Shackleton’s team management in tougher times than ours

There are worse crises than this. Imagine yourself surrounded by Antarctic ice, with the freezing wind blowing at 300 km per hour and your ship trapped in a chunk of ice, floating along the lonely coast of Antarctica. Things can get even worse if your vessel were to crack and sink. I have just returned in a pretty inspired mood from the wonderful exhibition “Trapped in the Ice, Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition” sponsored by Caixa Catalunya.



Sir Ernest Shackleton’s expedition began in August 1914 when he recruited the toughest team of guys through an advertisement in the press. The ad read “men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success”. Legend has it that around 4,000 people applied for such an unappealing job.

In the most critical possible scenario and for two long years, including two dark winters in the South Pole, Shackleton succeeded in keeping his 27 men busy, alive, reasonably healthy, motivated and fighting together for survival. They had to endure (for Endurance was the ship’s portentous name) illness, desperation, mutinies, hunger, cold, loneliness.

Inspiration can be found in Shackleton’s people management skills. He provided us with lessons which are particularly helpful nowadays:

- He never surrendered. Instead, he realised when it was time to change plans. For example, Shackleton realised when it became impossible to achieve the initial goal (crossing the circa 2,900 km of Antarctica on foot) and changed plans in favour of a more valuable target: returning home alive.

- He was able to identify people’s strengths and weaknesses. Shackleton quickly identified the expedition’s brilliant - albeit self-centered - photographer Frank Hurley as a potential opponent and so lodged him in his own tent, together with the expedition’s pessimistic carpenter and other distressing personalities. Shackleton preferred having them near to him rather than leaving them to their own devices, poisoning the crew.

- He understood that, in difficult times, everyone must pull their weight. He forced higher-class scientists to do menial work together with the boat’s crew to show that all men were equal.

Shackleton was no saint, though. He was unfaithful to his wife and also left considerable debts upon his death. Let us then concentrate on his management skills and his heroic resilience in the hardest possible of circumstances.