Where technology ends and human intuition begins – onboard with Team Malizia

Welcome to Beyond the Benchmark, the EFG podcast with Moz Afzal.

Moz Afzal:

Hi everyone. Today we have a very, very special guest, Boris Herrmann. Boris, welcome.

Boris Herrmann:

Welcome. I'm happy to be here.

Moz Afzal:

So for those of you who don't know Boris, so Boris is actually the skipper of Team Malizia. In fact, Boris just told me they're celebrating their 10-year anniversary. Congratulations. And in 2020, he became the first German to compete in the Vonde Globe, the racing nonstop around the world in 80 days, a race where he finished fifth despite many, many challenges that he didn't really expect. So Boris, thank you very much for joining.

Boris Herrmann:

You’re welcome, happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Moz Afzal:

So Boris, let's go straight to it. And obviously your history and team Malizia history is all about performing under pressure. So maybe I was going to ask the first question is maybe take us through your framework of how you are taking some of those critical decisions when those conditions, as we know, are constantly changing, just like the markets are.

Boris Herrmann:

Well, I distinguish two scenarios. One is where you have to instantaneously decide because you're in a kind of crisis, you have a storm or very strong conditions. And I often find that easier in an immediate crisis, you can pull the team together and really give a direction and no one is asking the questions in between, outside of those priorities. What I find much more difficult are sometimes those moments when everything is going well and questions are being asked, am I on the right course? Is the strategy the right one? And the team might feel different about where to go. So that happens onshore and offshore. Offshore when the biggest strategic decisions are when we come through the light winds into the South Atlantic and then we can have big strategy calls to go right or left of the high pressure in the South Atlantic or through the middle. That's a bit metaphorical, I guess, for the situation I feel at land when things go smooth, but you kind of ask yourself, do we miss anything else?

Moz Afzal:

And so I guess there's two critical points that you mentioned there. The first point is the preparation before and then there's the preparation during or when those critical crunch points come along and making that decision-making. How much of the balance?

Boris Herrmann:

Well, the nature of decision-making is still quite different I'm sure at sea. But the preparation is really, I would say is 80% of the outcome of a round a world race is decided before the start. It will be most likely the best prepared team that will be on the top of the podium. And the preparation entails a lot like designing the right boat, composing the right team, training in the right way, focusing on the right priorities in the run up to the race, making it through the race with the morale and motivation of the entire team intact and overcoming all those unforeseen things. So 80% of it for the start and it determines also how you can cope with everything that's thrown at you when you are in the middle of a race.

Moz Afzal:

So obviously boat preparation, boat building, all of these are hugely, hugely of course, critical and important in that preparation. How much is I guess the science and the non-science part of that preparation?

Boris Herrmann:

Well, we can be, as you say, very scientific about really many things. And we have AI with modelling climate models and CFD analysis to send the boat through waves and find the best shape for the foils. And it's a really technical sport. Technology is at the heart of it, but also it's human. So the human side is that we're probably not going to use as much science, but a lot of intuition and intuition to create these human bonds, to create the feel of purpose, meaning and belonging within the team. Without that, it wouldn't really work because it's not a nine to five job we’re doing at any stage means that during the race stop over the start or reaction racing. So people put a lot of heart into it, a lot of passion, and it's because we feel the bonds and the human connection. So I think that's also very important of course.

 

And it's probably in some of our reality today in our world, I would say this is sometimes a bit underrated or not seen enough I would say. And my own team included, we also, the team becomes bigger, more professional, more organised. It's easy to lose the human side. It's easy to lose the spirit of the agile commando that standing together like comrades. We become a bigger system and really keeping, but then reintroducing the spirit over and over again. That's a very important part of the population.

Moz Afzal:

I think that's super, super, I guess important, I guess, in any organisation that shows that success, that kind of togetherness, that one direction. What tools or situations do you use to try and create that bond?

Boris Herrmann:

Well, we just reintroduced a thing we had done during the last ocean race around the world. The ocean race is the crewed race around the world with stops. So that's on the team building side, even more complex than the solo race. And in the last ocean race we did four years ago, we were always cooking together lunches. So we have a chef travelling around the world with us. And now in our team base, technical team base where people are, it's now crunch time to finish the new build race boat, bringing everyone together over lunch that changes really the perception of, oh, you actually see how many people that come out of each corner of the building. Even we get the suppliers at lunch sometimes. We get people that are not very in a very narrow sense connected to that are maybe important because they support us in other ways.

So we mix it up. We have good spirits, we have a good chef, and that's a very important element. Of course, it's not the year round, but for these crunch times. And then at other times, I much prefer my people go out, make new connections, meet new people, get new ideas. And we also don't want to become a clan where we stick all the time. But now it's a couple of months where we really pull together on each other. And I think that's one of these elements. Another element is that I really try to be available a lot and go around from teammate to team member and just see what they do, tap them on the shoulder and have a quick chat and encourage them as well to create these human bonds to give a bit of an example that the codes we can allow each other can be quite personal. We encourage that. We work hard, but we also feel the personal connection and we're all passionate about what we do.

Moz Afzal:

And obviously there are obviously times when some of that starts to break under extreme pressure or things are not going well or typically that tends to happen. I guess the bad actors occasionally come along, how do you turn them around or is it very simpler? I always think of football analogies Alex Ferguson was always very clear. If you're not part of the team, you're out.

Boris Herrmann:

I would say it's the opposite. It's once you're a Malizia, you're Malizia for life. So we feel these strong connections. We depend on each other and you almost depend with your life on the quality of their work. Safety systems consult us when we have problems at sea and send us out with our spaceship where we really safe sustain in terms of energy, water production, medical supply. We take everything on the ocean and we are in the wildest, most remote places of this planet where we need to be self-sufficient. Everything needs to work. Everything we can't forget anything. So we really rely on each other in a very personal, intimate way. And so that creates very special bonds as well.

Moz Afzal:

Yeah. No, I can absolutely see that.

Boris Herrmann:

But then there are many things. We have people quite different life situations and trying also to create work modes that reflect for different teammates and their different phases in life. The team is now 10 years old. Some people, they have grown older, they got a house, wife and kids, and maybe they work in a different rhythm now. And for some it's better to be a really intense a few months on and then be off, rotate more in a shift system over six weeks on and a few weeks off and so on. And some need to respect their family times a bit. But then generally in our environment, we have a lot of very long days and very intense committed work. So it's interesting to find ways to balance it out over time.

Moz Afzal:

And that's, I guess that personal connection and being interested in everyone's family, future ambitions, knowing everyone so intimately is obviously spending a lot of time with them and to be able to get that across. Well first, how many people involved in team Malizia and how many are, if you like the inner circle that are then your culture bearers into the rest of the organisation?

Boris Herrmann:

I would say we are about 45 people now involved in the adventure in the different adventures, the different poets within the team, different sub-teams. And yeah we have a strong power of 15 people who really depend on them. I mean we depend on everyone, but who really carries the performance of the team through experience and knowledge and commitment.

Moz Afzal:

Yeah. 45 is a good team actually. In terms of size of being able to manage them, get to know them very well, to get them fully motivated, it's probably a nice group.

Boris Herrmann:

Yeah, I guess when it's much more than that, it would be hard to have the same connection, the same intensity. And yeah, it's still just at the personal level, especially when we break it up into even smaller subgroups. Smaller groups of six is really the commander is those who smack out the thing overnight to get this working. Or the six who do a big presentation, an event or commercial task. It's also a side in team Malizia. Or the six who bring a boat across the Atlantic. So I think four, five, six is a subgroup that has a special meaning as well because then that's really in the sense like a military commander. They can really see their impact over those crunch times.

Moz Afzal:

Yeah, I can certainly see and sense that. So moving then on to you're in the race, the team's in the race and technology lets you down, for example. And there's been obviously many cases in your races that you've had that. What's the first thing that's going through your mind? Okay, this is not working, but it's so critical. What do I need to do next?

Boris Herrmann:

When technology lets us down - that happens of course, boats are prototypes with a massive amount of technology - so when things fail, that's where we come really where our strong point is. Improvising, finding solutions, finding creative solutions with our team on shore, consulting the boat. And there's this aspect of MacGyver. It's part of our sport really to keep the machine going.

Moz Afzal:

And I guess the critical thing, I guess, whenever those breakdowns tend to happen, usually if I think about the traditional bottles, a lot of finger pointing, there's a lot of, whose fault is that? What can we learn from it? And so on and so forth. But you can't really think about those things when you are in the middle of finding the solution. It is right, okay, this has happened. We got to deal with it. What is the pre and then post analysis of that? You found the solution. Okay. Is there then at the end of that day, end of that race, like a review? Okay, what happened? How could we have fixed it? How could we do it? What's the escalation process subsequently?

Boris Herrmann:

We are constantly learning, that's for sure. It's important to draw the right conclusions. There's always more hands-involved and a technical director who then has an engineer in the design office looking at a solution and someone putting it in place, someone maintaining it, making sure it works. And us as sailors proving it works over days and days of testing. So there's a whole chain of input in every element on the boat. It's not that you can send a young engineer look at one of these boats and see those things. Our technical director now is his fifth Vondee Globe race boat he's building with us. There's a tremendous amount of experience and an entire life career put into this and there are other candidates in the team. So we really need experience to get this as reliable as possible.

Moz Afzal:

So just moving then into I guess this pressurised sort of situation, but more around the physical and the emotional fatigue that one gets in these races, either as a team or of course as an individual. What are the motions that you are going through to overcome that? Because it's extreme, right? You are really at the edge. How do you cope with both the physical and then how do you cope with the mental parts?

Boris Herrmann:

Yeah, I don't have a full answer because I think we are still not perfect. I think over a career, mine for example, accumulate a lot of stress. And I think I accumulate also some sort of anxiety. And I feel that sometimes that I'm not like 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and it kind of sticks to you. And I have said with colleagues too. It is pretty extreme what we do. We accumulate so much pressure and stress being out there and the noise and the bashing over weeks and weeks. And at the same time, we live our dream, we live our passion and finding a balance to look after ourselves, to stop for short moments, to be present.

Yeah, so that's really a very personal answer to this. But in other ways, of course, we work with lots of physical and mental coaching. We are very well accompanied and we learn breathing techniques, tapping techniques, techniques of calming ourselves. Some are a bit similar to meditation. Hypnosis can help. And really being able to let go of stress and being able to let go maybe before a race start or at a crunch time or during a race. So really trying to use short moments where we can actually lie down and then are thrown around in a noisy bunk, trying to use that to sleep, to actually fall asleep. That's a big exercise and we are all far from perfect at mastering this, but this is something everyone can benefit massively. If you are on your business trip and you're just in the plane again and your mind is buzzing and you can just control your own emotions and stop, give yourself a break.

This is something we are still working on a lot, which I think becomes more and more important. The other thing is I think we have a culture generally in society, but especially in sport is to prepare people, accompany people towards a high performance goal. But what is after? What's after the event? What's after the race? How to wind down, how to land and how to evacuate the energies and the stress out of the mind and the soul. So that's something I think where we have a deficit in our sport and our culture in general. We always want to go to the peak, to the event, but what do we do after? There's something missing, I feel, and we are trying to look into that as well.

Moz Afzal:

Yeah. I mean, it's super, super fascinating. So what do you like to do personally? What's that serene moment after you've been on that podium, you've achieved, and to take it down a notch? What is the Boris Herrmann trick of serenity?

Boris Herrmann:

I think some you could compare to a detox because you are on high adrenaline for long times, especially during the race, but also during a stopover. We arrive at a stopover, maybe on a podium. We have the celebrations of the podium, then the next interview, then the debriefing with the short team. Then the next day right into the next meeting, how do we get the next leg in? What's the weather forecast? You remain on a high adrenaline maybe for half a year at once. And maybe even it never stops. You become kind of addicted to it and it's a pretty high pace all through. So yeah, I really feel like we should emphasise more quiet detox times after these phases.

Moz Afzal:

So what do you do? Do you, I don't know, go out? I guess some people go out into the mountains, go for a walk.

Boris Herrmann:

Absolutely. I think physical effort, nature, breathing and less mental stimulus, allowing the mind to calm down, those would be the ingredients that I see. And I think that can be similar for many people. Just nature can be very helpful, but I think it's not what usually happens, you come back from, in my world, from the race, but maybe in the business world, you come back from the business trip and a big achievement or something and then you lie on the couch. It happens to me to be on the couch and you're shattered, you have given it everything. This is really not the place where a body and mind recover. It needs fresh air, it needs nature, it needs physical activity because the only way the body can transform the hormones of the adrenaline is actually through physical exercise. It is a big part of it.

And so usually you come back from these races in wintertime, it's raining, you haven't seen your family, all these new pressures come onto you straight away, sponsors, family, people want attention onto your presence. It is really tough to squeeze it in, but it's something I'm aware of and want to do better in the future.

Moz Afzal:

Yeah. Well, I think we could all learn those lessons actually, because if I think about high-performing management teams, certain management teams I come across, they're always in the zone and there's never that sort of switch off time, which sometimes they forget.

Boris Herrmann:

There's another thing, you go into your family, your partners, your partner allow you to perform and really focus so much on your task and your work for me and the race and you come back with this kind of we owe something. But before being present again, there would need to be also time to recover. And that's a tricky one to put in and to manage because of course in the extreme case of my race around the world, I've been gone three months and then I can't say I do another month of walking through the mountains to land. I would say it takes because of you have to fragment the recuperation. It takes almost a year a year to come back to the same energy level until, and some of it anyway sticks with us.

Moz Afzal:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can certainly see it. So just a few more questions I had. First one was what was the hardest moment you reflect on your races, what was the hardest moment do you think you felt, oh my gosh, this is it.

Boris Herrmann:

One of the hardest moments we had was our last ocean race, getting off Cape of Good Hope, South Africa into the Southern Ocean, and the longest ever lack of the ocean race, which would take us entirely around Antarctica, around Cape Cod to South America, 22,000 nautical miles. It's almost as much as the lengths of the equator. So that was a huge challenge and we really wanted to prove how on your boat. And thus a week into the race we broke some part on the masts and we didn't know how this would end. And to sit there with that uncertainty waiting for the reply of the technicians to be able to calculate and quite sophisticated computer models and structural engineering models that would calculate if with the amount of glue we had on the boat, we could actually stitch the mast together enough to be reliable because where we were heading is in Norway area, Point Nemo in the middle of the Southern Ocean where you are the furthest away from any land, many thousand kilometres in every direction.

So taking the responsibility for my team, the responsible decisions, either abandoning the race altogether, even going back at that stage anyhow would have been painful. It would've taken two weeks to go back to Cape Town, two or three weeks. But actually that was one of the biggest challenge we overcame. We repaired the mast. We had teammates being up the mast for hours so they couldn't feel their legs anymore in the hiking chair and repaired this in a great team effort. Then continued racing, which we had suspended during the repair and had a big gap to the leading boats. And we actually managed to get back into them, overtake them and be the first into the finish line. And so this really was one of the most beautiful moments to come into Brazil, celebrating the victory and race like three to last ocean race. And despite the odds, never surrender, never give up.

Moz Afzal:

Yeah, that's an amazing, amazing story. So looking forward to the 2027 ocean race, how's the preparation going? How are you guys feeling? Any sort of short-term challenges you see and how's the motivation?

Boris Herrmann:

Yeah, looking forward to the next ocean race. Start is mid-January 27 from Alicante. And again, they will send us out on gigantic first leg, which takes us all the way to Auckland, New Zealand. Again, halfway around the world. From there, the next leg will lead around Cape Town to Itajai in Brazil. Same place where we came in victorious on Lake Sweel on the last Ocean. Then to the US, to Florida, then to Europe, different European stopovers and finishing in Saudi Arabia. We have been preparing this since almost three years now. So we are almost over-prepared and I don't see anything we could do more. We have the resources. We have no excuses if we don't perform, then it's purely on us. And the slight difficulty we have is that the ecosystem is a bit weak. So the general world of sponsorship is a bit weak at the moment.

 

We don't have as many competitors in the race at the moment. The race itself is working hard on that, trying to fund, help other teams to fund so that we actually get a good fleet together.

Moz Afzal:

So that wraps us up for today. And thanks again, Boris, for the partnership with himself and to Malizia for spending the time with us today. And we look forward to speaking to you again next time. Thank you very much.

 

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