OEMOffHighway.com |

Margot Morrell’s keynote speeches, and the leadership workshops organized by her New York City-based firm, focus on the skills of a Polar explorer who died in 1922. She’s found a timeless message that cuts across professional backgrounds and industries. Lately, those leadership programs have been in demand.

Staring down the barrel of today’s economy, many leaders can empathize with the hopeless situation the crew of the 1914-’16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition was in. There were times during their 20-month ordeal when surviving seemed impossible. In many ways, the tale of their experiences is an allegory to how many view the business climate today.

Led by Sir Ernest Shackleton, the group of 28 set off on August 1914 with the goal of being the first to walk cross the unexplored southern continent. That plan was altered when their ship, Endurance, became trapped in the sea ice off the Antarctic coast. They were stranded 1,200 miles from the most remote outpost of civilization. There were no radios, satellite phones, or high-speed wireless Internet connections.

For ten months the ship — its wardroom was, by then, known as the “The Ritz” — was carried with the ice. It gave shelter through the frightening cold of the dark austral winter, but was then crushed by the shifting ice and eventually disappeared. The crew persevered for months on an ice floe before it became unstable and open water beckoned.

They climbed into life boats and after a week arrived on a guano-covered, storm-ravaged pile of rocks called Elephant Island, where the crew would seek shelter in their overturned boats. Shackleton and five men left their island paradise to get help, crossing 800 miles of the roughest seas in the world to reach a whaling station. When he returned to rescue the men on Elephant Island nearly four months later, every one of his crew members had survived, and they all credited Shackleton.

Pessimists among the expedition’s crew could have easily swayed the votes in their favor at any time; there was no reasonable hope of ever being rescued. The misery delt by the cold, wet conditions and a diet of penguin and seal (or, after things got really desperate, sled dog) would have tested the sanity of most. But diaries kept by members of the Endurance crew show the overall morale was actually quite high. On June 21, 1915, five months after their ship had become trapped in the ice, one wrote that the Endurance’s cabin “has an atmosphere poetic.”

After years of relative obscurity, Ernest Shackleton has enjoyed a considerable amount of attention in the last decade, much of it due to this story of survival against all odds.

“Some people say he failed because he didn’t achieve his goal,” says Morrell. “Well, his goal changed when they couldn’t reach land. His new goal was to get everyone home alive, and he achieved that. Business people tend to be very rigid in their thinking: ‘here is my goal and this is my business.’ When they fail to recognize the goal has changed, their business struggles.”

Frank Worsley, captain of the ill-fated ship, wrote about Shackleton that “no matter what turns up, he is always ready to alter his plans and make fresh ones.”

Morrell’s interest in the explorer began as a hobby. In the crew’s diaries she saw a fascinating opportunity for additional research: Even during his lifetime, Shackleton won a lot of praise for his ability to facilitate a successful outcome in the worst conditions. But what were the skills that made him different?

“Ernest Shackleton dealt with all the problems that today’s leaders face, including constant change and ongoing challenges with limited resources,” says Morrell. “Yet Shackleton led a group of people, which included the naysayers and the disgruntled, and they achieved the impossible. He got them all working toward a common goal, which was their own survival.”