I value only three material things in this world. My wedding ring, and two of my three watches (ok ok, I’m really fond of my Garmin, but if it breaks or gets stolen, I’ll easily replace it). The other two watches are the one I inherited from my father and the one my wife gave me for my 50th birthday. I hope to pass these heirlooms on to my sons one day, and losing them would be devastating.
The story I heard in Dubai last week, therefore, really landed for me.
As part of my service work for EO (Entrepreneurs' Organization), I train entrepreneurs all over the world on how to run better businesses (and be more balanced humans). The organization does an annual gathering for us called Train the Trainer and over 150 of us gathered for a few days in the unusual desert oasis that is Dubai.
The cornerstone of our sessions this year was a gamified workshop based on the exploits of Sir Ernest Shackleton, a renowned British explorer who set out to conquer the South Pole in the early 1900s. I have never paid much attention to Shackleton or his exploits, given that he never really completed his mission (he had set out to be the first man to cross Antarctica, but they had to turn around before it even properly got started).
Boy, do I now understand the story? The story of Shackleton is not about conquest. It’s not about winning. It’s not about completing the mission against all odds. No, it’s a story about humanity, about inclusion, about alignment.
Shackleton’s ill-fated mission launched right as the First World War was underway, was almost immediately scuppered as their ship, the Endurance, was trapped in the ice banks on their approach to the Antarctic mainland. The crew of 27 men who were on that ship with him all made it out alive after nearly TWO YEARS of braving the icy cold conditions, the dangerous terrain, the icy and tempestuous waters, the lack of food and resources. It was a time without GPS, without helicopters, without Starlink. The fact that some of them survived is a miracle. The fact that all of them survived defies comprehension.
And this is why Shackleton is celebrated today, over 100 years later, and why business leaders from all over the world will listen to the story over and over again for inspiration and guidance on how to build better teams.
My regular readers will know I frame a lot of my lessons in the context of the Springbok rugby team, and the visionary leadership of Rassie Erasmus. Rassie, like Shackleton, is someone who clearly understands the Big Picture Goal. For Shackleton, it was always for his crew – his whole crew – to make it out alive. Explorations of that time, most notably in the case of Robert Falcon Scott, valued achievement over human life. His crew famously made it to the South Pole… but all of them died on the way back to safety.
For Shackleton, his focus was different. His interviewing process for the journey was laborious, over 5000 candidates interviewed for the expedition. He painstakingly put together a team that was diverse in skillsets, background and demeanour but wholly aligned on core values. When he made a mistake (his cook turned out to be an asshole), he quickly course-corrected and replaced him at the very start of the journey. Like Rassie, he placed the collective over the individual, and he insisted on a core quality of grit and tenacity. He despised hierarchies, he loathed entitlement and he outright rejected ego.
When disaster struck, the crew were 100% aligned on how the mission now changed. That their core focus was to get out alive. All of them.
As part of that core focus, they had to travel light over the ice. Abandoning their ship, destroyed by crushing ice, they faced hundreds of miles of unforgiving icy terrain, followed by a dangerous sea crossing to the nearest whaling station. It was a mission that required them to travel as lightly as possible, and they all had to sacrifice.
Shackleton led by example, and he was the first to leave behind, on the ice, his most prized possession: his grandfather’s pocket watch. His crew, knowing what the family heirloom meant to him, followed suit, and they all left behind, to be swallowed into the Antarctic depths forever, their most treasured possessions.
The story of how they made it out is worth hearing. Darrel Bristow Bovey has a great audiobook on this, which you can listen to here.
We all hold onto things. Grudges, pain, trauma, resentment. We project these things onto our current reality, and they slow us down. What I learned from Shackleton’s story is that, sometimes, it’s ok to lay down those hurts so that you can move on. Holding on to those things might have served you till now, but it’s time to let go. Or you… and those that depend on you… will suffer for it.
Or maybe the lesson is that when one day, as promised, I take Caroline to Antarctica, I’ll be sure to only take the Garmin.
PG’s Pro Tip:
Don’t stop interviewing until you’ve found a person who’s a cultural fit. In order to get the right cultural fit, make sure you transmit the right message of what the job is, be clear on your Big Picture Goal, and for the love of Mike, be absolutely clear on the core values of the organization.
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