Teamwork is a process that can be experienced outdoors and well as in the workplace. A lesson learned in one environment can be applied equally well in another. Teamwork: We Have Met the Enemy and They Are Us, a book by Dr. Steven Stowell and Matt Starcevich, describes actual teams that have participated in a variety of outdoor teamwork training programs. These programs have been as long as five days and as short as one. Each account has been chosen as illustrative of one of the phases all teams go through in the progression from inception of a team to fully functioning interdependence. This sampling of teams has been selected for each particular event, one or another best illustrates why some teams work together better than others. Not all teams engage in the events reported here, nor are these events an exhaustive report of all the teamwork training actives that could be used to improve teams.

A majority of the accounts in this book describe teams that have failed to succeed at their assigned task. We focus on their failure to highlight those factors that contributed to the team