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April 12, 2002
Amundsen a better example than Shackleton

Apparently the Antartic explorer Ernest Shackleton is being used as an example from which to draw management lessons. There's a book called Shackleton's Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer. According to the blurb Shackleton resonates with executives in today's business world. I think this is unfortunate, but perhaps telling. A far better example to follow in management is Roald Amundsen, the first person to get to the South Pole. Shackleton was good in a crisis and was head and shoulders above Robert Scott as a leader and orgainzer. However, Amundsen triumphed with far less drama in situations where Shackleton failed; Amundsen's reputation suffers only because he made it look so easy. If you feel management is about dealing with problems you could have avoided in the first place, go with Shackleton; if you want to succeed learn from Amundsen.

I'll try to pick just four lessons from Amundsen, there are others of course but you can find them in The Last Place on Earth, a great book about Scott, Amundsen and the Race to the South Pole.

Before going any further though I have to say that there is a downside. Following these steps may well prevent the sorts of crises that some people seem to feel are the hallmark of successful management. If you want to attract attention through a series of heroic escapes, and you aren't worried that people will see the situations you're escaping from are largely of your own making, don't emulate Amundsen. I prefer the opposite position, that it's better to succeed without a crisis than to invite one and then escape, if at all, only through heroic measures. After all, perhaps you'll end up like Scott, in a situation where heroism won't do you any good.

One Produce a plan to minimize risk and track your progress against your plan. Amundsen carefully calculated how far his party had to travel each day and how much food they needed to have at each point. This was updated during the trek so that on the way back they knew enough about their resources to be able to increase rations. Scott planned to take four people on the final push to the pole. At the last minute, hundreds of miles from base, he changed his mind and increased this to five reducing the food they all had.

Two Work steadily. Amundsen's party travelled for five to six hours each day to cover the fifteen miles that was planned for. Even when nearing the pole they didn't rush. Scott pushed on for nine to ten hours a day, his men felt that the work was endless. It's very dispiriting to be worn down by long days with no specific short term targets and no sense that things are going to get better.

Three Pick the right tools for the job and know how to use them. You should even modify and tune your tools for your specific tasks. Amundsen took dogs to the South Pole. Scott tried to use ponies. Amundsen took skis and his party knew how to ski, Scott tried to walk. During the Antartic winter before setting off, Scott's party was playing football. Amundsen's party was rebuilding their sledges to reduce weight and testing and reworking their clothing.

Four Learn from others. Amundsen learnt from the Eskimos how to dress for the Polar climate, how to drive dogs, and construct Igloos. He also learnt from other polar expeditions, including Shackleton's previous trip to the Antartic that got close to the South Pole, and from his own previous Artic exploration. Each success or failure had something to teach, perhaps not just the obvious lesson. Shackleton's first Antartic expedition nearly reached the pole by "man-hauling" the sledges. This taught Scott that "man-hauling" was the way to do it. Amundsen saw it as confirmation that using dogs was the correct approach. With dogs Shackleton would likely have been first.

Posted by Alex at April 12, 2002 08:53 PM
Comments
i am writing a short paper about scott-amundsen for my leadership class. your short comment help. thx. Posted by: monica on November 21, 2002 11:28 AM
Glad I could help :) Posted by: Alex on November 22, 2002 06:14 PM
I enjoyed reading your article. However I came across another perspective of Amundsen's feat in Roderick Owen's "Great Explorer". I quote, without further, comment made by Amundsen, denied the credit he felt was his due, was nonplussed:- "By and large, the British are a race of very bad loosers" he stated bitterly, "What they call luck I prefer to call planning". At a dinner given by the Royal Geographical Society, the President, Curzon, made a speech ending "I therefore propose three cheers for the dogs"!!! Posted by: Robin on March 21, 2003 02:23 PM
This was quite the piece to read. I think you expressed your views amazingly! you have quite the way with words Posted by: Kendall on May 26, 2003 10:29 PM
I don's really see how you argue Shackleton didn't follow the four steps if you don't make comparisons on him. I have read about Shackleton's expeditions and I know that he had plans for his expeditions and if in any given case he didnt have one for the Endurance expedition was because the concept was completely unknown. I think one of the reasons Shackleton adventure has inspired ideas on Leadership is because he was able to succeed during a crisis something Amudsen never did on any of his expeditions. Posted by: on August 8, 2003 11:48 PM
The thing I like about Amundsen over Shackleton is that Amundsen didn't get into trouble. Of course Shackleton was great once the crisis happened but I still prefer Amundsen. Posted by: Alex on August 12, 2003 09:01 PM
Well said. Re Aug 8 post above - Concisely - Amundson never failed to reach a goal that he set (His death came in an unplanned attempt to rescue the Italian expedition). Shackleton never achieved any of his goals. Posted by: John on November 16, 2004 12:45 PM
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Shackleton left 40,000 pounds worth of debt. Was that good management? Posted by: space _shiner on October 16, 2005 12:34 AM
wow that really helped with my assignment :) thankyou! i agree with all your views!! AMUNDSEN ROCKS Posted by: samwich on August 1, 2006 01:39 AM
Oh dear! I appreciate the book you may have taken your information from may have been enjoyable but it is a poor choice and widely recognised as a bias portrayal of Scott and a blisteringly positive one of Amundsen. Things are never as clear cut as you try to portray here, although i don't believe you do this spitefully. The book you draw your 'lessons' and information from is written by a journalist who has absolutely no worthwhile polar experience. There are far more critical and assured examination from people who do to look at. Also the author is rather obviously bias against Scott; some examples follow. 1) you claim Amundsen made better plans and food provisions. This is debateable in terms of credit as Edwardian ideas of nutrition were limited and neither Amundsen or Scott knew enough. It was fortunate and lucky that Amundsens rations were slightly better in terms of nutrition but this was just luck. Yes Amundsen was able to increase rations on the way back but this was again fortune as he made the return journey faster than anticipated and so this was an unexpected benefit not a plan. Despite the disasters that befell Scott, moving for days at the pace of the slowest man (Evans who was injured and dying), injuries, deaths and the most unprecedented weather conditions at the time of their failure and eventual death they were still just a week off schedule. I think that in spite of the aweful outcome of events this show Scott had made great planning for the event. In fact weather readings, polar explorations, previous expedition experience had all been carefully examined and used in preparations. Also Scott had not made a 'last minute' decision to take 5 people instead of 4, it was something he had considered for some time and it was taken with full knowledge and experience of lengthy polar expedition experience. 2)Scott's team moved in a steady weay just like Amudsen's team. As I say they were after some 150plus days less than a week off the schedule is pretty impressive planning on Scott's behalf. Just like Amundsen's team Scott's team had the same short term target..to suggest otherwise is quite bizarre! A daily milage/distace. The creating of depots as very specific and regular intervals and the reaching of them on the way back every few days, exactly like Amundsen. This kind of short term planning was standard on polar expeditions and in fact any expedition. A quite bizarre claim that it should be otherwise. 3)Scott believed he had chosen the right tools for the job. He did use ponies and with good success for part of the journey. To do so for part of the way was always an explicit part of his plan. Scott had used dogs on a previous polar expedition and had had a terrible experience with them. They had all died; obviously this greatly influenced his decision. It was a bad decision but it is utterly wrong to claim it was a decision borne out of ignorance or poor planning. With regards to the clothing and equipment, Scott's team took skis and used them greatly in their man pulling. To walk the entire way was too difficult, they did use ski's. Yes Scott used different clothing to Amundsen but for quite good reason and rightly so. Amundsons choice of furs was a good selection for his team who would expend less energy, move less and encounter more polar wind. The furs would keep you warmer. But for Scott's team these clothes would be fatal, the high impact of man hauling was a great energy expender and in furs they would have sweated, the sweat would have frozen and they would have died very quickly of pnuemonia. The choice of layers of cotton, wool and canvas were the perfect choice for the high energy work they were doing. Tests have conclusively proved that both men got their clothes right for their particular style. All this rubbish about Amundsen learning from the Eskimo's is junk. Scott and indeed all polar explorers of the time knew these things too. Scott's clothing would have kept them survivably warm to temperatures of up to 50 below 4) i really am astonished at this even being a point put forward by the author you read. Nothing that Amundsen knew or did was alien to Scott. Scott had a great deal of lengthy polar expedition experience in the use of furs, dogs and building igloos. It is a simple untruth to say that he did not. Scott's failure is far more complex than Amundsen's success and that is exactly why it has attracted the greater attention. By all accounts Scott's journey arguably should have succeeded. It was well planned, to great detail! Scott had an enormous amout of experience of the very same conditions and using a variety of equipment for lengthy polar periods. Obviously they would not have beaten Amundsen but it is precisely because of it's catastrophic failure that it deserves worthy examination. It is certainly more complex than the author Roland Huntford suggests in the book you reference. I would suggest reading some accounts or discussions of Scott's journey from actual polar explorers rather than journalists. Then a comparison with Amundsen in the way you intend might be mome correct. It saddens me that just as Huntford's book will take some time to correct in the minds of many who have read it (although much has been done to reverse his book in the last 6 years) so you pass on this unfortunate assessment to others. Posted by: Occams Razor on August 23, 2006 05:12 PM
I can appreciate the different points of view, and I find both Amundsen and Shackleton excellent examples, for different reasons. My personal experience has been that nothing goes exactly as planned. The degree of variance is what frames the challenge. To set the record straight, actually, Amundsen did face two early crises - first, his near-disastrous early false start, from which he had to turn his team back, and second, Johansen's direct challenge to his leadership. Amundsen was decisive - he removed Johansen from the party, and started over again when the weather improved. From that point on, things went pretty much according to plan -- no other major crises occurred. But we shouldn't overlook the fact that he, too, had challenges and overcame them. A good lesson here is to identify risks early on and deal with them quickly and decisively. Shackleton's leadership is also very inspiring to me because he encountered and overcame so many unpredictable crises. Unlike Amundsen, he encountered an event that rendered his plans unachievable - the Endurance was crushed by ice. He had to change his goals, from being the first to cross the Antarctic, to getting all of his team back alive. A reading of his book "South" should be enough to convince his critics that he was a pretty resourceful leader, as against all odds, he achieved his second goal. I also believe the evidence proves that all 3 explorers were "good" planners; Amundsen probably the best, while Shackleton was probably the best leader in a pinch. Posted by: James McCrory on November 30, 2006 01:11 AM
For me, one of the main reasons for Amundsen's success and Scott's failure comes down to the existence (or absence) of safety margins. Amundsen incorporated as many safety margins as he could, given the inherently hazardous nature of his expediation. Not just with respect to supplies, but also technical expertise. Virtually every member of his team was at least competent in vital areas (e.g., skiing, dog handling, navigation), and there were multiple experts in each area (e.g., having four expert navigators). He knew how bad polar weather and environment could be, and planned for it (e.g., making his caches as unmissable as he possibly could; making allowances for 1 out of every 4 days for weather or other delays). He used every means available to preserve the integrity of his supplies (e.g., modifying his fuel containers to avoid leakage), and conserve the strength and health of his men (e.g., using dogs to do the draft work, using a diet with known effectiveness, optimizing both equipment and routines to minimize the time and energy to travel and camp, etc.) He kept his food options as open as possible (e.g., formulating a dog pemmican that both dogs and humans could eat; the willingness to eat dog meat, etc.) Those are only a few of the safety measures Amundsen took. If one assigned a letter for each individual safety measure Amundsen incorporated into his expediation, he would have a veritable alphabet. Cumulatively, they formed a safety cushion that made his journey to the South Pole seem easy, comparatively speaking. Yes, Amundsen probably was luckier in various aspects than Scott. In such an unrelentingly hostile environment as Antarctica, luck is always a factor. But with Amundsen's culminative safety margins, luck became much less of a decisive factor. If Amundsen had lost a man to injury, the others would still have the necessary skills to survive and even continue. If he somehow missed a supply cache or got bogged down for days in a horrible blizzard, he was likely to have sufficient supplies to endure. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, Scott had virtually no safety margins to speak of. And far from trying to add whatever safety buffers he could, Scott was continually removing what little he had. And when that happened, luck became a nearly overwhelmingly critical factor. Things that would have constituted relatively minor inconveniences to Amundsen become major disasters for Scott. Both men were walking a tightrope. Amundsen was doing it with the benefits of prior experience, a balancing pole, a safety harness, and a safety net. On the other hand, Scott was trying to walk that same tightrope with a lack of experience, empty-handed, blindfolded, and nothing between him and the very hard ground. Sadly, the result was almost inevitable -- a live Amundsen and a dead Scott. In my view, Amundsen's approach can roughly summarized as follows: (1) It's okay to hope for things to go your way, but prepare for the worst. (2) Efficiency and success is more important than mere style alone. (3) Be open to ideas, regardless of source, then thoroughly evaluate their suitability and utility for yourself and your situation. On the other hand, Scott's approach seemed to be: (1) Expect things to go your way, and behave accordingly. (2) It's not so much what you achieve, but how you look doing it. (3) If it feels right, then it's probably okay and/or will work out in the end. Yes, Scott could have survived his expedition, but only if he'd had extremely good luck in virtually everything -- good luck in the weather, good luck in the terrain, good luck in finding his caches. But almost by its very nature, luck is undependable and capricious. It's like walking blindfolded through a minefield. Sure, one could survive such an experience. A very lucky person might even get through without a scratch. But is it realistic to stake one's life or chances of success on getting that much good luck? Posted by: hellrazor on December 22, 2006 12:03 PM
Brits have always seemed to favour the glorious failure to the boring success. It a very long tradition of curage and quite often of success as well. Amundsen was a low key soft spoken man. I have had the pleasure of discussing this with Mr. Børge Ausland, who is seen by many as the most impressive polar explorer after Amundsen. Single and unaided crossings of both the North pole and South pole + +. He`s an even more modest man, and an even better planner than Amundsen. He actually said to me about his crossing of Antarctica "Any norwegian with more than average skiing capabilities could have done the skiing. But they could not have done the planning and few would have handled the mentale pressure" I would rank Amundsen at top, then Shackleton and Scott way down. Posted by: Anders on December 28, 2006 02:54 PM
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