There is an article in the current edition of The New Yorker about a solitary journey across Antarctica, by Henry Worsley. I wrote a paper in 2005 for our Program Management Office, Project Managers at a large environmental remediation site, where our group provided ICT services to 5,000 workers on site. This article was about Shackleton's ventures from the book Shackleton's Way. Here's the extract from that paper.
In 1914 the explorer Earnest Shackleton boarded the Endurance with his team of seamen and scientists, intent on crossing the unexplored Antarctic continent. Endurance left England in August, while Shackleton stayed behind to raise more money. Shackleton joined the ship in Buenos Aires and then sailed to the whaling station Grytviken in South Georgia.
On December 15, they sailed on with extra clothing and a great deal of apprehension, since they received reports of thick ice moving north. As the ice thickened, the going became more difficult. As the ship rammed through the ice floes, Shackleton became worried by the lack of progress. They wormed their way through a “gigantic and interminable jigsaw puzzle devised by nature.”
On January 19, 1915, the ice of the Weddell Sea closed around Endurance and they were trapped. Working with picks, saws, and hand tools, the expedition made two attempts to break free. On February 24, they resigned themselves to stay on board and winter over.
On October 27, 1915, the ice finally crushed Endurance. Shackleton proposed to head toward open water by marching across hundreds of miles of pack ice, pulling the lifeboats and supplies. After two days and a distance of fewer than two miles, the men found a large ice floe and made camp. They agreed to stay on the flow until the drift ice carried them closer to Paulet Island. They stayed on their ocean camp until the end of December.
In April of 1916 the ice opened up and they were able to launch their boats. For 5½ days they rowed to Elephant Island, a rocky spit of land. After 497 days they reached solid ground. With food supplies running low they decided to split the crew in half and sail further on to South Georgia Island, 800 miles away. On May 10, after 16 days at sea, they landed on South Georgia Island. The bad news was they were on the wrong side of the island and had to traverse a glacier to reach the whaling station. After three days they reached the station.
After three attempts to rescue the crew on Elephant Island, Shackleton reached the stranded crew at the end of August 1916, 128 days after launching the boats from the ice floe. 634 days after departure from South Georgia they had returned. All survived with a unique level of caring and camaraderie.
“When disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton” – Sir Edmund Hillary.
Here's Advice to any Manager (project or business) from Shackleton.
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 sticking 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 thing 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 someday.
Selecting and Organizing the Crew
- Start with a solid core of workers you know from past jobs or who come recommended by trusted colleagues.
- Your Number 2 is your most important hire. Pick one who complements your management style, shows loyalty without being a yes-man (or woman) and has a talent for working with others.
- Hire those who share your vision. Someone who clashes with your personality or the corporate culture will hinder your work.
- Be a creative, unconventional interviewer if you seek creative, unconventional people. Go deeper than job experience and expertise. Ask questions that reveal a candidate's personality, value, and perspective on work and life.
- Surround yourself with cheerful, optimistic people. They will reward you with the loyalty and camaraderie vital for success.
- Applicants hungriest for the job are apt to work hardest to keep it.
- To weed out the potential slackers, choose workers who show a willingness to tackle any job, and will take a turn at the unpopular tasks.
- Hire those with the talents and expertise you lack. Don't feel threatened by them. They will help you stay on the cutting edge and bring distinction to your organization.
- Spell out clearly to new employees the exact duties and requirements of their jobs, and how they will be compensated. Many failed work relationships start with a lack of communication.
- To help your staff do top-notch work, give them the best equipment you can afford. Working with outdated, unreliable tools creates an unnecessary burden.
Forging a United Team
- Take time to observe before acting, especially if you are new to the scene. All changes should be aimed at improvements. Don't make changes just for the sake of leaving your mark.
- Always keep the door open to your staff members, and be generous with information that affects them. Well-informed employees are more eager and better prepared to participate.
- Establish order and routine on the job so all workers know where they stand and what is expected of them. Discipline makes the staff feel they're in capable hands.
- Break down traditional hierarchies and cliques by training workers to do a number of jobs, from the menial to the challenging.
- Where possible, have employees work together on certain tasks. It builds trust and respect and even friendship.
- Be fair and impartial in meting out compensation, workloads, and punishments. Imbalances make everyone feel uncomfortable, even the favored.
Lead by example. Chip in to help with the work you're having others do. It gives you the opportunity to set a high standard and shows your respect for the job. - Have regular gatherings to build esprit de corps. These could be informal lunches that allow workers to speak freely outside the office. Or they could be special holiday or anniversary celebrations that let employees relate to each other as people rather than only as colleagues.
Developing Individual Talent
- Create a work environment comfortable enough to entice professionals to spend the greater part of their waking hours there. Allow for some personal preferences.
- Be generous with programs that promote the well-being of your staff. Healthy bodies and minds are more productive.
- Make sure each employee has challenging and important work. Even the lowest-ranking workers must feel they are making a valuable and appreciated contribution to the company.
- Match the person to the position. Be observant of the types of people who are working for you and what jobs might best suit their personalities as well as their experience.
- Give consistent feedback on performance. Most workers feel they don't get nearly enough words of praise and encouragement.
- Strive for work relationships that have a human as well as the professional element. No matter how large your company, get to know as many employees as possible. Memorize their interests as you can chat about something other than work.
- Reward the individual as well as the group. Public acknowledgment of a job well done - a birthday or a work anniversary - will make an employee feel appreciated.
- Be tolerant. Know each employee's strengths and weaknesses, and set reasonable expectations. Occasionally indulging individuals, even if you think they're being too needy, can have a powerful effect, especially in high-stress situations.
Getting the Group Through a Crisis
- When crisis strikes, immediately address your staff. Take charge of the situation, offer a plan of action, ask for support, and show absolute confidence in a positive outcome.
- Get rid of unnecessary middle layers of authority, direct leadership is more effective in emergency situations.
- Plan several options in detail. Get a grasp of the possible consequences of each, always keeping your eye on the big picture.
- Streamline supplies and operations so they won't slow you down.
- Give your staff an occasional reality check to keep them on course. After a time, people will start to treat a crisis situation as business as usual and lose their focus.
- Keep your malcontents close to you. Resist your instinct to avoid them and instead try to win them over and gain their support.
- Defuse tension. In high-stress situations use humor to put people at ease, and keep your staff busy.
- Let go of the past. Don't waste time or energy regretting past mistakes or fretting over what you can't change.
- Ask for advice and information from a variety of sources, but ultimately make decisions based on your own best judgment.
- Let all people involved in the crisis participate in the solution, even if that means doling out some work that is less than vital.
- Be patient. Sometimes the best course of action is to do nothing but watch and wait.
- Give your staff plenty of time to get used to the idea of an unpopular decision by leaking early details.
Forming Groups for the Toughest Tasks
- The best way to handle the biggest tasks is often to divide the staff into teams. Create units that are self-sufficient, but understand they won't all be equal. It is more important the teams are balanced when considering the big picture.
- Make sure you have some cracker-jack groups that can handle the toughest challenges. They can also help others, to ensure no team falls far behind.
- Give the tedious assignment to the workhorses who don't complain. Let them know you are aware that you are giving them an outsized task and that you count on their goodwill and exceptional fortitude to get the job done.
- Empower the team leaders so they have the authority to handle their own group, but keep an eye on the details. Never let yourself be surprised by problems down the road.
- Don't be afraid to change your mind when you see your plan isn't working. You won't look indecisive if you show the logic of your changes.
Be self-sacrificing. Give whatever perks it is in your power to dispense. - Give a show of confidence in those acting in your stead. It's important that your support staff maintain in your absence the same level of competency you set.
- Never point out the weaknesses of the individual in front of others. Often, it's better to let everyone share in a remedy aimed at a few. Chances are, even the strongest will benefit from it.
Finding the Determination to Move Forward
- Go-for-broke risks become more acceptable as options narrow. Sometimes the potential rewards at the end of a daring venture justify the risk of suffering a spectacular failure.
- Seek inspiration in enduring wisdom that has comforted or motivated you or others in times of crisis. It will get you through the most physically and emotionally draining times and help you to keep your perspective.
- Congratulate yourself and others for a job well done. A pat on the back or a sincere handshake is an expression of personal thanks and gratitude that has never gone out of fashion.
- Motivate your staff to be independent. If you have been a good leader, they will have the determination to succeed on their own.
- Let your staff inspire you. At times, an overwhelming workload may force you to consider lowering your standards. Remember that the final product must represent the best efforts of the entire group.
- Even in the most stressful situations, don't forget that you are part of a larger world that might benefit from your expertise. In turn, participating in community and family activities can give skills useful on the job.
- Make sure the whole job is done. Your staff may be able to call it quits after the heavy lifting is over, but you are responsible for seeing the work through to its successful completion.
Thoughts on Leadership from Shackleton
- "There are lots of good things in the world, but I'm not sure that comradeship is not the best of them all - to know that you can do something big for another chap."
- "Optimism is true moral courage."
- "Leadership is a fine thing, but it has its penalties. And the greatest penalty is loneliness."
- "A man must shape himself to a new mark directly when the old one goes to ground."
- "The loyalty of your men is a sacred trust you carry. It is something, which must never be betrayed, something you must live up to."
- "I have often marveled at the thin line which separates success from failure."
- "You often have to hide from them not only the truth but your feelings about the truth. You may know that the facts are dead against you, but you mustn't say so."
- "If you're a leader, a follower that other fellows look to, you've got to keep going."
