What I Learned From Sir Earnest Shackleton.

On a weeks holiday with my family recently I read about Sir Ernest Shackleton. Shackleton led The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917, an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent, which is considered to be the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. His expedition failed to accomplish this objective, but became recognised instead as an epic feat of endurance.

Shackleton an experienced explorer had served in the Antarctic on the Discovery expedition of 1901–1904, and had led the Nimrod expedition of 1907–1909. In this new venture he proposed to sail to the Weddell Sea and to land a shore party near Vahsel Bay, in preparation for a transcontinental march via the South Pole to the Ross Sea.

Their ship, The Endurance became beset by bad weather—trapped in the ice of the Weddell Sea—before it was able to reach Vahsel Bay. It drifted northward, held in the pack ice, throughout the Antarctic winter of 1915. Eventually the ice crushed the ship, and it sank, stranding its complement of 28 men on the ice. After months spent in makeshift camps as the ice continued its northwards drift, the party used lifeboats that had been salvaged from the ship to reach the inhospitable, uninhabited Elephant Island.

Shackleton and five other members of the group then made an 800-mile (1,300 km) open-boat journey in their life boat, and were able to reach South Georgia. From there, Shackleton was eventually able to arrange a rescue of the men who had remained on Elephant Island.

A remarkable story, but even more remarkable the 28 strong crew endured six months of the worst conditions the globe has to offer, without a single loss of life.

So how did this team manage this amazing feat of endurance? Not one of them (other than Shackleton) were experienced explorers, nor were they arctic survival experts, nor were they experienced at any level of seacraft. They were just men who responded to Shackleton add in The Times.

The secret to how this team survived lies in how Shackleton recruited them. His advert in the times simply stated the following:

He could not have been any clearer what type of people he wanted and what they could expect. He was clear about his vision, and the risks of trying to achieve it, and what type of applicants would apply for an add like this? Applicants who belonged on such an expedition of course. His applicants were those who thought it sounded great, that loved a challenge, and an adventure, and insurmountable odds. The people who applied for the job were survivors.

They spent months innovating every day and coming up with ways to survive, not for Shackleton who was paying their wages, but because it was natural to them, and they were working together towards a very clear, shared goal, survival.

At Morgan Sindall we are upon the fortunate position of operating under an extremely decentralised model, which means, whilst we have shared systems, processes, and group values, we get to operate our regional business to best serve our people, customers, and stakeholders. So, reading about Shackleton got me thinking, what would my Times advertisement say, to attract the type of people who share our vision and would fit into our culture in our Thames Valley business unit?

I have come up with this:

We believe that it is the experience that customers have when they work with us that defines our legacy, not just the buildings we build. When people spend millions of pounds on a building, it should be a fun, exciting, and enjoyable experience.

We ensure a great experience by hiring smart people, and giving them space to make decisions, relentlessly focusing on communication, transparency, inclusivity.

We focus on doing what we say we are going to do, not on how many hours we work. In fact, we make a point of making sure we get home to spend time with our families. We support each other, but we don’t tolerate passengers, everyone pulls their weight.

Would you like to work here?