Book Reviews
|
|||
|
Go to Executive Times
Archives |
|||
|
Shackleton’s Way: Leadership Lessons From the Great Antartic Explorer by Margot Morrell and Stephanie Capparell Rating: •••
(Recommended) |
|
||
|
Click on
title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
|
||
|
|
|||
|
Engaged I’ve deliberately avoided the entire genre of management and
leadership books that draw lessons from historical figures. I don’t think
Attila the Hun provides a good role model. I took an exception to that
practice when an Executive Times reader recommended Shackleton’s Way. I’m glad I followed the
recommendation. There’s much about Sir Ernest Shackleton’s
leadership style that current managers and leaders would benefit from emulating,
especially his total engagement as leader. Here’s an excerpt from the end of Chapter 1, “The Path to Leadership,”
pp. 42-49: Shackleton avoided
public fights, engaging always in respectful competition with rivals. Polar exploration was a matter of
national pride. The Japanese, Norwegians, Germans, and Australians were all
racing for the Pole and other destinations in the Antarctic and explorers
waved the flag to whip up enthusiasm for their expeditions. Shackleton, though, felt a brotherhood with the other
explorers and believed the realities of the exploration business meant they
would have to cooperate with each other at some point. He looked to them for
new ideas and offered them his in return. In fact, his biggest rival was his
countryman Scott, but Shackle-ton kept his feelings about his old nemesis to
himself. When Scott announced he was going to take the Terra Nova to
the Antarctic in another bid for the Pole, for example, Shackleton
told Frank Wild that he would sit on the sidelines for a time and let Scott
take a crack at it. Shackleton even helped Scott
launch his expedition in 1910, lending a hand in organizing the provisions.
He also helped equip expeditions from other countries, sharing what he had
learned about packing and calculating what was needed for survival. In one letter of unclear destination,
dated 1903, Shackleton wrote:‘I see that you are intending to take an
Expedition to the North Pole, so as I am greatly interested in all these
undertakings, I would be very glad to give you any assistance in my power to
enable you to fit out or get the ideas of equipment for this sort of thing.
My experience with the National Antarctic Expedition enables me perhaps to
be of use, and so as a member of the Southern Sledge journey and therefore
dealing with dogs, some information might be useful, besides which I have
just fitted out the Terra Nova for the Admiralty. Being conversant
with the stores necessary I might help you. “I should be glad to see you at any
time, and please understand that this is only for the regard that one
explorer has for another, for there is no money question in it.” Just as Scott was organizing his
expedition, Roald Amundsen
of “Heartiest congratulations. Magnificent
achievement” was the cable Shackleton sent to Amundsen. He refused to play down the achievement as the
British establishment was doing, writing in the press that he believed the
Norwegians would have paid tribute to Scott had he been the first. Maintaining the good will of fellow
explorers paid off when it came time for Shackleton
to write a prospectus for his Endurance expedition. He got glowing
recommendations from the most successful explorers of his day. Amundsen wrote: “If you succeed in your brilliant
enterprise (which I am sure you will) you certainly will have done your share
of the work and added the most beautiful stone to the magnificent crown won
by the hardy and enterprising British explorers.” Admiral Robert Peary
added: “The idea is splendid. . . . he is undoubtedly the best man in From 1910 until the summer of 1913,
when he began organizing the transcontinental Endurance expedition, Shackleton threw himself as best he could into domestic
life. He also dabbled in a variety of business ventures, all designed to
return a quick profit to fund further explorations. He invested in such risky
ventures as selling elegant cigarettes to Americans, building a taxi fleet in
In April 1912 the
shocking news came that the Titanic
had sunk, killing fifteen hundred people. Shackleton
was asked to give testimony at the official inquiries as an expert on
navigating icy waters. He absolved the shipmaster, saying the biggest problem
was that the ship’s owners were on board. pushing
for a faster and faster voyage. More shocking news
followed: Scott and his four companions had died early that year on their
trek back from the Pole, having arrived one month after Amundsen’s
party. The public became obsessed with Scott’s sacrifice, which fit the
romantic image of the Victorian-age hero. Maybe others had beaten him to the
Pole, the public reasoned, but he had paved the way and paid the ultimate
price for it. Shackleton paid tribute to Scott, and
given the grim circumstances, it was fortunate that he had never positioned
himself as his enemy. Shackleton was desperate to return to the
Antarctic which was never far from his mind. His business dealings mostly had
soured and were nothing but a headache. “All the troubles of the South are
nothing to day after day of business.’ he said. SHACKLETON’S WAY OF DEVELOPING
LEADERSHIP SKILLS ·
Cultivate
a sense of compassion and responsibility for others. You have a bigger impact
on the lives of those under you than you can imagine. ·
Once
you make a career decision, commit to stick through the tough learning
period. ·
Do
your part to help create an upbeat environment at work. A positive and
cheerful workplace is important to productivity. ·
Broaden
your cultural and social horizons beyond your usual experiences. Learning to
see things from different perspectives will give you greater flexibility in
problem solving at work. ·
In
a rapidly changing world, be willing to venture in new directions to seize
new opportunities and learn new skills. ·
Find
a way to turn setbacks and failures to your advantage. This would be a good time
to step forward on your own. ·
Be
bold in vision and careful in planning. Dare to try something new, but be
meticulous enough in your proposal to give your ideas a good chance of
succeeding. ·
Learn
from past mistakes—yours and those made by others. Sometimes the best
teachers are the bad bosses and the negative experiences. ·
Never
insist on reaching a goal at any cost. It must be achieved at a reasonable
expense, without undue hardship for your staff. ·
Don’t
be drawn into public disputes with rivals. Rather, engage in respectful
competition. You may need their cooperation some day. WORKING IT IN Richard Danzig,
appointed “The values of leadership he provides are
eternal,” says Secretary Danzig. “They’re derived
from the nature of human character and involve making bold ventures and
bringing out the best in human beings.” The secretary discovered Shackleton years ago reading Alfred Lansing’s Endurance.
He is convinced that Shackleton’s knowledge of
a wide variety of literature contributed to the explorer’s success as a
leader. Mr. Danzig gives copies of the Endurance
story— among other books—to navy and marine officers, as well as visiting
dignitaries. “One of the great advantages of reading fiction or history is it
gives you the opportunity to understand the world from different vantage
points and different time periods and different psychologies,” he says.
“That’s important to a leader, so one of my prime aims in distributing books
is to get people to think outside themselves and to think broadly.” The secretary wrote an article for the Marine
Corps Gazette in 1999 recommending works of twentieth-century fiction and
nonfiction. They were: Gates of Fire by Stephen Pressfleld
about the Spartan battle at Thermopylae in 480 B.C.; I, CIaudius and CIaudius
the God, books by
Robert Graves about the Roman emperor; Shogun by James Clavell about an Englishman in seventeenth-century Japan;
Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad about a sailor’s loss of honor; All the
King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren about a young man’s loss of
innocence amid the politics of 1930s Louisiana; and Generations of Winter by
Vassily Aksyonov about a
Russian family’s survival in a totalitarian state. The secretary says he uses the Lndurance story to illustrate the kind of
leadership he wants to encourage in the navy and marine corps, which he
oversees. For him, the Shackleton model works on
many levels: leadership in response to danger and adversity, working in
extreme environments, surviving unforeseen challenges, flexibility in
planning, and gaining and retaining the loyalty of those in your command.
Through great danger and under tremendous pressure, the explorer kept his
crew together, maintained morale, and improved on his escape Plans until he
got everyone to safety, Mr. Danzig says. He
particularly admires what he identifies as Shackleton’s
thoughtfulness, in every sense of’ the word: “He was thoughtful in the
emotional sense—--he was empathetic and caring. He was also thoughtful in the
cognitive sense-—he thought logically even while under great stress.” Mr. Danzig
believes Shackleton had some flaws. “He is not the
complete leader,” he says, “but he is an exceptional example of a set of
traits that we highly value . . . Warfare constantly requires adaptation and
innovation, and he was extraordinary in that.” Mr. Danzig,
as a top manager of the Pentagon, has made some astute observations about the
nature of organizations. In the February/March 2000 issue of the magazine Civilization,
he was quoted as saying, “Organizations are a kind of fossil record of
what bothered their predecessors.” That record should be studied, he argues,
to better anticipate how organizations will change. “The issue is not
whether they will encounter different types of crises; they will. The issue
is whether or not they will change fast enough to be prepared for those
crises when they occur.” Still, Mr. Danzig,
a student of history, warns against what he calls “overlearning”
from the past; that is, looking too much at one set of circumstances instead
of’ contemplating all the possibilities and discontinuities one might face in
current situations. Likewise, he is not particularly confident of’ anyone’s
ability to predict the future. So he is interested in highly flexible
strategies. For that reason, he admires the way Shackleton
mapped out several alternative step-by-step plans for the rescue of his men.
“There was no glossing over of the situation.” he says. “Shackleton
came to grips with the cold, hard realities and constantly generated options
that offered his group ways of getting out.” Secretary Danzig
has written broadly on the subjects of law, national security, and
leadership, especially leadership during crisis. He received a doctorate of
law from Yale and a Ph.D. in history from Mr. Danzig
looks to Shackleton for examples of how to build
the loyalty of those under one’s command. Shackleton’s
commitment to his men was total, and he protected them from physical and psychological
harm. The stranded explorer had to deal with the gamut of human emotions,
including fear, anger, and despair, Mr. Danzig
observes. “At the same time, the men had only one asset, and that was each
other. There were no other people for thousands of miles. In that
circumstance, the pressures of that situation, you could either fracture and
divide or weld into a tight group. Shackleton’s
amazing achievement is he always got things to go in the direction of staying
together.” Today’s military, Secretary Danzig says, emphasizes recruitment, but the greater
challenge is retention of good people. He says he is trying to rid the
military of the “conscript mentality,” the notion that the leadership will
always have an unlimited quantity of low-cost labor. His goals are to provide
them with better tools, better working conditions, and automation where it
can relieve burdens. In 1999, he helped get Congress to
approve the largest pay raise for the navy and marine corps in fifteen years.
He also reversed the “zero defect” promotion policy,
in order to advance “the best people, not the most immaculate records.” He says his own philosophy of how
troops should be treated follows the Shackleton
tradition and is another reason he held the seminar on the explorer. He says
he has tried to instill among navy and marine officers “a richer sense that
our enlisted people are professionals, and that they should be treasured, and
their loyalty earned and retained.” Each
chapter of the book tells a Shackleton story, lists
lessons to learn, and uses a current example of using those lessons today. Shackleton’s Way is a path well worth following. Leaders
who become remote from their followers fail, sooner or later. Engaged
leaders, working side by side with followers, do whatever is necessary to
ensure success. To enhance the journey after reading this book, follow up
with Shackleton’s own story, South.
Steve
Hopkins, June 25, 2004 |
|||
|
|
|||
|
ã 2004 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for this
book appeared in the July 2004
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Shackleton's
Way.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
|||
