It was a day Tamara Sanderson won't soon forget. Oliver Wyman Group CEO John Drzik called and told her that she was one of six staff members from firms owned by MMC chosen to go on a trip to Antarctica. "When I found out that I was going to be able to go on this experience, I was just ecstatic and screaming in my cubicle," Sanderson says, explaining that while the trip was designed to be educational, it also tied into Oliver Wyman's work-life balance initiatives.
So in March, Sanderson joined representatives from about 15 different companies, including key sponsors Coca-Cola and NPower, as well as sister firms Kroll and NERA, for the trip to Antarctica. There they all joined explorer and environmentalist Robert Swan to learn about his new project—an educational station called an EBase that is comprised exclusively of recyclable materials and is run only on renewable energy.
"What [Swan and his team] were doing was showing that if people can live in the harshest environment on recyclable material and renewable energy, then you can also do it in your own normal life, with less harsh conditions," Sanderson says.
The team initially met in Argentina to engage in some leadership and team-building sessions. But they really bonded, Sanderson says, over the treacherous Drake Passage, which left most of them either sick or tired from medication. But it was all worth it, she says, when the captain called them all to the deck upon their approach to Antarctica.
"That was when we first saw our very first iceberg," Sanderson says. "Everybody had their cameras. And I think it's very funny looking back because we saw iceberg after iceberg after iceberg, but that first one we had about a hundred photos of."
But in addition to it being a breathtakingly beautiful journey—"Every day it was just…as if they were cuing a National Geographic movie," Sanderson says—it was an educational one, too. "Essentially we were touring the facility and understanding exactly how all the renewable energy worked and also writing blogs back to people at home about the EBase and trying to get the word out," Sanderson says. "The corporate sponsors were going there to understand what the EBase was and to go back to their different communities and share that story."
Sanderson learned not only about the EBase, she also learned a lot about Oliver Wyman's various consulting practices and about the MMC sister firms. "One of the goals of this expedition was to bring people from different parts of the business, so that even though we each have our own separate practices and focuses, we're actually one and we can use each other's skills to provide the best talent for the client."
She says she also learned some valuable tools that will benefit her clients. "The entire journey was based on sustainability, and I just took it back from a client perspective. We go in and we do usually a three-month to six-month assignment for the client, and I think it's very important to make sure the work you do for the client is sustainable and that they can continue to exist when you leave, and that it creates lasting value rather than temporary savings."
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