Shackleton's Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer

Rating:
Summary: Fine update of Shackleton's ideas
Review: Heard the taped version of SHACKLETON'S WAY:
LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM THE GREAT ANTARCTIC
EXPLORER by Margot Morrell and Stephanie Capparell . . . this
was the perfect companion to the recent documentary I
saw on the same subject, THE ENDURANCE . . . it enabled
me to better appreciate how Ernest Shackleton and his men
survived the wreck of their ship with no means of communication
and no hope for rescue . . . the amazing thing was that not
only did every man survive--but did so in both good health
and spirits.

Shackleton was clearly ahead of his time . . . he led his men
from 1914 to 1916 using some techniques that are now
accepted by all, but I imagine were revolutionary at the
time . . . for example, the book's authors noted that
he believed in the following:

A good boss will make a burden of work seem lighter.

One person can change an entire work environment.

It was better to replace a failed goal with a more ambitious one.

Chip-in sometimes with the work you are having others do.

In trouble, danger and despair, never give up hope. The worse
can always be got over.

Rating:
Summary: A Very Dull Book for an Important Subject
Review: I guess you can derive as much pleasure from reading this book as you would from The Joy of Cooking. I am sure there is a great deal to be learned about leadership skills from Shackleton's expeditions, as is evidenced by the italicized and boldfaced summary statements throughout the book. These are great ingredients of leadership success, but somehow Shackleton the leader fails to leap out of the pages of the book as a living hero. I have never read a book about a great leader written in such dry prose. Maybe the project was doomed by the authors' objective of culling some neat points from various accounts of the great explorer's adventures for today's self-improvement book market. Has anyone been inspired to be a great culinary artist by reading The Joy of Cooking?

Rating:
Summary: Shackleton's Way
Review: If you want an in depth analysis of Shackleton or any other leader, go take a course, read the volumes of books on the subject, invest the effort elsewhere. Don't expect to have an in-depth analysis effectively accomplished in 200 pages.

If you want a light, entertaining, interesting read of an incredible story, touching on various leadership points, then you will find this book worthwhile.

If you are looking for a bit of spark to investigate Shackleton a bit more, then you will find this book worthwhile.

Shackleton was a very capable leader of expeditions... not a Saint. If you are looking for a look into his personal life and any shortcomings in it, you won't find it in this book... but then again, I don't think it's called Shackleton's Family Way: A Critical Account of His Family Life.

Rating:
Summary: "Way" is Wonderful!
Review: In 1914, Ernest Shackleton and 27 others started on a journey to be the first people to cross the Antarctic Continent. Their ship was caught in the ice, eventually crushed, and the story of how they all survived has become a classic. In this book, the story is retold with new insights and information. The authors focus on Shackleton as leader. The conclusions are very well drawn, and the connections and insights regarding "leadership" are true, valid, and extremely worthwhile. They make sense, they are useful, and they work! I've been to South Georgia and Elephant Island, and thus have some appreciation of the difficulties Shackleton and his men faced. His leadership skills came through for his team then, and the lessons learned are more than appropriate for leaders of today.

Rating:
Summary: Leadership as a Flexible, Fatherly and Caring Role Model
Review: Leadership is all about character, determination, consideration, vision, and fidelity. Under horrible circumstances, leaders usually become much better or worse. Even the harsh Captain Bligh found himself fulfilling a hero's role as a leader after the mutiny. Sir Ernest Shackleton was a fine man who became even finer under pressure.

If you don't know the story, let me outline a few details. During World War I, Sir Ernest led a small expedition to Antarctica from England in an attempt to cross that continent through the South Pole. The pole itself had already been reached by Amundsen and Scott. En route to land, the expedition's ship, Endurance, became locked in the pack ice. The crew drifted with the ice for over 10 months before the ship was crushed by the ice. Pulling lifeboats over the ice, the men reached open sea more than five months later. They reached a small island, Elephant Island, where most of the men remained while Sir Ernest and a few men made an 800 mile three week sea voyage to their starting point, South Georgia Island. Arriving there, they faced a horrible trek over almost impassable terrain to get to the settlement. Sir Ernest immediately left to rescue the men left behind on Elephant Island. All those on board the Endurance survived.

Throughout this rescue, Sir Ernest proved himself to be resourceful, flexible, considerate, and indomitable.

Shackleton's Way recounts Sir Ernest's life, and summarizes key points about his leadership style. Each chapter ends with a commentary by someone who learned from Sir Ernest's experiences to be a better leader.

As a leadership book, Shackleton's Way has a number of weaknesses. First, leadership and management are not separated. The bulk of the points made in the book relate more to management than to leadership. I think the book would have worked better if it had narrowed down to leadership, rather than including management. Sir Ernest seemed to be a fairly ordinary manager, while being an outstanding leader. With the two messages combined, the lessons are diluted.

Second, Sir Ernest is treated with kid gloves in the book. That may no be warranted in all cases. For example, if he had abandoned the expedition before the Endurance became stuck in the pack ice, all of the suffering would have been avoided. Clearly, he may well have made some errors in judgment that led to the crisis.

Third, most people can tell you what they would like leaders to do. The same people find it very difficult to do those things, even under good conditions. Under horrible conditions (as occurred here), the average person becomes a below-average leader. What were the things that Shackleton did in his mind to maintain the self-discipline to be a good leader? The book provides little insight into that critical point.

Fourth, the key lessons are not elaborated on nearly enough. Flexibility is critical, for example, because leaders often misperceive the real situation, or find that their forecasts are wrong. An effective leader then must be looking for improved information, and be thinking about what actions could be taken should circumstances shift or be shown to be different than perceived. A whole book could be written about the significance of this point. Very little more attention is paid to this critical element than is to the idea of being optimistic, as a way to keep the mind and spirit resourceful.

Fifth, the end of chapter examples of others being inspired by Sir Ernest are often pretty trivial and disconnected. This was particularly true about the Jim Cramer, Eric Miller, and Mike Dale. If all of these sections had been left out, the book would have been stronger. Or alternatively, leadership experts could have spoken about examples that they thought supported Sir Ernest's principles.

As a result, Shackleton's Way ends up being too simple to be a good adventure saga or a good leadership book. To me, it seemed like a book that was aimed at young teenagers rather than at adults. If you want to read about Sir Ernest as an explorer, you will probably prefer Sir Ernest's own books. As to leadership books, there are many fine ones. You could read any of the best leadership books (such as Managing Change), and then draw your own lessons from what Sir Ernest wrote.

What qualities of leadership would you like to see in those who lead you? In this time of national trial in the United States, what lessons from Sir Ernest should be applied by political leaders?

Rating:
Summary: Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but...
Review: Luckily I didn't buy this book; I only had the misfortune of reading through it at a bookstore. What a joke...did you know that Frank Worsley (the "skipper") remarked that Shackleton was "just never good at ordinary things." That includes business. Shackleton was constantly frustrated by his failure to be proficient in business, a fact which probably enticed him to take his fateful yet fitting final journey. Do I need to further explain the irony? I think not.
I'm not taking anything away from Sir Ernest. What he accomplished was far greater than any laughable "managerial success." Like all of the great ones, he is rightfully remembered for courage, leadership and staring down the seemingly hopeless and impossible, not for his ability to turn a profit. I would prefer if these management "gurus" stick to the Tom Peters, Stephen Coveys, Tony Robbins and other charlatans of that ilk and leave great men like Ernest Shackleton out of the sordid mix. This opportunistic garbage deserves ZERO stars.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent study of one man;s leadership style.
Review: Morrel et al give an excellent study of the leadership style of the late Sir Ernest Shackelton. They focus primarily on his personnel selections and why he made his decisions. The book deals primarily with the unsuccessful 1914 attempt by Sir Ernest to cross Antarctica from coast to coast. It is an absorbing story.

I found this book to be extremely informative and insightful with the description of why Sir Ernest decided whom to take on his expedition and later when the crunch came, why he chose certain people for certain missions. The value comes because it gives a point of reference to judge ones own decisions.

... This might be a better book for small business and start up organizations as the margin for mistakes in personnel selection is much finer and has much more immediate impact. Son on this level, I think the book would like up to it's billing.

In all, I found this book thought provoking and informative. I have read Huntford's biography of Shackelton and I found Morrel's book a good compliment to Huntford in that it focuses on a specific aspect of Shackelton which Huntford, due to his extensive biographical work is not able to do as thoroughly. Morrel's book should be in every library of people with an interst in leadership and polar exploration.

Rating:
Summary: Leadership Lite
Review: On one of the last pages of "Shackleton's Way," the authors state, "This book attempts to provide what Shackleton wished to explain about his experiences and achievements." This refers to Shackleton's fascination with "the mental side" of leadership. This self-congratulatory pat on their collective backs ignores the simple fact that they failed badly in their attempt. Shackleton was by all accounts a great adventurer. He successfully assembled a group of kindred spirits and had a great adventure. He may well have been an equally great leader who practiced the art of leadership brilliantly. Unfortunately, you won't read about it in this book. A more appropriate title for this book might be, "Leadership Lite" or "The Hardy Boys Go to Antarctica."

The authors crammed about 25 pages of story into 238 painfully puffed out pages, including pictures; appendices; introductory remarks by the subject's granddaughter; bibliography, with a glaring omission of any literature on the subject of leadership in any form; three pages of acknowledgements; and, an exhaustive index which is probably the best written part of the entire book. They also include lengthy asides describing how various others have used the Shackleton story to help them in their efforts to lead others. Finally, as if their writing might overwhelm the reader with its "subtlety" they provide a laundry list of homilies summarizing each chapter. That these nuggets of leadership lore might well be included in a remedial course in management clearly escapes the authors as they present them in a manner suggestive of Moses' tablets of stone.

Finally, they mention in passing that Shackleton was a philandering womanizer who couldn't seem to get and hold a real job so he decided to go on a grand adventure. This suggests an obvious candidate for their next book, a recent resident of Washington DC and one of their new neighbors in New York.

Rating:
Summary: Leadership Lite
Review: On one of the last pages of "Shackleton's Way," the authors state, "This book attempts to provide what Shackleton wished to explain about his experiences and achievements." This refers to Shackleton's fascination with "the mental side" of leadership. This self-congratulatory pat on their collective backs ignores the simple fact that they failed badly in their attempt. Shackleton was by all accounts a great adventurer. He successfully assembled a group of kindred spirits and had a great adventure. He may well have been an equally great leader who practiced the art of leadership brilliantly. Unfortunately, you won't read about it in this book. A more appropriate title for this book might be, "Leadership Lite" or "The Hardy Boys Go to Antarctica."

The authors crammed about 25 pages of story into 238 painfully puffed out pages, including pictures; appendices; introductory remarks by the subject's granddaughter; bibliography, with a glaring omission of any literature on the subject of leadership in any form; three pages of acknowledgements; and, an exhaustive index which is probably the best written part of the entire book. They also include lengthy asides describing how various others have used the Shackleton story to help them in their efforts to lead others. Finally, as if their writing might overwhelm the reader with its "subtlety" they provide a laundry list of homilies summarizing each chapter. That these nuggets of leadership lore might well be included in a remedial course in management clearly escapes the authors as they present them in a manner suggestive of Moses' tablets of stone.

Finally, they mention in passing that Shackleton was a philandering womanizer who couldn't seem to get and hold a real job so he decided to go on a grand adventure. This suggests an obvious candidate for their next book, a recent resident of Washington DC and one of their new neighbors in New York.

Rating:
Summary: From the last place on Earth to first place in leadership
Review: PBS did a series some years ago based on Roland Huntford's stupendous The Last Place on Earth--the Race for the South Pole. Not only was it an exhaustive study of why Scott failed and Amundsen prevailed, but it also dealt with Shackelton's achievements in polar exploration. He never lost a man.

Now Margot Morrell takes the theme of leadership lessons from these explorations and gives us Shackleton as an example of how a leader can literally mean the difference between life and death.

The object of polar exploration is to achieve the goal (reach a certain latitude, reach the Pole first) while making it there and back--alive. These two goals are intertwined in a life-and-death game of high stakes. Shackleton showed his leadership prowess in pulling back when it meant that people would die, and also by pulling them together when the situation was grim.

Finally someone has pulled the true lesson from the heroics of the Polar explorations. This is a welcome book.

If you get bitten by the Antarctic saga, you should read Huntford's book as a study in management along with Morrell's book on Shackleton. (Scott was apolitical animal who played favorites and made decisions based on personal feelings; Amundsen lead his team with authority and squelched rebellion when he had to, yet each team member had autonomy over their own area of expertise. Both explorers held Shackleton in the highest regard; the Pole should have been his, but for Shackleton, the price was too high. A truly great man.