So the way he gets to attitude in the hiring process is he asks people to do things like sing a song. Shackleton got that kind of thing as well. Nancy’s case study about Ernest Shackleton is a classic and her book, Forged in Crisis, is a great account of Shackleton’s story. And a lot of those decisions in leadership involve displeasing or not making everyone happy. NANCY KOEHN: I think it’s got parts of both if you will. I guess it also avoids signaling to somebody that we’re worried that you’re circling the drain. Shackleton and the crew of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition landed on the mountainous, ice-covered island today known as Elephant Island. And by the way, this is the hardest thing in the world to try to get us all back, but this is the greatest mission of my life. I’m not sure he did that. And the men who see the ship on the island come pouring out of this little overturned lifeboat, in which they were having lunch. I mean this is by far and away the most — I’m a Historian. Letter of application. Full as a tick.”  So he understands in this empathic intuitive way that my most important resource is my men’s self-belief and their belief in their group ability to get home safely. You’ll get paid when we pull in to the, you know, into London on the Thames.”  So that quells a lot. What a famously disastrous polar mission can teach us about effective leadership. It is frequently quoted as one of the best examples of copy writing, and has been quoted many times, in books covering topics all the way from Introduction to Evangelism to Web Application Defender’s Cookbook, and even printing on tee shirts. I think it avoids the embarrassment. But they’re not going to be rescued there. ADI IGNATIUS: So Shackleton’s first expedition to Antarctica takes place in 1902. And that’s so important for leaders in a transforming organization or a very volatile time. The ship is battered into pieces and the men live for the rest of the time in tents with lifeboats on the ice. So the ship is locked in January of 1915. They all make it home, where they are met by a world completely different than the one they left. Who would answer such an ad, which Shackleton placed in a London newspaper seeking recruits for his 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition? Interesting how history shifts with one laudatory book. Seine Schilderung der Shackleton-Expedition von 1914–1916 basiert auf Informationen aus allererster Hand: Tagebuchaufzeichnungen, Briefen, Zeitungsberichten und Interviews mit Überlebenden der »Endurance«-Crew. I think all great leaders have a big element of what they do that’s very personal to them. He looks confident. NANCY KOEHN: Extremely important lessons. Vivian. So he was very careful about choosing his ensemble. But in any event, here’s the secret sauce on the mutiny. He has a duty roster. ADI IGNATIUS: OK. It’s uncharted territory. NANCY KOEHN: We had such a success. Shackleton designs and develops performance apparel for people living and working in the world’s extremes. One, you’re certainly making the case that it’s good to hire people who can sing a song and dance a jig if you have a year of nights to somehow spend together, but also delivering hot milk to everyone when there’s one person who’s flagging. What kind of attitudes do I have? NANCY KOEHN: Absolutely. So they’re going to face these huge weather obstacles. They have also gathered a lot of information about the ad, the basis for much of this post. Shackleton understands that. 5 comments: Anonymous April 2, 2015 at 8:37 PM. So what he doesn’t do with his men or himself is keep saying, “how did this happen? Safe return doubtful. But at a certain point his story really becomes a big deal. He has someone, his first mate Frank Wild, that he can talk to, but he is consistently showing up as a man who cares about his men and who believes that they together will get home safely. I can’t help, but think some of the resilience and the determination, and the extraordinary improvisation of this story, which just gets more and more and more and more difficult for almost two years. So this fails, but Shackleton wants more. Shackleton was known for weighing up the options in every situation - the wellbeing of his crew meant more to him than success and fame, as demonstrated during his Nimrod Expedition (1907-1909), when he turned back less than 100 nautical miles short of the South Pole and eternal glory. I savor, cause I discovered just what I used to be taking a look for. But it’s what happened when their original mission failed that has made Shackleton’s remarkable story of survival, one of the most famous case studies in leadership history. That’s something Scott has a lot of trouble with. It’s a great analogy. Shackleton and his crew drift on the ice for almost two years. But of all the cases I’ve ever written in a long time at the school, this is the most popular. When Scott publishes an account of the expedition that’s scathing toward Shackleton, that gets his dander up and he immediately begins planning for his own expedition. ADI IGNATIUS: Legend has it that that’s the job ad Ernest Shackleton used to recruit the crew for his expedition to Antarctica in 1914. Share advert and book trailer for drama (see downloads) and overview I mean he really cares about bringing them home alive. I owe it to my command to bring them home alive.”  And I think that is primarily what powers him through his own moments of doubt. But I think the most important piece is what he discovers inside himself, which is, “I owe it to these men. There were plays. Brooklyn Nine-Nine stars Terry Crews and Andre Braugher have celebrated the end of season seven by performing their Push It dance routine together. The pitch certainly captures a certain glorious spirit—“Ah, when ships were made of wood … So I guess like today we would say well you have to own it. What was their most, what was their greatest moment of self-doubt? NANCY KOEHN: I think most of what he does is calculated. The famous Shackleton ad, supposedly printed in The Times. Inspiring though it may be, it seems that Shackleton’s famous ad … Alfred Lansing (gest. We’ll make it right. At one point, close to the end of the journey a huge storm erupts in that part of the South Atlantic. It’s such a big storm that it sinks a ship with over 500 people on it in nearby waters, although the expedition doesn’t know that. If you’re doing that everyone else will be doing that. NANCY KOEHN: Absolutely. ADI IGNATIUS: Better to just hand out some warm milk. I’m going to be very thoughtful and serious about what I do and very aware.”  And so, it’s calculated empathy that he’s using and he’s very careful to think about how he distributes it, so no one feels left out and it’s done in the interest of what he sees now as the, you know, as an extremely important goal. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. The ice crushes the ship and sinks it in November, 10 months after they’re first stuck. I know it because I’ve been studying it for 25 years. NANCY KOEHN: He shows up every day in terms of his mission. South: The Story of Shackleton’s Last Expedition, 1914-1917 by Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (Toronto, Canada: The Macmillan Company, 1920) p. xii, 144. Hiring a team, raising money. Shackleton and his 27-man crew made their escape northwards, dragging their lifeboats across the pack ice in those places where they couldn't sail on the sea surface. This is terrible.”  Let’s do a court and a tribunal to uncover why this thing didn’t work and why we got stuck. He takes on some of the tasks that are at once both profound, but also mundane. So what is so interesting about Shackleton in this moment is how he quickly pivots into I gotta manage their energy. Everyone survived, and Shackleton’s advert had certainly fulfilled its promise. ADI IGNATIUS: When I interview people should I have them tell me a joke and sing a little song and just get a sense of their ability to respond to a weird request? ADI IGNATIUS: It’s this incredible flexibility of realizing OK, the mission going to the South Pole. ADI IGNATIUS: I guess what’s remarkable is that the group didn’t turn on him. NANCY KOEHN: They all make it. NANCY KOEHN: So his first expedition which happens in the very first few years of the 20th Century, is an expedition under the command of a Naval Officer named Robert Falcon Scott. So, less about what have you got on your resume that makes you look like you’d be a good polar scientist, or a good polar navigator and more about what’s your attitude and how, what has that attitude affect your ability to deal with these very high-risk situations? About I’m Adi Ignatius, Editor in Chief of Harvard Business Review and I’m joined by historian and Harvard Business School Professor Nancy Koehn. There was forced socialization, so no one was allowed to retreat their cabins when they were on the ship after dinner, on in the case of their tents, no one was allowed to be alone in their tent after dinner. Frank Worsley, one of the crew members, wrote his memoirs and did not record seeing an ad, instead he just happened upon the expedition’s offices and decided to apply. Basically, Shackleton dragged a crew of glory seekers on an expedition with substandard supplies and equipment and fortunately they didn't die. Everyone has a job every day. Everyone is responsible for walking three miles around the ice so they get their exercise. Have a great day. But he does it for everyone so that the man who he sees flagging isn’t embarrassed, isn’t called out, isn’t singled out. ADI IGNATIUS: So was he hiring people who pleased him, or do you think he really was thinking at that high level about these attributes? It was a time when nations and patriotism were duking it out at some level in an international race, along exploration lines. NANCY KOEHN: That is exactly, that’s a great set of descriptives. I had to face forward.”  So that’s a really important lesson as well. And he starts counting them as the run to the shore, and he sees that all 22 are alive. Let’s try plan B.”, ADI IGNATIUS: They do, and there’s one moment, one real moment when mutiny becomes a possibility. The other side of the island from the whaling station and because the boat is damaged they can’t sail around. Sometimes we talked about stamp collecting. I mean talk about the power of leadership and individual lives. You know it was such a great experience this last time. I think Howard Schultz would tell you that was part of his motivation for using all his powers, and he worked incredibly hard to save Starbucks, because he felt responsible. And in January. NANCY KOEHN: And it is a hellacious journey. They can’t sustain it. Replies. He hired for attitude and trained for skill. ADI IGNATIUS: All right, let’s get back to the story. That’s what’s so interesting. Having learned a lot of things from Scott that he thinks he won’t do. In the first episode of a four-part special series on leadership, HBR Editor in Chief Adi Ignatius and Harvard Business School professor and historian Nancy Koehn analyze Shackleton’s leadership during the struggle to survive. Let’s break down this ad, line-by-line, and see what it’s really saying.“ You don’t walk into the office and sit at your computer and —. On August 31st, 1916, in a Chilean tugboat he finally makes it. Sometimes he talked about poetry. And he understood it long before we were writing about it here at places like the Harvard Business School. It would not have even made sense for Shackleton to place an ad in the paper. That’s a very good way of characterizing it. He is starting to drink. Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest. Frank Worsley, one of the crew members, wrote his memoirs and did not record seeing an ad, instead he just happened upon the expedition’s offices and decided to apply. About 20 months all told. So Shackleton and five men head out in a lifeboat that they have sort of converted into sailboat. What would the crew of Shackleton’s expedition have seen along their route? Some of the descendents of his men remember being told their ancestors responded to an ad Shackleton placed in the paper, but this was likely a recollection based on reading the ad rather than something they were actually told. Wow, the Shackleton letter's look beautiful. NANCY KOEHN: Thank you Adi. Seas that even the most experienced mariner would tell you are almost impossible to sail through. Howard Schultz came to my HBS classroom. Right? Partly as important through this individual one on one stuff. And they asked them, “How did you do this?”  And all of them, all the men, two or one said, “the boss,” which was their nickname for Shackleton, “made us believe that we could each do it.”  So there was something incredibly sustaining about that definition of leaders from David Foster Wallace, that leaders help us do things. See more ideas about History, Antarctic, Antarctica. Way too remote. 3. Bye, The American Response to Arnold’s Treason, Shackleton’s Ad – Men Wanted for Hazardous Journey, The Politics and Economics of Reconstruction, Top 10 Most Important Archaeology Discoveries of 2020, Knights vs Tanks? No one knows where they are. Nicknamed “Growler” by their crews, on account of its thunderous engines, the Shackleton AEW2 provided a less-than-comfortable working environment for the crew… He carries himself carefully. One of the important things he does is say, in violation of Maritime Law, to the troublemaker, the person who wants to mutiny, he says, “Look, I know the ship went down and my Maritime Law you’re not allowed to be paid. So there’s a real self-interested piece too. ADI IGNATIUS: Welcome back to “Real Leaders,” a special series of the HBR IdeaCast. Yours faithfully, To what extent is that just his personality and to what extent is that calculated? And how does that happen? ADI IGNATIUS: But what about owning them? ADI IGNATIUS: This episode was produced by Anne Saini and edited by Curt Nickisch. There was no Johnson & Johnson kind of moment with Jim Burke the CEO –. They mixed. Shackleton could also pick a rose from the thorns and his instinct for recruiting loyal, dependable men from the rougher side of life was often crucial. One, make your decisions and stick with them. He doesn’t do any of that. Instead their ship got trapped in ice. ADI IGNATIUS: The rest of the story is like something out of an adventure movie. That’s the first thing. This advertisement is one of the most famous in history. You can also ask them, you know, when you hire people about what was their most confusing? And I know you believe that and I know you —, NANCY KOEHN: I don’t believe it. A brief review of Shackleton’s life will reveal that he did not sign on with Robert Scott for his first expedition until 1901, and he did not lead his own “hazardous journey” for several years. Learn more about Shackleton… Mountains, rough terrain, but they do finally get to the whaling station. I’m Adi Ignatius. How do I deal with different kinds of situations? Stalwarts like Frank Wild, Tom Crean (above) and Ernest Joyce were mostly rootless men, living out of a kitbag or drifters looking for a role in life. Many of you have probably seen the famous advertisement which, as the story goes, Ernest Shackleton ran in the newspaper to try to recruit men for his Endurance expedition: Men wanted for hazardous journey. If he hadn't been so intent on beating Scott in the race for glory, which he failed to do, he might have put the welfare of his people ahead of personal self promotion. NANCY KOEHN: And this is as dreadful as the open boat journey was to get to Elephant Island. One thing should be noted – honor is not spelled in the American style, rather in the English, as “honour.” Not only was this the normal English spelling, Shackleton himself used it in his books.4 This evidence seems to show that either the quote was fabricated by Carl Elmore or one of his sources, or that it was copied in a very sloppy fashion. ADI IGNATIUS: OK. Those are tremendously important issues today. You know it was Shackleton, he disregarded advice, like maybe you shouldn’t go so far south because of the ice floes. And it’s part of their identity and that’s part of what fuels them. They have to walk across the entire island. That does a lot to appease the doubting Thomas’s because it says something about what he cares for and what he’s willing to do for his men. So when he sees a man’s, for example, energy flagging and this happened a number of times, over the course of the time that they were stranded, he will order up hot milk for everyone. I must bring them home alive. And Shackleton quells it. Inspiring though it may be, it seems that Shackleton’s famous ad is mostly likely a myth. On pages 5 and 6, Grill provides an illustration of each crew member with his name and post. I gotta create stability for them. The seas are really rough. So, Nancy, what happened in that? This is our problem. Now he had 27 men, so it was a lot easier to do than if you’re in a company of 100s or thousands of people. How do you manage the energy of yourself and your team when the stakes suddenly get high, the volatility, your uncertainty increases, and there’s suddenly a new worst case scenario that people can keep on running as a movie in their heads. NANCY KOEHN: So, beginning in the 1980s, there’s this kind of ground swell of interest, not just in England but around the world, in Shackleton. Once he’s on the ice and the ship goes down, and the mission of walking across the Antarctica is over, everything he does in this very high-stakes situation, when he’s talking about keeping his men alive, is calculated. The date seems to have been confused with when Shackleton announced his Nimrod expedition in a letter to the editor: Sir,–It has been an open secret for some time past that I have been desirous of leading another expedition to the South Polar regions. He gets a boat pretty quickly after they arrive at South Georgia, but the boat goes only a certain distance before again, those terrible icebergs threaten to grab it and lock it in the ice, so he has to turn back. But this is a man who’s been thirsting for fame and glory for all his life in some sense, or since he first decided to join the heroic age of Antarctic exploration. This is worse. He goes back. ADI IGNATIUS: Legend has it that that’s the job ad Ernest Shackleton used to recruit the crew for his expedition to Antarctica in 1914. NANCY KOEHN: No, it’s not. There’s a moment when the men are so miserable and he’s so worried about as he called it, morale, that he says, order up double rations for four days. Brooklyn Nine-Nine has scrapped all season eight episodes after the recent Black Lives Matter protests made the producers re-think the show’s direction. They’re trying to be the first to the Pole and that expedition goes terribly awry and Scott is forced to turn around and go back and they almost die on the way back for a number of reasons, primarily the most important of which is the temperatures and food supplies. However, the ad does not appear in this paper. You have ended my four day lengthy hunt! And like the men’s diaries, most of them kept diaries, say things like, “feeling much better. Now what happens first? Everybody else stays behind on Elephant Island. She preferred walking along Maine coastlines to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. And yet, her influence, her impact are as great as those of some of our greatest and most influential Presidents. Again, almost in intentional opposition to Scott. NANCY KOEHN: Right. What I want to know is how in the world does Shackleton keep his crew motivated for all this time? It doesn’t even kind of register in today’s terms. He was perhaps best known for his 1914–16 expedition, in which his ship, Endurance, was crushed by pack ice and the crew endured months of hardship before being rescued. History of advertising: No 137: Sir Ernest Shackleton's 'men wanted' ad. I think for lots of high achieving, highly controlling, highly successful people. The men get terrible diarrhea. ERNEST H. SHACKLETON2. So it’s a tremendously long, as you said, unfathomable period that they are living in this high stakes situation. And really that’s a great contrast that Shackleton was present. He’s showing up. It was personal. To set the context in the U.S., Teddy Roosevelt is President. Can anyone help me get right with this anxiety?”  He never does that. And yet, he owned it completely. Second thing he does is he understands something that all parents come to understand, which is that routine is incredibly important to creating stability and confidence and belief in self for human beings. There were presentations. Shackleton: An Irishman in Antarctica by Jonathan Shackleton (Madison, Wisconsin: Univ of Wisconsin Press, 2002) p. 137-138. I mean, to what extent does he learn lessons from an initial foray gone badly? What have I got in this scientist? I don’t have to pay you from the moment the ship goes down.”  He says, “I’m going to pay you out of my own pocket. Harvard Business Publishing is an affiliate of Harvard Business School. He’s knows it, he’s been there with good and bad and less good results. So he has, all the way through this story, has the men on routines. Everything seems stacked against their success. Shackleton received over 5000 applications including this letter from 'three sporty girls' who were keen to be considered alongside the men. And so Shackleton learns from that and says I’m going to be very good about that. Create an identity card for each child; he or she will keep this identity for the remainder of the project, writing diary entries in … NANCY KOEHN: Wanted, men for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success. Posted by Mrs J at 8:15 AM. And I mean calculation with a great deal of admiration and pragmatism when I say that. Better, more important things. They’re in four corners. I’m never going to be in charge of an expedition that runs short on food supplies. Some of them are in Asia and whatnot. So what point then does, so you said Shackleton wrote a book and it was something. God Bless you man. Do a dance. His ship, the Endurance, never reached Antarctica. So they left in August. This is “Real Leaders,” a special series that examines the lives of some of the world’s most compelling and effective leaders, past and present and offers lessons to all of us today. Shackleton’s Endurance Expedition (100 years ago). But somehow, they make it to South Georgia Island. They have to dock there. ADI IGNATIUS: So Shackleton clearly has this enormous reservoir empathy. And the ability to say, the flexibility, the adaptability, the ability to say that’s no longer our mission. I mean these guys never get to do the victory dance. Really important lesson today as volatility, pace of change increases. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Honour and recognition in event of success.’. Other biographies of Shackleton give the date as December 29, 1913, and the paper as the London Times. We had too much work to do. That he talked to them as a group every other day or so about what was happening, what he thought was happening, weather, navigate, longitude, latitude. I mean part of it was his own posture and continence, but how did he connect with the people that they believed that about themselves? But he now has another issue, and this is really important for leaders today. And the man with, him Tom Crean, one of the crew members who stayed with him, said the years just fell off his face and he looked so incredibly happy. (26 December 2006) UPDATE: From a recent e-mail from Craig A. Meyer: No, I did not find the famous Shackleton ad, but I did recently read something that may redirect our efforts. I’m turning to the future, the new mission, and I’m not going to look back on stalling. Of the 5,000 who applied to be part of Shackleton’s crew, 26 were chosen. June becomes July. Exactly. ADI IGNATIUS: So they make it. Antarctic blizzards don't come more impenetrable than the mystery surrounding a recruitment ad said to have been placed by the polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. And so he does that all the time. Sep 7, 2015 - Concept of Honour explored through English and History in the middle school classroom. Shackleton and his 27-man crew made their escape northwards, dragging their lifeboats across the pack ice in those places where they couldn't sail on the sea surface. What do you do when you have a bad boss? Can help you combat doubt or despair, or ennui. It can be found in Quit You like Men by Carl Hopkins Elmore in 1944, five years before The 100 Greatest Advertisements was published. He was then CEO of Starbucks, to talk about the company’s transformation and his own kind of really difficult moment when the company was about to go under in 2007 and 2008. Because teams aren’t just kind of set of resumes you’ve got. I mean it’s sort of unfathomable. There’s Shackleton societies. 1975) startete nach dem Ausscheiden aus der US-Marine Ende der 50er Jahre seine Karriere als Journalist. Harder, better things than we can get ourselves to do on our own, that Shackleton tapped into which each of those men. One of the first books for this ad to appear in was The 100 Greatest Advertisements: 1852-1958 written by Julian Watkins in 1949. They’re the people and their attitudes and their experience, and how they work together. The 100 Greatest Advertisements 1852-1958: Who Wrote Them and What They Did by Julian Lewis Watkins (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1949) p. 1. So, to understand the context even more, Nancy, is this kind of the equivalent of the Space Race of the 1960s? But something that’s less well-known is that she was a complete introvert.