Climb a mountain

We reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro on 16th October 2003 after ascending the lesser traveled Umbwe route.

The Umbwe route to the Southern Glaciers and the Western Breach is the hardest, steepest and most challenging route on Mount Kilimanjaro. It's not ideal for most trekkers, as it doesn't give your body much time to acclimatise to the increased elevation.

The deeply emotional reward of standing on top of Africa’s highest mountain has lingered for so much longer than the brief few minutes in which Paul Raphaely , Anton Brown and I got to celebrate this achievement next to the iconic sign proclaiming the end of a tough journey.

During the years since, I have often reflected on the profound impact this majestic mountain has had on my abilities to manage and lead. It has been a recurring catalyst for positively reinforcing my leadership style.

In business, as in life, we tend to accumulate the residue of daily stress over time. Like some kind of invisible mental cholesterol, it starts to tax our ability to live and work productively. It dilutes focus, dampens optimism and affects our ability to interact with empathy.

Whilst there are quick fixes available to mitigate the symptoms of a burdened life, they mostly lack the substance and longevity to deeply cleanse the mind and body. Witness Monday morning blues after a great weekend.

So how does climbing a mountain help?

Firstly, planning to climb a mountain of any decent size creates positive emotions and stimulates a focused purpose. The thought of going up against nature with only your personal faculties, instinct and a good pair of boots, creates a refreshing mental diversion to the routine of your day-to-day.

Secondly, like most projects in life, there is a required process to realise such an adventure – plan, prepare, execute, complete, reflect – with the fundamental difference that in this case you are actually doing it almost entirely for yourself. By challenging your own abilities and limits, the 'process' creates a valuable context within which to test yourself.

The oxygen pressure at 5500m above sea level only provides 1/2 of an average human’s required oxygen intake. Severe symptoms of altitude sickness also tend to occur at altitudes of 3,600m (about 12,000 feet) and above.

Thirdly, limited resources and unforeseen risks forces your body to consolidate all physical energy and mental effort into a single-minded focus on only one thing: move forward and move up, one step at a time. It also slows everything down: your thoughts, your movement and your ability to make decisions. Every decision has to be so much more calculated.

The lingering reward of a successful summit is the mental and muscle memory of that experience. That experience then provides a valuable context against which you can benchmark and measure your personal management performance. The high altitude experience which forced the consolidation of energy and resource into a sharp focus, still sometimes helps with tough and complex decisions. By just slowing down and consciously focusing on the consequence of big decisions, you invariably start yielding better outcomes.

Why?

Because as with ‘climbing a mountain’, you will learn more about yourself with every step you take / decision you make. You create a broader context within which to test yourself and you simply just get better at it.

Apart from forging a strong friendship with Paul & Anton, the key learning from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro was, and still is - clarity of purpose, fearless focus, definitive decisions, and a get-it-done attitude. ?

"Go find and climb a mountain, any mountain."