How to Lead a Values-Based Professional Services Firm

4Hire Leaders

Hiring people is an art, not a science, and resumes can't tell you whether someone will fit into a company's culture.

—Howard Schultz, former Chief Executive and Executive Chairman of Starbucks

The leadership story of Ernest Shackleton has been told for decades. More than a hundred years after his expeditions, their relevance to business is clear. In fact, a Harvard Business School professor has even written a case study on the leadership lessons from Shackleton and his expeditions. Shackleton tried to reach the South Pole twice between 1901 and 1913. During each expedition, he made significant scientific discoveries, climbed Mount Erebus, and got closer to the South Pole than anyone else had up to that point, but he never reached his goal. In 1914, he decided to make a third expedition and, legend has it, advertised for crew by placing a newspaper ad (Figure 4.1):

Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in the event of success.

Shackleton is claimed to have received five thousand applicants! Can you imagine narrowing down five thousand applicants to the twenty-seven he required? He sorted them into piles: nut cases who wanted to do something strange, the hopeless with nothing else going on in their lives, those with potential, and so on. He interviewed many and selected the twenty-seven lucky fellows who accompanied him to the Antarctic in an attempt to reach ...