Starting at the Summit

Jamie is Redvespa's Head of Experience. The closest he's been to Sir Edmund Hillary's achievements is reaching for a $5 note.

In the early afternoon of May 29, 1953, George Lowe trudged across the South Col of Mount Everest. He carried a flask of hot tomato soup and a spare bottle of oxygen, moving through the death zone at 26,000 feet where the air is too thin to sustain human life for long.

As he neared the high camp, two figures descended toward him. One was fellow New Zealander Edmund Hillary, a rangy, plain-speaking beekeeper from Tuakau. Hillary and Lowe had forged their partnership in the Southern Alps, building trust and friendship that was vital in these harsh environments.

Standing on the roof of the world, Hillary looked at his lifelong friend and said,

"Well, George, we knocked the bastard off."

It’s perhaps the most famous sentence in New Zealand history, yet we routinely ignore its lesson. Hillary didn't start with the 350 porters at base camp or the previous team’s failure. He didn’t lead with the -27°C temperatures or Tenzing Norgay’s inability to use a camera.

He started at the summit.

The Burden of Proof

At Redvespa, we often talk about the human element in complex projects. As Business Analysts, our instinct is to be thorough, to be rigorous. Our BAs gather context, identify risks, and document every step with meticulous attention to detail.

However, problems can arise when our communication mirrors that process by default. We feel this human need to justify our conclusion by dragging the audience through every crevasse we climbed. This feels responsible - we want to show the "working" to ensure alignment.

But, by the time we reach the actual recommendation, we've run the risk of exhausting the room's collective energy. We've asked stakeholders to climb the mountain with us when they were already standing at the camp, waiting for the result.

When to Start at the Summit

To make this practical, we need to know when to deliver the "summit" and when the "ascent" actually matters. 

• For busy stakeholders: They are at 26,000 feet with limited "oxygen" (time and mental bandwidth). Lead with the result.
• During project updates: Don't recap the last two weeks of meetings unless they changed the destination.
• At the launch meeting: The summit is the vision. Tell them where you're headed before you map the route.

Hillary understood that Lowe didn't need a route map, a rehash of the plan; he needed the result. Being solution-oriented means having the courage to lead with the outcome. We can always provide the "how" and the "why" for those who need to dive deeper later.

Tell them you knocked the bastard off.
Then, show them the view.

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