Shackleton's Way
Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer
Our Story
"A first rate business primer."
Publisher's Weekly
"An important addition to any leader's library."
The Seattle Times
"Even though the target market is leaders and managers, Shackleton's Way has much broader appeal and application."
The Boston Globe
In early 1997, I was at my desk at Fidelity Investments when the phone rang. It was Stephanie Capparell from the Wall Street Journal who wanted to talk about my hobby, Sir Ernest Shackleton's leadership practices.
By 9 a.m. the morning Stephanie's article appeared, my phone was ringing with calls from literary agents and publishers asking if I wanted to do a book on the subject. I said, "How do you write a book?"
Months later, after giving my first-ever speech on Shackleton's leadership for an audience of entrepreneurs, I called Stephanie to say, "Hey, you're not going to believe what's happened because of your article." Stephanie suggested we get together. Over dinner with one of Stephanie's colleagues from the Journal, we agreed to partner on a book about Shackleton's leadership skills. The result of that conversation was Shackleton's Way.
Stephanie and I spent two weekends drafting a 36-page outline and a year working through weekends and holidays. I couldn't have asked for a better or more dedicated partner to tell Shackleton's story.
I'm often asked why I found Shackleton's story so fascinating. To me, this story has always been about the challenges that every single one of us face as we go through life. How do you coach yourself, and others, through life's inevitable ordeals, through change, through career turbulence, through difficult diagnoses? I hope you'll find some useful tools in Shackleton's Way.