The Last Voyage of the Endurance

I just finished another really good book about the ill-fated 1914 Antarctic expedition led by Sir Ernest Shackleton (Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage).  Shackleton led a British crew of 27 other men aboard the ship, "Endurance" (named after the Shackleton family motto, By endurance we conquer) on an expedition whose objective was to be the first land crossing of the continent of Antarctica.  Allegedly, Shackleton selected his crew from more than 5,000 applications in response to an advertisement in the London Times that stated, "Men wanted for hazardous journey.  Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness.  Safe return doubtful.  Honour and recognition in event of success."  The plan was to sail across from South Georgia Island across the Weddell Sea to Vahsel Bay, where a smaller group would travel by dogsled across the continent to the Ross Sea, where another ship would be waiting to take them home.  The first part of the expedition went according to plan, but the Endurance was eventually caught in the pack ice.  The ship was crushed and eventually sank, and the rest of the book details how Shackleton led his men to safety nearly 2 years after leaving South Georgia Island (if you want the details - read the book!).

There have been a number of leadership books based upon the Endurance expedition - there is no question that Shackleton's leadership as well as his men's perseverance made the difference between life and death.  It is a wondrous example of the human spirit that all 28 men survived to tell the tale.  One of his men called Shackleton "the greatest leader that ever came on God's earth, bar none."  Someone else said, "For scientific leadership, give me Scott; for swift and efficient travel, Amundsen; but when you are in a hopeless situation, when there seems no way out, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton."

What was it about Sir Ernest Shackleton that made him such a great leader?  In one word - steadfastness.  Shackleton was focused on one simple goal - getting his men safely home.  He remained optimistic, even when there was no reason to be so.  He said, "If you're a leader, a fellow that other fellows look to, you've got to keep going."  "Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all."  And finally, "Optimism is true moral courage." 

Randy Pausch, the MIT professor who gave "The Last Lecture" while suffering from terminal pancreatic cancer (he later wrote an inspirational book of the same name) said, "Complaining does not work as a strategy.  We all have finite time and energy.  Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals.  And it won't make us happier."

Shackleton understood this too.  When you are spending day after day floating on an ice floe in the middle of the Weddell Sea, trying to survive on nothing but seal meat cooked using blubber on a stove during the long, dark night of the Antarctic winter, time may be unlimited, but energy is not.  The less time spent on complaining, the more energy was left to do things that truly mattered - like surviving.  Tenacity.  Perseverance.  Indefatigable will.  These are the characteristics that led Shackleton's crew all the way to home.

While we as leaders may never spend time eating seal meat on an ice floe in the Weddell Sea, the story of the last voyage of the Endurance provides us with an important lesson.  Difficulties and setbacks are truly "just things to overcome, after all."  Keep your eyes pointing forward to the goal and never waver.  Trust in yourself and your team - and lead the way home.

Chemistry is Culture

It's that time of year again - the National Basketball Association's trade deadline is this coming Thursday.  The rumor mill will start churning on which team is interested in moving which player, which player can help a team make the deepest play-off run, and (always) which team is putting together the kind of package to entice LeBron James to sign with them the next time he becomes a free agent.  One of the most talked about trades (so far) has been the Sacramento Kings trade of DeMarcus Cousins to the New Orleans Pelicans.  DeMarcus "Boogie" Cousins is one of those extremely gifted athletes who has a reputation for having a terrible attitude.  The Kings traded him for next to nothing - some would argue that they were happy just to get rid of him.  Now he has become someone else's problem.  I don't know how the trade will eventually turn out, but based on the analysis that I've heard, the Kings view the trade very much as "addition by subtraction."  Cousins was simply the wrong fit for them - great talent, horrible chemistry.

What is this thing that sports teams always talk about, team chemistry?   In my opinion, team chemistry is just another name for culture - "the way we do things around here."  Team chemistry, or culture, is why sports teams such as the New England Patriots (see my recent post, "The Patriot Way"), the St. Louis Cardinals (Major League Baseball), the New York Yankees (Major League Baseball), the University of Alabama Crimson Tide (college football), the Duke Blue Devils (men's college basketball), the San Antonio Spurs (NBA basketball), and the University of Connecticut Huskies (women's college basketball) continue to win, year after year after year.  It doesn't matter what the roster looks like on these teams, they simply find a way to win.  In the case of the professional sports teams, ordinary players move to these perennial winners and become very good players, and the very good players from other teams join these teams and become superstars.  What is the secret sauce here?  Culture.  The coaches and/or managers (respectively, Bill Belichick, Tony LaRussa/Mike Matheny, Joe Torre/Joe Girardi, Nick Saban, Mike Krzyzewski, Gregg Popovich, and Geno Auriemma) of these teams set the tone that helps foster a championship culture.  The players on each of these team follow suit, and eventually the culture just becomes part of the fabric of these organizations.

In several of these cases (obviously the professional teams, not the college teams), players moving from another team to these championship teams fully embrace the culture and often become better players.  The Patriots, in particular, have a long history of taking maligned or underperforming players and creating superstars!  The Yankees are another good example - for example, both Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon cut their hair short and shaved their beards on the day they signed with the Yankees.  They both said, "This is the Yankees - this is the way that the Yankees do things."  Culture is infectious!

The Cardinals and Yankees organizations are of interest, as the championship culture continued even following a change in leadership (Tony LaRussa retired and Mike Matheny took over as manager of the Cardinals, and Joe Torre retired and Joe Girardi took over as manager of the Yankees).  In the Cardinals case, it helped that Mike Matheny played for LaRussa and was a member of his coaching staff.  In the Yankees case, Joe Girardi played for Torre and also was a member of his coaching staff.

I think it is still too soon to tell whether DeMarcus Cousins will take the New Orleans Pelicans to the next level and become a championship team.  There is no question that he is a talented player - indeed, he is a NBA All-Star (his trade actually happened over All-Star weekend).  History would suggest, however, that since he is not joining a team with a culture of winning, his troublesome attitude will continue.

In Honor of the Presidents...

Today is President's Day - a U.S. federal holiday that is celebrated every year on the third Monday of February.  While President's Day was originally set to honor the birthday of the very first President of the United States, George Washington (whose actual birthday was February 22, 1732) and later the birthday of the sixteenth President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln (whose actual birthday was February 12, 1809), the holiday is often a celebration of all of the men (I emphasize "men" because the United States has yet to elect a female President) who have served as President.  Today, however, I will choose to simply honor our first.  I will do so with a quote by President Washington that I particularly find of value:


"It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one."


Okay - I will confess that I do not know exactly when President Washington said the quote, but it is clear that he did not like to hear excuses!  It is interesting to look up the definition of excuse on the Google dictionary.  The word "excuse" can be used as either a verb (meaning, "to attempt to lessen the blame attaching to a fault or offense") or a noun (meaning, "a reason or explanation put forward to defend or justify a fault or offense").  When defined in this manner, I can appreciate why President Washington did not like to hear excuses.  Why would anyone try to "defend or justify" something that they did wrong instead of just admitting it? 


Pope John Paul II also did not like excuses - he reportedly said, "An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded." 


Benjamin Franklin went further and said, "He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else."


Finally, George Washington Carver said, "Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses."


In other words, no one likes to hear excuses.  When you do something wrong, own up to it and admit it.  Learn from your mistakes.  Move on.  President Washington offers us some very good advice.  Today, on the day that we celebrate his birthday, we should all pay attention.

"Hard things are hard"

Just before his term as President of the United States ended, President Barack Obama hosted the Chicago Cubs at the White House as the reigning World Series champions (note that Obama was and remains a die-hard Chicago White Sox fan!).  The Cubs first baseman slugger, Anthony Rizzo, noticed a quote on Obama's desk in the Oval Office.  The quote was simple in its eloquence but profound in its meaning - "Hard things are hard."  Rizzo said, "There's no shortcut...We got to push ourselves to limits that we don't think we can get to."  So very true! 

As the saying goes, the best things in life aren't free - you have to work for them.  And the harder a goal is to achieve, the harder you have to work to achieve it.  The American philosopher and psychologist, William James once said, "We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort." 

I commonly hear that today's youth are too often focused solely on the prize - I also hear that their parents (and perhaps society) are to blame.  No matter what pursuit - sports, math competitions, debate team, music competitions, dance recitals, etc - everyone gets a prize or a trophy, just for showing up.  I don't know if that is true or not, but it does seem at times that individuals want to be rewarded for their hard work before they actually do it.  Individuals want to be handed leadership positions before they have gained the necessary experience.

Hard work pays off.  Dedication and commitment pay off.  As leaders, we need to provide the next generation with opportunities to gain the necessary experience and show what they are made of.  But in the end, no matter what, hard things are hard.  There are no shortcuts.

"Just one thing..."

Raise your hand if you are old enough to remember the movie, City Slickers.  The movie came out in 1991 and starred Billy Crystal as a 39 year-old having a sort of mid-life crisis.  His two best friends take him on a two-week cattle drive that starts at a small ranch in New Mexico, where they are taught how to rope and round up steer as well as all the other things an amateur cowboy needs to know.  Crystal's character meets a wise-old cowboy, Curly, played by the actor Jack Palance (Palance won the Best Supporting Actor award at the 1992 Academy Awards for the role - he famously performed one-arm push-ups during his acceptance speech, which is what he apparently had to do in order to convince the movie's producers that he was healthy enough to play the role!).  There is a scene in the movie where Crystal and Palance are riding together to round up some lost cows.  Palance's character (Curly) tells Crystal's character (Mitch) the secret meaning of life:


Curly: You know what the secret of life is?

Mitch: No, what?

Curly: (holds up his leather gloved hand and points his index finger into the air) This.

Mitch: Your finger?

Curly: One thing, just one thing.  You stick to that and everything else don't mean shit.

Mitch: That's great, but what's the one thing?

Curly: That's what you've got to figure out.


The scene is powerfully performed by both actors and probably had a significant impact on Palance winning the Academy Award!  However, I am struck more by the significance of the message itself.  Especially as many of us (maybe all of us) at one time or another in our lives struggle with the questions "Why am I here?" and "What is my purpose?"  In the movie, Crystal's character, Mitch, figures out (with the help of a calf named Norman that he helps to deliver) that his purpose in life, the "one thing" that gives his life meaning, is his family (in this case, his wife and two children).  I do think that we struggle to find our passion, our "True North", our one guiding principle in life, both in our personal and professional lives.  And that is why I think it is important to develop (and even explicitly state) our personal mission, vision, and values.  A personal mission statement helps us find that "one thing" that matters to us most in our lives. 


The philosopher,  Viktor Frankl developed an entire philosophy and form of psychotherapy ("Logotherapy") in his book, "Man's Search for Meaning".  In this book about his Holocaust concentration camp experience, first at Auschwitz and later at Bergen-Belsen, Frankl elucidates three fundamental tenets of "logotherapy" - first, Life has meaning, even under the most miserable of circumstances; second, our main motivation in Life is to find meaning in life itself; and third, we are free to find meaning in who we are, what we do, and what experience.  If you are searching for that elusive "one thing", these questions are a great place to start.


There is a Proverb from the Old Testament (Proverbs 29:18) that states simply, Where there is no vision, the people perish.  I believe that is true for individuals, just as it is true for organizations.  The leadership expert, Jim Collins (of ""Good to Great"" fame) calls this organizational "True North" his "Hedgehog Concept".  The concept comes from a famous essay by the philosopher, Isaiah Berlin, entitled "The Hedgehog and the Fox", which in turn comes from a line in a poem by the ancient Greek poet Archilochus: "A fox knows many things, but a hedgehog one important thing."  Basically, the explanation of this statement is as follows.  The fox is sly and cunning, using any one of a number of clever strategies to try to attack the hedgehog.  The hedgehog's strategy is far simpler - he rolls up into a tight ball so that the "spikes" on his back jut out and protect him from the fox.  The hedgehog always wins.  Similarly, Collins states that the most successful companies focus on their "Hedgehog Concept" - answering three simple questions in the process: (1) What can you be the best in the world at? (2) What are you passionate about? and (3) What drives your economic engine?  In other words, organizations, just like individuals, need to find that "one thing" that they are passionate about and that they can be the best at (and it always helps, especially if they are an organization that is trying to generate a profit, if they can make money doing so).


Today, I see organizations (and individuals) trying to be the absolute "best in the world" at everything.  As a result, they lose focus and end up being "best in the world" at nothing.  Organizations (and individuals) need to find their "True North", their "Hedgehog Concept", or that "Just one thing" that they can be the "best in the world" at and that they are truly passionate about - then, and only then, will they truly be the best that they can be at that "one thing."  Then, an only then, will they go from "good to great!"

"Still I Rise"

I must be getting old, for I used to dislike poetry.  Lately I have found myself reading and enjoying poetry.  I came across a famous poem by the American poet, Maya Angelou, who died just a few years ago.  The poem is called, "Still I Rise".  Perhaps Ms. Angelou had a deeper meaning in mind, but to me, this beautifully inspiring poem is about resilience.  Resilience is a critically important characteristic for individuals in any organization (see my blog post from November 22, 2016, "HRO: Commitment to Resilience") - perhaps even more so for an organization's leaders.  But what exactly does it mean to be "resilient"? 

Resilience is often defined as the ability to "bounce back" from adversity.  One of the synonyms for resilience is "elasticity" - the ability of an object to return back to its original shape after being stretched or pulled apart.  Resilient individuals, then, are those who can face adversity and stressful situations without necessarily losing their identity.  Resilient individuals follow their personal mission, vision, and values regardless of the situation at hand.  The stress of a crisis may cause the individuals to question or even re-think their goals and objectives, but in the end, the resilient individuals keep going.  In the end, resilient individuals keep pushing towards achieving their goals and objectives.

Resilience, or more accurately, the lack of resilience, is frequently mentioned with professional burn-out.  We hear a lot about professional burn-out these days.  For example, recent statistics in health care suggest that more than half of all physicians are experiencing burn-out.  Professional burn-out leads to physical, emotional, and spiritual stress, resulting in decreased effectiveness at work (physician burn-out, then, can lead to worse outcomes).  Strategies that focus on improving resilience can mitigate the effects of professional burn-out.  Leaders, therefore, owe it to themselves and to the individuals on their team to address burn-out by improving resilience.

Kandi Wiens and Annie McKee recently published an article in the Harvard Business Review, "Why some people get burned out and others don't", based partly on a study that Wiens conducted with 35 hospital Chief Medical Officers (CMOs).  Wiens reported that almost 70% of the CMOs in the study reported experiencing significant stress at work (in some cases, CMOs reported experiencing the "worst possible stress" in their current job situation).  However, these same CMOs actually experienced few signs and symptoms of professional burn-out.  What were the keys to avoiding burn-out?  Characteristics such as emotional intelligence, empathy, teamwork, and a positive attitude mitigated the effects of severe stress to prevent burn-out.  In other words, characteristics such as emotional intelligence, empathy, teamwork, and a positive attitude were associated with resilience!

As I have stated on a number of occasions, leaders need to set the tone.  Leaders need to model the right behaviors.  If the leaders in an organization aren't resilient, how likely is it that the individuals in the organization will be resilient?  Not very likely.

As Ms. Angelou tells us,

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness
But still, like air, I'll rise.

 

"Never let a good crisis go to waste"

The Los Angeles Laker great and NBA Hall of Fame basketball player, Earvin "Magic" Johnson once said, "When you face a crisis, you know who your true friends are."  I think I know what he meant (and maybe not exactly what you think).  When I was a junior in high school, my church youth group took a Spring Break trip to Florida.  Somewhere about half way between Indianapolis (my home at the time) and central Florida, our church bus broke down on the side of the road.  Fortunately, the bus had stopped within about a quarter mile of an exit.  Even more fortunate, the exit sign had both a gas station with convenience store (and working bathrooms!) as well as an abandoned restaurant.  I don't remember how many of us were on the trip (maybe twenty or so students?), but we all walked to the gas station and then sat out by the abandoned restaurant to soak up some sun.  Several hours passed and we were back on our way.  I am probably missing a few major details, but I think the bus had trouble the entire week.  But in spite of all the mechanical issues with the bus, the week turned out to be one of the best Spring Break trips that I have ever been on - years later, in fact, our counselor told a group of us that he thought that the bus problems brought us all together.  I think he was right.  There is just something about a crisis that brings people together.  During a crisis, a group of individuals becomes a team, rallying around a common cause with a shared purpose. 

As it turns out, there is some pretty good scientific evidence that the stress of a crisis can bring out the best in a group of people by bringing them closer together.  There are a number of anecdotal examples too.  Think of how many people donated blood after the events of September 11.  So much blood was donated, in fact, that the American Red Cross had too much blood.  A lot of the blood that was donated eventually had to be disposed (blood has a limited shelf-life and goes "bad" if it's not used).  Americans were friendlier to one another after the 9/11 attacks too - complete strangers would talk to each other, pray together, and help each other.  Similar responses have been documented after a number of disasters - think of all the donations of water, food, and other supplies after Hurricane Katrina.  Scientists have documented that the stress of a crisis, rather than eliciting the classic "fight or flight" response, leads to greater levels of cooperation, collaboration, and teamwork. 

A word of caution is appropriate here.  Have you ever heard the phrase, "never let a good crisis go to waste"?  The phrase has been attributed to a number of famous individuals, but I have heard that most people believe it was first said by Winston Churchill.  The key is to leverage the teamwork and mutual collaboration that comes with a crisis, but the more important point is not to artificially create a crisis!  I recently came across an old article entitled, Real leaders never say "burning platform".  The author, Joseph Paris, claims that he has witnessed a number of leaders try to "create a sense of urgency" (from Kotter's change model) at the start of a major change initiative by artificially creating a crisis (using the so-called "burning platform" - we'll talk about this metaphor in another post).  I whole-heartedly agree with Paris here.  People are smarter than we give them credit at times, and they usually see through a leader's veiled attempts to create the conditions of a crisis that bring us together.   There are other, better ways to "create a sense of urgency" without trying to simulate a crisis situation. 

I don't know when exactly Magic Johnson said the quote at the beginning of this post, but I suspect it was around the time that he announced that he had tested positive for HIV.  I suspect that some of his friends abandoned him - but I also suspect that the crisis surrounding his announcement brought many of his supporters together to rally around him.  While he undoubtedly faced a lot of prejudice due to the misconceptions and stigma about and around HIV that were prevalent at the time, I also believe that his very public personal crisis created a sense of togetherness, collaboration, and empathy among many who knew him, and in some cases, complete strangers. 

"The Patriot Way"

I do not like the New England Patriots.  I can't really say why, but I just do not like them.  That is why I will be rooting for the Atlanta Falcons in today's Super Bowl LI.  Don't misunderstand me - I still think the Patriots are a great team, and I can appreciate what they have done.  Since taking over as Head Coach, Bill Belichick has led the team to a 201-71 winning record with 14 Division titles, 7 AFC Championships, and 4 Super Bowl victories.  While he has been the Head Coach, the New England Patriots have played in six Super Bowls (today will be the seventh) and 10 AFC Championship games.  Coach Belichick has clearly built a culture of winning in the Patriots organization.  Of interest, he has not always been successful as a Head Coach.  During the five seasons that he was Head Coach of the Cleveland Browns, he had only one winning season (the 1994 Cleveland Browns had a record of 11-5 and finished 2nd in the AFC Central Division, losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Division Play-offs), with an overall record of 36-44.

So what is the difference between Bill Belichick as the Coach of the Cleveland Browns versus Bill Belichick as Coach of the New England Patriots?  Well, for one, the Patriots' version of Bill Belichick has arguably one of the greatest quarterbacks (some would say he is the greatest) to ever play the game in Tom Brady.  After all, after tonight's game, Tom Brady will have played in seven Super Bowls during a career that so far has spanned 17 NFL seasons.  In other words, Brady has reached the Super Bowl in nearly half of the seasons he has played in the NFL!  Don't get me wrong, one of the key elements in any winning formula for the NFL is to have a good quarterback - having a future Hall of Fame quarterback definitely helps!  But I think there is more to it than just Tom Brady.

I think the Patriots' success starts with the last of the three Navy core values - commitment.  Everyone in the entire organization, from the coaches to the players to the equipment managers (yes, even the guys who reportedly deflated the footballs in the AFC Championship game in January, 2015, "Deflategate") are fully committed to winning.  The culture throughout the Patriots' organization is one of winning.  If you play for the Patriots, you learn very quickly that there is a right way and a wrong way to act, to think, to practice, and to play.  It is all about the culture - the "Patriot Way".  Tim Tebow, who briefly played for the Patriots during training camp in 2013 recently talked about the "Patriot Way" in an interview this past week.  Tebow said, "When people talk about the Patriot Way, it's not a cliché they're just trying to use.  It's actually the truth.  It's a different level.  It's a different level of focus, of study, of preparation than a lot of other teams.  That's also another reason why they keep going to the Super Bowl."  The phrase ("Patriot Way") has been around for some time (probably since at least 2010), but it summarizes what I think is at the heart of why the Patriots keep going to the Super Bowl.  It's all about "commitment."  Each member of the Patriots' organization has fully committed to being the best player, coach, equipment manager, trainer, owner that he or she can possibly be.  They have fully committed to the team and to each other.  The Patriots practice what has been called "200% accountability" - they are not only accountable for their own attitudes, but also for the attitudes of those around them. 

One last comment.  I think it is instructive that Coach Belichick never outlined the elements in "the Patriot Way" in a book or on a dry erase board for all the players to see.  He never said to his team, "this is how I am going to define the Patriot Way and I want you to all buy into it."  Rather, the culture developed over time and then (only then) someone from outside the organization labeled it "the Patriot Way."  In other words, leaders should set the tone for the culture, but the culture itself has to develop from the "bottom up" (and not from the "top down").  It's not like a leader can stand in front of the organization and say, "This is the Company Way" (substitute the organization or company name for the word "company") and then expect the rest of the members of the organization to buy into it.  Leaders have to set the vision and support it (and demonstrate it) so that the rest of the organization can build the culture.  It is a very subtle difference, but I think it is a very important one nonetheless.  Set the tone.  Drive the culture.  And then (only then) label it.  Never vice versa.

Commitment.  It is a promise - really a pledge - to give everything you possibly can give to a greater cause.  It is a complete buy-in to the organization's mission, vision, and values with 200% accountability.  And it is at the heart of the "Patriot Way."