The Science of Shared Challenge
“Relationships ARE the break—not what you do between work sessions.” — Fab’s Approach
In mountaineering, there are two ways to build a team.
The first is the “conference room model.” You hire qualified people. Assign roles. Conduct planning meetings. Trust that when conditions turn difficult, professionalism will carry the day. The structure is logical. The contracts are clear. Everyone knows their responsibilities.
It never works.
The second is the “rope team forged on the mountain.” Trust isn’t assumed—it’s earned through shared uncertainty. You’ve watched your partner make decisions when exhausted. You’ve seen how they respond when the weather turns. You’ve felt their hand steady the rope when you needed it. The relationship wasn’t built through presentations and handshakes.
It was built through shared discomfort.
The Night Matt Lied to Us
During my mountain leadership assessment, Matt was the assessor. Former Gurkha trainer. Not patronising. Always listening. Always observing you without you noticing.
He told us we’d be finished by 11:30 PM.
At 2:30 AM, we were still roving across Carnedd Llewelyn. Pinpointing absurd locations in the dark. Exhausted. Cold. Making decisions with compromised judgment.
Matt had lied. Deliberately.
He didn’t want to see our navigation at 11:30—when we were fresh, performing, managing impressions. He wanted to see us at 2:30—when the performance dropped away and the actual humans showed up.
This is the insight most professionals miss: You cannot know who someone really is until you’ve seen them when they can no longer hide behind competence.
Matt wasn’t assessing our skills. He was assessing our character. And character only reveals itself under genuine pressure—not manufactured pressure, not “challenging conversations,” not trust falls and escape rooms.
Real pressure. Real stakes. Real discomfort.
Why This Matters for Partnerships
Every significant partnership failure I’ve witnessed traces back to the same root cause: people who performed brilliantly in controlled conditions but collapsed when conditions changed.
The due diligence was thorough. The contracts were airtight. The references checked out. But no one had seen them at 2:30 AM—tired, uncertain, unable to perform.
In my career across three continents and two decades—from Vodafone’s corporate corridors to major utilities infrastructure partnerships to the Cassin route on Torre Trieste—I’ve learned that the partnerships which last are never built in meeting rooms.
They’re built when you’re uncertain together. Vulnerable together. When professional performance drops away and the actual human shows up.
The question isn’t whether your partners are competent. The question is: have you seen them when competence isn’t enough?
This essay argues that “Adventure Over Comfort” is not about choosing hardship for its own sake. It is about understanding that shared challenge creates relationship foundations that controlled environments cannot replicate.
It is about conducting due diligence the way Matt conducted assessments: by creating conditions where people cannot hide.
I. The Limits of Controlled Environments
Traditional relationship-building operates within controlled parameters: scheduled meetings with agendas and time limits, professional performance optimised for impression management, comfortable settings that minimise uncertainty, and exit options always available.
This model works for transactional exchanges. It fails for partnerships requiring deep trust.
Consider the typical “team-building exercise”—the trust fall, the escape room, the cooking class. These activities manufacture challenges within safe boundaries. The stakes are artificial. Everyone knows it. And because the brain cannot be fooled, the trust generated is proportionally shallow.
The Performance Paradox
In controlled environments, we optimise for performance. We prepare talking points. We manage impressions. We show our “professional selves.”
But partnerships require something different. They require knowing how your partner actually thinks—not how they present themselves thinking. They require seeing how they respond to genuine uncertainty—not rehearsed scenarios. They require understanding their values under pressure—not their values in comfort.
Brian Singerman at Founders Fund captures this precisely: “We want to see how they handle adversity. We want to know how they think when they’re tired and nothing’s going right.”
Conference rooms cannot reveal this. Mountains can.
II. The Science of Shared Challenge
This principle is not merely experiential wisdom. It is grounded in neuroscience, psychology, and organisational research.
1. The Neurochemistry of Trust
When we face challenges together—genuine challenges with real stakes—something biological happens. Paul Zak’s research at Claremont Graduate University, published in Harvard Business Review, identified oxytocin as the neurochemical signature of trust.
A landmark study published in Nature (Kosfeld et al., 2005) demonstrated that oxytocin “causes a substantial increase in trust among humans, thereby greatly increasing the benefits from social interactions.” Critically, the researchers found that oxytocin specifically affects willingness to accept social risks—not general risk tolerance. It is a trust hormone, not a courage hormone.
Subsequent research published in Neuron (Baumgartner et al., 2008) found that oxytocin reduces activation in the amygdala (fear processing) and dorsal striatum (behavioral adaptation), allowing trust to persist even after breaches. The biological foundation for “giving someone the benefit of the doubt” is literally created through shared challenge.
You cannot generate this chemistry through quarterly check-ins.
2. Experiential Learning Theory
David Kolb’s experiential learning theory (1984) established that genuine learning occurs through a cycle of concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation. You cannot learn to climb from a book. You cannot build partnerships through advisory relationships. You have to actually do the thing.
The research on retention is stark. According to the Association for Talent Development (ATD), companies with comprehensive experiential training programmes have 218% higher income per employee and 24% higher profit margins than those without formalised experiential approaches. The Corporate Executive Board found that employees receiving experiential learning are 2.5 times more likely to be high performers.
But the mechanism is not “training.” The mechanism is relationship transformation. When you’ve helped someone through a difficult moment on a trail, you trust them differently in a difficult moment in business.
3. The Psychology of Shared Experience
Dr. Erica Boothby’s research at the University of Pennsylvania demonstrates that experiences are amplified when shared. Novel environments trigger heightened memory encoding and social bonding. The brain creates stronger connections when we encounter new situations together.
This explains a phenomenon every mountaineer knows: relationships forged in challenging conditions feel fundamentally different from those built in comfortable ones. It’s not nostalgia. It’s neuroscience.
| Environment Type | Trust Mechanism | Retention | Relationship Depth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Controlled (office) | Professional performance | Low | Surface |
| Semi-controlled (events) | Manufactured challenge | Moderate | Moderate |
| Uncontrolled (outdoor) | Genuine uncertainty | High | Deep |
III. The Framework: Adventure as Partnership Laboratory
Adventure as a relationship foundation requires intention. This is not “let’s go for a hike sometime.” It is a structured approach to building partnerships through shared challenges.
1. Shared Challenge
The activity must genuinely stretch participants. Real stakes: weather, terrain, physical demand—factors that cannot be controlled. No shortcuts: you cannot fake it or phone it in. Presence required: forces attention and authenticity. Equalising: titles and hierarchies fade; capability and character emerge.
When I invite a potential partner to ride the trails around Valtellina, Belluno or Winchester, or when I invite them climbing outdoors or leading a line indoors, I’m learning things no pitch meeting could reveal. How do they handle uncertainty when the trail or the route isn’t clear? How do they respond to challenges when the climb is steeper than expected? Can they be present—phone away, agenda flexible—or are they already thinking about the next meeting?
2. Extended Duration
Trust requires time for performance to drop and people to emerge. Multi-hour minimum: long enough for authentic behaviour to surface. Multi-day optimal: rhythm that allows conversation to find its depth. Includes informal time: breaks, meals, evening conversation. Fatigue factor: tiredness reveals character.
The recent Wines2Whales mountain bike race in South Africa exemplifies this. Three days of riding, sleeping together, and evening sincere discussions. Those three days generated more trust than months of video calls. Not because South Africa is exotic. Because we were in it together.
3. Equalising Environment
Natural environments create different dynamics. Hierarchy suspension: the CEO’s title doesn’t help on a technical descent. Authentic capability: success depends on actual skills, not organisational position. Mutual dependence: everyone contributes; no one is a passenger. Natural leadership: emerges from competence, not authority.
McKinsey research confirms that “climbing through a canyon, hiking up to a summit, or even building a fire together requires trust—the foundation of a high-performing team.” The equalising effect of outdoor environments accelerates relationship formation by removing the artificial structures that normally mediate interaction.
4. Reflective Integration
Experience without reflection is just activity. Evening debriefs: what happened? What did we learn? Trail conversations: deep dialogue while moving through terrain. Explicit connection: link the experience to work challenges. Shared language: build reference points for future collaboration.
After challenging outdoor experiences, partners develop a shared vocabulary: “Remember when we…” becomes a touchstone for navigating difficult business situations. This isn’t nostalgia—it’s activating shared experience that reinforces relationship foundations.
IV. Actionable Implementation
How do we operationalise the adventure principle? Through specific practices that create opportunities for shared challenges.
1. The Partnership Outdoor Assessment
Before deepening any strategic partnership, create opportunity for shared outdoor experience:
| Stage | Experience Type | Duration | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discovery | Day activity | 4-6 hours | Character assessment |
| Exploration | Multi-day trip | 2-3 days | Deep compatibility test |
| Commitment | Race or expedition | 3-5 days | Relationship cementing |
| Ongoing | Regular touchpoints | Quarterly | Relationship maintenance |
This is not team-building. This is due diligence conducted in environments that reveal what conference rooms hide.
2. The Fab Rides Model
Through Fab Rides, I’ve systematised outdoor experience as partnership infrastructure. Regular rides: weekly or monthly touchpoints with partner communities. Multi-day adventures: annual events combining business and outdoor challenges. Cross-pollination: partners from different contexts riding together. Pochi ma buoni: small group, high quality—relationships over reach.
3. The “Outdoors Starts at Home” Principle
Adventure doesn’t require exotic destinations. It requires presence.
What I learned decades ago climbing with Alessandro Gogna and Marco Milani—two legends of Italian alpinism—was that the route reveals itself to those who stay close to the rock. The adventure didn’t start when we reached some famous route in some famous range. It started when we left the car.
Saturday walks with family. Sunday runs with daughters, pushing them appropriately so they discover new capability. The Winchester trails I’ve ridden hundreds of times but never the same way twice.
These aren’t preparation for adventure. They ARE the adventure.
4. Red Flags and Green Flags
Green Flags: Willing to get uncomfortable. Sees relationship building as core work. Values shared experience over efficiency. Can be present—phone away, agenda flexible. Find joy in the process.
Red Flags: Everything must be scheduled and optimised. Relationship building is “nice to have” after “real work.” Cannot disconnect from devices. Sees outdoor time as box-checking. Only comfortable in controlled environments.
V. The Research Foundation
Engagement Impact: Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace research shows that managers account for 70% of variance in team engagement. Leaders who share authentic experiences with teams build fundamentally different working relationships. Engagement has 3.8 times more influence on stress than working location.
Trust Economics: The 2024 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report found that 73% of decision-makers trust demonstrated expertise over marketing materials. Relationships built through shared experience outperform transactional approaches at scale.
Productivity Gains: Business HorsePower research shows that shared experiences build collective emotional intelligence. Teams with higher EQ are 20% more productive than low-EQ teams. Shared adventures are among the fastest ways to develop collective EQ.
Wellbeing Connection: Harvard Business Review (2020) research on nature and wellbeing found that time outdoors reduces cortisol levels and enhances prefrontal cortex function—optimal conditions for creative problem-solving and authentic communication.
Conclusion
The mountain teaches us what the conference room hides: relationships form through shared uncertainty, not through professional performance.
On a guided tour, the relationship is transactional. When conditions change, the guide fulfils their contract and goes home. On a rope team, the relationship is forged through shared stakes. When conditions change, you adapt together. The experience of uncertainty becomes the foundation of trust.
I am quite senior now. Still leading on lower grades. Still taking bocia duties—Veneto slang for the young helper who leads pitches when the masters are tired. Maybe I don’t want to recognise that I’m aging. Or maybe I understand something the corporate team-building industry misses:
The outdoors starts at home.
Your partners don’t need a corporate retreat in the mountains. They need you showing up—actually showing up—when the work is uncertain and the path isn’t clear. Your team doesn’t need manufactured challenges in controlled environments. They need shared experience where the stakes are real and the performance can drop away.
Adventure over comfort isn’t about choosing hardship. It’s about choosing presence over performance. Being in the weather you’re in, on the ground you’re on, with the people beside you.
When you’ve pushed up a mountain together, when you’ve shared uncertainty and triumph and the simple satisfaction of moving through beautiful terrain, you can’t go back to transactional thinking. You’ve built something real.
And real is what lasts.
This is the third in a series of essays on the principles underlying Fab Campaigns’ approach to partnerships. The first principle, “Partnerships Over Transactions,” explores why mutual value creation beats zero-sum extraction. The second principle, “Embedding Over Advising,” argues that transformational outcomes require transformational presence.
Sources
Kosfeld, M., Heinrichs, M., Zak, P.J., Fischbacher, U., & Fehr, E. (2005), “Oxytocin increases trust in humans,” Nature, 435(7042), 673-676
Baumgartner, T., Heinrichs, M., Vonlanthen, A., Fischbacher, U., & Fehr, E. (2008), “Oxytocin Shapes the Neural Circuitry of Trust and Trust Adaptation in Humans,” Neuron, 58(4), 639-650
Zak, Paul J. (2017), “The Neuroscience of Trust,” Harvard Business Review, January-February 2017
Kolb, David A. (1984), Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development, Prentice Hall
Association for Talent Development (ATD), Research on comprehensive training programmes
Corporate Executive Board (CEB), Research on experiential learning and high performer correlation
Boothby, Erica J., University of Pennsylvania research on shared experiences
Gallup, Inc. (2022-2024), State of the Global Workplace Reports
Edelman & LinkedIn (2024), B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report, Sixth Annual Edition
Business HorsePower (2024), “The Power of Shared Experiences”
Harvard Business Review (2020), “The Science of Nature and Well-being”
McKinsey & Company (2022), “Let Nature Boost Your Team’s Creativity and Performance”
American Psychological Association (2021), “The Science of Social Bonding”