The sleds are loaded. The dogs are lunging at the lines, barking with edgy anticipation. We release the snub line, rock the sled forward, and call out: “Ready dogs—let’s go!” The barking stops instantly. Nothing but runners hissing on packed snow. Dogs in sync. Partners in rhythm. Sled perfectly balanced.
These aren’t professional mushers. They’re a corporate team learning to dogsled for the first time and discovering, viscerally, what it means to work with unknown variables. That’s the point.
Burnout is well-documented. You know the signs:
- decision fatigue from constant inputs;
- endless context-switching with no recovery time;
- overanalyzing low-stakes choices, and
- reacting instead of acting.
But there’s a second crisis hiding alongside it: rust-out.
Going throough the motions
You hear it in the tone of meetings. See it in disengagement. Feel it in the absence of energy. Burnout is often equated with overwhelm but rust-out is far more common and not just related to workload. It leaves people feeling understimulated, disconnected, and just going through the motions. It shows up as:
- sarcasm with an edge, teasing that cuts a little too deep;
- compliance without commitment, people doing the bare minimum;
- low energy, apathy, half-hearted contributions, and
- team members retreating, isolating, disappearing to work from home.
When someone in your office says “same shit, different day” that’s rust-out, and it’s contagious. Repetitive processes kill machinery and the human spirit in equal measure, squashing innovation and the ability to problem solve. To cure rust-out, teams need an infusion of new energy and challenges that help them work differently.
Technology rich and experience poor
We often hear people lament about the sort of free-range childhood that used to be common in the ’90s, ’80s, and earlier, but began to die out in the 2010s. How children who were able to play freely without parental oversight learned how to deal with life’s challenges and setbacks much more effectively than the iPad-bound children of today. Corporate adventure and ropes programs offered similar benefits, but for adults. Project Adventure, founded in 1971, pioneered experiential learning by adapting real-world challenges for corporations and schools. These programs hit their peak, then faded as technology made communication faster, cheaper, and sedentary. We are now facing the logical outcome of this: We are technology rich and experience poor.
Over 45 years designing intensive leadership programs for Honda Motorcycle and General Mills in India, Emerson Process Management in Spain and the Philippines, Ecolab across the U.S., Japan, Singapore, and Australia, I’ve seen the same pattern everywhere: Teams don’t break down because they can’t work hard. They break down because they can’t think clearly.
Real leadership isn’t built in controlled environments. It’s forged in uncertainty. Put a team on a dogsled for the first time and everything becomes clear very quickly. Communication matters. Trust matters. Timing matters. You can’t hide behind email or overthink your next move. You respond in real time, with real consequences. You can’t replicate that in a conference room.
Experience forces clarity
There’s a myth that the only way to handle fast-moving currents is to match their speed. We’ve been paddling hard. But the real skill is knowing when to backpaddle, to eddy out, hold your position, read the water, and find the better line through.
That’s not a metaphor. That’s a whitewater strategy. And it applies directly to how we lead teams under pressure.
When leaders create genuine space for reflection, something shifts:
- Decisions get simpler.
- Overprocessing stops.
- Instinct sharpens.
- Teams actually reconnect.
The most powerful thing to offer employees and leaders right now isn’t another productivity tool, it’s experience that breaks the “rust” and frees them from the chains of their daily office routine. Time in nature. A journal and no agenda. A dogsled. A whitewater raft.
As Gandhi said, “There is more to life than increasing its speed.”
What leaders should do now
If your team feels stuck, disengaged, or like they’re just going through the motions, the answer isn’t another tool, framework, or workflow optimization. It’s creating the conditions for better thinking. That means:
- getting people out of digital environments and into real-world problem solving;
- building experiences that require genuine collaboration under uncertainty;
- creating intentional space for reflection—not just constant output, and
- asking your team how they are. Then asking again, like you mean it. Being ready for the answer.
The stakes are real and they are urgent. The answer isn’t a wellness app or a happy hour. That’s team bonding, not team building. It’s investing in the kind of experiences that remind people who they are—not in times of comfort, but in times of challenge.
We don’t need faster teams. We need clearer ones. The adventure isn’t a distraction from work. It is work.
