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Book Review:
Shackleton's Way -- Don't Succumb to the Pessimists If you're trying to figure out what looks to be a hopeless situation, or if you think that the gods have conspired to ruin your plans, perhaps you should stop complaining and just go read Shackleton's Way. Sir Ernest Shackleton, the only great explorer at the turn of the century who literally accomplished nothing of note, has made a huge comeback of late as a study in leadership under pressure. "The Boss," as his crew called him, embarked on an epic trip to march across the Antarctic just at the moment when World War I broke out. Until then, trips like these served as the excitement of the day. Shackleton, a rugged British explorer, promoted the heck out of the trip, and then proceeded to prove that he could also be the operator supreme. Almost immediately his trip went awry. His ship, the Endurance, got stuck in ice and ultimately was crushed. He and his 27 men then spent the better part of two years hiking, swimming (yes, in cold, cold water) and life boating to safety. They had been forgotten and left for dead when Sir Ernest suddenly appeared out of nowhere at a Norwegian whaling station. His monumental trip to get back home with his crew safe and sound is now the subject of several books, an IMAX movie, a child's story and, at last, a business book, Shackleton's Way. Shackleton's situation was completely hopeless. He just didn't succumb to the pessimists. He refused to let himself or his men give up. He suffused them with optimism and hope in a totally rigorous, non-Pollyannaish way. That's why this book resonates so well in an era where the dreams of many entrepreneurs and businesspeople suddenly appear to be just dreams, even though they were launched and seemed, at the time, like the Endurance, fully funded and certain to score. I discovered Shackleton in a National Geographic article during a period when both TheStreet.com and Cramer Berkowitz were foundering. I would post Shackleton's phrases all over the office, including my favorite: "Optimism is True Moral Courage." I would read passages from the diaries of the men who were on his voyage before I went to bed, so I could deal with the troubled nights and terrible sleep that the tensions of the day brought me. You don't have
to mine these works for the lessons anymore. You can just copy and
memorize them from Shackleton's Way. They are, thankfully, all there.
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