On 21st November, the Jacob’s Ladder Africa team stepped away from laptops, meeting rooms, and work deadlines to spend a rare day together beyond office walls. We hiked. We laughed. We shared stories. And we pushed ourselves and competed through challenges that demanded trust, coordination, and the willingness to move as one.
What stood out, as each person worked within their team, was a simple but transformative truth that we do our best work when we move together. When one person jumps the gun without understanding the rules, the whole team pays for it, wiping points off the scoreboard no matter how hard everyone else is working. It is the synchronised team that ultimately succeeds. This lesson echoed through every challenge we took on, and it mirrors an even larger truth shaping the global climate landscape.
The timing of our teambuilding could not have been more poignant. Just days after COP30, a summit defined by fractures in global consensus, our experience offered a counter-narrative. Where negotiations faltered due to misalignment and competing priorities, our team’s success was grounded in clarity, shared purpose, and collective movement.
The parallels were unmistakable:
- Clarity of vision accelerates action.
During the challenges, teams performed best when everyone clearly understood the goal; a principle that mirrors our work in green jobs and skills awareness building, startup incubation and enterprise development , and the variety of programmes we design, co-create, and execute. When direction is shared, momentum builds. - Trust strengthens coordination.
Every successful task required teammates to rely on one another. Likewise, Africa’s green transition depends on trust and alignment between every ecosystem player from training institutions, policymakers, entrepreneurs, financiers, youth champions and governments, all pulling in the same direction. - Alignment creates breakthroughs.
COP30 reminded the world how easily progress stalls when priorities diverge. In contrast, our day in the field showed what becomes possible when people commit to the same objective and move at the same pace.
The global climate agenda may be experiencing headwinds, but our experience reaffirmed the optimistic truth that what we can accomplish together far exceeds what any of us can achieve alone.
As JLA continues to activate 30 million jobs in Africa’s green economy, these lessons shape not just how we work, but how we lead, how we collaborate, and how we champion Africa’s just transition.
Because whether on a hiking trail, in a boardroom, or on the global climate stage, progress is ultimately a team sport.
