Don’t you want to just stand up and cheer? They made it. But it was far from over. They had landed on the side of the island that was uninhabited. They could sail around to the other side, but the ship was so battered by the storm that it was impossible to sail. After a few days of rest, Shackleton decided that he, Worsley and Crean would cross the interior of South Georgia, a journey of about 29 miles.

Now, this sounds very innocuous. After all, these guys have just crossed 800 miles of open ocean. What’s another 29 miles on land? The truth of the matter is that the interior of the island had NEVER been crossed before. The whalers thought it was impassable. No one had ever done it. Lansing describes South Georgia:

“A few of the peaks on South Georgia rise to somewhat less than 10,000 feet, which certainly is not high by mountain-climbing standards. But the interior of the island has been described by one expert as ‘a saw-tooth thrust through the tortured upheaval of mountain and glacier that falls in chaos to the northern sea.’ In short, it was impassable.”

(Lansing, 158)

Now, these guys are sailors and explorers, not mountain climbers. They didn’t have all the fancy equipment or materials. They had 90 feet of rope, an adze (which is a small ax) and some food supplies. Their clothes were worn. The carpenter put screws in the soles of the boots. That was it.They didn’t even carry sleeping bags.

It was a treacherous journey. Often they had to retrace their steps as they came to crevasses, sheer faces of glaciers, etc.

Late in the afternoon, they were stuck at about 4,500 feet. They would freeze to death at night. What could they do?

Here’s the story:

“After thirty minutes, the ice-hard surface of the snow grew softer, indicating that the grade was not quite so steep. Shackleton stopped short. He seemed to realize all at once the futility of what he was doing. At the rate they were going it would take hours to make the descent. Furthermore, it was probably too late to turn back.

“He hacked out a small platform with the adz, then called to the others to come down.

“There was no need to explain the situation. Speaking rapidly, Shackleton said simply that they faced a clear-cut choice: If they stayed where they were, they would freeze –in an hour, maybe two, maybe more. They had to get lower – and with all possible haste.“

So he suggested they slide.

“Worsley and Crean were stunned – especially for such an insane solution to be coming from Shackleton. But he wasn’t joking…he wasn’t even smiling. He meant it – and they knew it.

“But what if they hit a rock, Crean wanted to know.

“Could they stay where they were, Shackleton replied, his voice rising.

“The slope, Worsley argued. What if it didn’t level off? What if there were another precipice?

“Shackleton’s patience was going. Again, he demanded – could they stay where they were?

“Obviously they could not, and Worsley and Crean reluctantly were forced to admit it. Nor was there really any other way of getting down. And so the decision was made. Shackleton said they would slide as a unit, holding on to one another. They quickly sat down and untied the rope which held them.

“Altogether it took a little more than a minute, and Shackleton did not permit any time for reflection. When they were ready, he kicked off. In the next instant their hearts stopped beating. They seemed to hang poised for a split second, then suddenly the windwas shrieking in their ears, and a white blur of snow tore past. Down…down…They screamed – not in terror necessarily, but simply because they couldn’t help it. It was squeezed out of them by the rapidly mounting pressure in their ears and against their chests. Faster and faster – down…down…down!

“Then they shot forward onto the level, and their speed began to slacken. A moment later they came to an abrupt halt in a snowbank.

“The three men picked themselves up. They were breathless and their hearts were beating wildly. But they found themselves laughing uncontrollably. What had been a terrifying prospect possibly a hundred seconds before had turned into a breath-taking triumph.

“They looked up against the darkening sky and saw the fog curling over the edge of the ridges, perhaps 2,000 feet above them – and they felt that special kind of pride of a person who in a foolish moment accepts an impossible dare – then pulls it off to perfection.(Lansing, 266-268)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coincidentally stumbled upon this article which furthers the story of Galileo’s invention of the telescope and its groundbreaking implications.

http://bit.ly/3pZ2mK

In the same way, the view of organization as organism (not machine) supplants the century-old Taylor model and points to the incontrovertible need for a new guiding science for organizations – we need a life science not a machine science – it must be a science of management and leadership together.  The new biophysics of optimization – Superperformance science – weds biology and physics (nonequilibrium thermodynamics) to inform the transformation of flow and the emergence of culture.

The article includes a wonderful quote by physics pioneer Max Plank, “”A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die.”

The new optimization science of management & leadership – of complementarity – control  & liberation, will surely become implicit knowledge one day.

The discovery of Superperformance introduces a shockingly simple, reliable approach to optimizing performance. This discovery identifies a steady state, a sweet spot described by complexity scientists as the location of maximum fitness in a system. This location refers to a balance point precariously perched between order and chaos. It is more of a continuously shifting space than a static location: a dynamic, energetic, catalytic space. It is the place where all new ideas, change and self-organization emerge. All of Superperformance occurs in this space – and what’s more, any system can be tuned to this higher level of organizational consciousness and operational performance.

This is why Agile is the new normal. Navigating in this zone is called surfing the edge of chaos. Here the tension between order and disorder is at the highest level possible. Too much chaos will marginalize or dilute an idea or project. Too much order is likewise unhealthy, giving rise to rigidity and stasis. Work groups, project communities, and entire organizations can leverage the edge of chaos to maximize performance and to find a way forward in these uncertain times. People in organizations are beginning to see that this disequilibrium is effective and important to organizational survival. Within this fitness state, people and projects self-organize and work achieves a flow state punctuated by agility, novelty and innovation. It may seem incredible or illogical, but superperformance is tied to tolerating and even encouraging this persistent disequilibrium.

This 21^st Century approach reinvents management and leadership and advocates for a shift away from a Machine View to an Organism View of organization. It is being applied by an increasing number of project teams, organizations, and communities to produce unprecedented customer outcomes, operational excellence, breakthrough innovation, joy in work, and shareholder return on investment.

Sheng Zhao: “I am curious about emergence of leadership studies in the US. Looking back on the history, managers and management are the focal topics, but about two decades ago (as far as I know), leaders and leadership began to come into the front stage. What is the reason for the trend? Is it that management studies reach its end of the rope?  Or the social, technological and economical changes bewilder us and we need more direction (which way to go) than management?”

Dave Guerra: “In my opinion it all has to do with the growing revelation that what we losing our mechanistic tethering and moving toward an organic one. Organizations are alive, and as I shared with a young Chinese doctoral student, all of management and even mechanistically-based leadership theory are headed back to the future – to Bohr’s complementarity principle – to Yin and Yang. Our newtonian models have failed us – on the whole management science, much less practice, has been slow to adopt the major scientific discoveries of the last century, especially the last forty or so years. If quantum mechanics and nonequilibrium thermodynamics are true, then we should be able to appreciate them in a most ordinary and self-evident way.

After a life’s work of practical inquiry in the field, it has been my shocking discovery that there is indeed a pattern of harnessing opposites, tangible and intangible, that is the sweet spot of optimization. This is why servant leadership is the only leadership that works – because of the emergence of intrinsic motivation that it provokes – but it is also true that the control of outcomes – through statistical predictability, to quote Deming, is the only management that works – process management, that is. To my mind, if this is true, then there must be some underlying first order principle, some natural law, that is at work here. There is. It is the principle of complementarity, and it tells me we need a life science not a machine science to guide the next generation of organizational theory and practice.

Hence the current rage in leadership studies makes perfect sense, given the actual coming of age of Drucker’s knowledge economy, but my prediction is that ultimately we will find the truth is in the middle. Management and leadership must be treated as equivalent and complementary hemispheres, not separate and distinct provinces. They need eachother for completion. As Deming put it, “To manage, one must lead.”

So hence my message to my young Chinese inquisitor about “management and leadership” in the west, look backwards, from whence you came, to the harmony of yin and yang, because that is where we are headed. That’s my opinion and why ‘complexity leadership’ and ‘biology management’ are the best lens to inform us.

This is very exciting and in my experience at the front, very new.”

Dave Guerra

Sheng Zhao: “I admire greatly that a westerner can understand Yin Yan, and connect it with complexity. In fact many Chinese do not understand the deep meaning of Yin Yan. I find complexity, Yin Yan, and Budhism devle into a  similar worldview in the deep. I raised the question why the leadership studies rise in the US is out of my curiosity that the management studies in China are moving from leadership focus to manager focus, countering US’ trend.  I want to find out why they evolve differently.

Thank you for your insightful comments, and others for their contribution. All the questions, ideas, and opinions on the list help a little brain on the other side of the earth to vibrate more reasonably.”

Sheng Zhao