises formerly with his Norwest regional leaders.

During the bank merger, Olson similarly brought together the managers of the 18 branches he would be over seeing to meet with Gershater.

When the managers first started Gershater's Peak Performance training, they were "kind of looking across at each other like, 'Who are you?'," Olson says. "It was very awkward, and nobody trusted anybody. This idea about, 'Hey, we're going to work together as a team,' the first feeling was rather skeptical."

But over the course of several training sessions, Gershater put them through the rigors of physical obstacle courses and challenges that serve as metaphors for overcoming corporate problems. The managers went through exercises like the "Trust Fall," standing on 2-foot-high stools, falling backwards and hoping your co-worker catches you; and having to climb the cliff-Eke walls tied together in small teams at Vertical Relief Rock Gym in Flagstaff.

The exercises forced the managers to work together, to get to know one another beyond their business backgrounds.

Through the training, "you could feel the trust building," Olson says. And over the course of the year or so that the two banks took to merge, with follow up personal Coaching from Gershater, "the merger was a non-event. It was great."

CORPORATE COUNSELING

Burt Gershater has run his private practice in Flagstaff for 26 years, having started by helping individuals, 'couples, and families work through relationship problems. He still works at that level, but over the years Gershater has recognized that the interpersonal principles that go into creating harmonious one-on-one relationships parallel with how employees interact in the larger business setting.

It seems like it's easy to point out what people are doing wrong and to hardly notice when people doing things, people am in right Multiply that times a corporate structure. You have to bring appreciation into the corporate setting as a value," says Gershater, whose office is located at 222 N. Verde.

The outdoor challenge retreats that Gershater conducts are done under the umbrella of Peak Performance, an experience-based training. and development firm based in Big Bear Lake, Calif. But besides his private counseling and corporate training, Gershater also is a nationally known motivational speaker, which he does as Burt Gershater Presentations.

But his three-headed business is structured upon the basic principle of individuals and teams reaching their potential.

It's especially apparent with the corporate training he conducts usually at the Vertical Relief gym or Northern Arizona University's ropes course.

Going into each session, Gershater hopes to accomplish three main goals: helping individuals get past personal limitations, breaking down relationship boundaries among co-workers and building trust among co-workers.

"Once they get there, if they do not work together, they cannot succeed. That is essentially the message of what's going to happen when they leave that ropes course and they go to work the next day. What do you have to overcome to make sure this group works as a team? It might be pride, it might be some old baggage with that company, or it might just be your comfort zone," Gershater says.

CLIMBING PAST BARRIERS

Gershater breaks down all those barriers during physical training that can go for a half-day or a few days, depending on the size and needs of the group.

The exercises are designed to be difficult, and all contain a message that relates to work related experiences.

In one exercise, teams try to balance themselves on a teeter-totter that seats about 25; they can't touch the ground.

"So they've got to talk to one another, they have to tell each other what they weigh and they have to be patient in order to get it done. Almost always, they fail four, five, six times so they have to deal with failure along the way and their frustration," Gershater says.

After they succeed -- and Gershater keeps them going until they succeed -- the parallel is made with how the individuals deal with frustrating circumstances at work.'

Another challenge has teams having to scale a 12-foot wall in which the entire group has to get over the top using ropes. The catch is, once a team member makes it over, they can't help those who have yet to climb up.

"They've got to figure at the very end who's going to be at the top, and who's going to be the last person. It's a personnel issue at that point. We talk about roles, people have different roles at work. Not everybody can' be the star, but everybody has a critical role to get the job done," he says.

A similar climbing exercise has three people tied together, having to work together to make it to the top of a 30‑foot wall. Often, individuals will hit the wall, figuratively, thinking they can't go any further up the wall. Gershater advises them not to listen to the pessimistic voice in their heads, take a deep breath and go just one more foot, and then one more after that.

People find they can drive themselves beyond the false limits they set for themselves, Gershater says. But the individual effort is combined with team cooperation.

"Often after we've done A few exercises with the rope and people come back down, I ask, 'How many of you thanked your support team?' Almost invariably, they haven't. Row does this relate to what goes on at work?" Gershater asks.

TRAINING GROWS

The physical team-building exercises that Peak Performance utilizes are becoming more and more popular.

Gershater stays busy not only-leading sessions in Flagstaff, but traveling to meet with companies in California and as far away as Idaho.

Locally, Gershater has worked with business groups like staff from Flagstaff Medical Center, the National Park Service and the Navajo and Hopi tribes. He also has worked with various sports teams, like NAU's track and field, cross-country, men's and women's basketball and women's volleyball teams.

For years, Gershater has worked with Flagstaff public schools, giving presentations on subjects like anger management.

He's worked with groups as small as seven or eight people to working' with 300 Microsoft employees just outside of Las Vegas. They just wanted to have fun, and we set up challenges for them," Gershater says. He's worked with companies like Wait Disney Productions, Hewlett Packard and Club Med.

Having fun is part of the process as members of companies get to know one another.

Olson's group at Wells Fargo certainly experienced that as the branch managers got to know one another. I think part of the fun is everybody learns something not only about other people they work with but about themselves," he says.

"When we do exercises together, you do develop a relationship with the other team members. That's the first thing you have to do to build any type of trust, you have to have a relationship," he adds.

Olson notes that many of his branch managers who participated in the initial Peak Performance training have used Gershater for their own stores' teams. Olson still uses him as a personal coach to ensure he stays on path with his own goals.

For more information on Peak Performance (www.peaktraining.com) or Burt Gershater Presentations, contact Gershater at 774-6400 or burt@burtgershater.com.