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Wharton
Leadership Ventures
WHARTON
LEADERSHIP TREK TO KANGCHENJUNGA IN SIKKIM, INDIA
Wharton
School, University of Pennsylvania
April 22 – May 8, 2002
Organizers:
Edwin Bernbaum and Michael Useem
Itinerary
and Syllabus
Leadership
Treks to Mt. Everest
Photos
of Trek
Purpose
of the Leadership Trek
Leadership is a capacity that draws on all aspects of
yourself and your organization. Developing
a vision, articulating it, and inspiring others to achieve it require not only
careful analysis and technical knowledge but also a sense for what is important
for the organization and for the people in and around it.
Mastering these abilities is a lifelong endeavor, and the Leadership Trek
to Kangchenjunga in Sikkim provides an opportunity to continue your leadership
development, exercise your body and cross-train your mind, and reflect on your
leadership with fellow graduates of the Wharton Executive MBA program and others
amongst the awe-inspiring peaks of the Himalayas.
Images of mountains resonate deeply in cultures around the
world; they are symbols of patience and strength, effort and inspiration.
Mountain climbers, like the mountains they climb, hold a central place in
modern business and society, a paradigm for how individuals striving for a goal
can achieve what others label impossible. Reaching
a summit, however, is usually far more than a personal achievement, for it
almost always depends on collective effort, with the contribution of each
required for the success of all. As
the Japanese leader of a Mount Fuji society puts it, “The most important thing
in climbing is the inner strength to help each other, so that not just the
strongest but all the members of the group reach the goal.”“
The seminar trek uses mountains, mountaineering, and
trekking as powerful cross-cultural metaphors to expand and deepen our
understanding of leadership and teamwork:
·
How have expeditions to Everest, Annapurna, K2 and other Himalayan
peaks built the leadership and teamwork required to reach the summit – or to
retreat safely when good judgment suggests they should?
·
How do non-Western ways of approaching mountains reveal different
possibilities of leading and working together as a team?
·
Can the mysterious hidden valleys of Tibetan lore, some resembling
the fictional Shangri-La of James Hilton’s novel, Lost
Horizon, help us understand the underlying purpose of leadership and
teamwork?
·
What does it mean to reach a summit?
What have we achieved? What
should be next?
location
Sikkim, bounded by Tibet to the North, Bhutan to the East,
Nepal to the West and the plains of India to the South was a Buddhist monarchy
until recently. Travel to Sikkim
became restricted soon after it was inducted into India in the early seventies
and only now is Sikkim slowly opening up for tourism. Ranging from 3000 feet to 28,000 feet, located in the monsoon
belt, Sikkim offers orchids of rain forest climate to majestic snow capped
mountains. The original inhabitants
were the Lepchas or Rong-pa, the ravine folk from Assam, who now live in harmony
with people who have come from Tibet and Nepal.
We fly to Bagdogra on the Indian plains and drive up to the famous hill
station of Darjeeling. From there we go to the start of our trek at Yoksum, the old
capital of Sikkim and trek up through rhododendron forests to alpine meadows and
glaciers. Our high points at the
Go-cha La and beyond, at 16,000 to 18,000 feet, yield spectacular views of
Kangchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world and the most sacred of
the highest peaks of the Himalaya.
TREK LEADERS
Edwin
Bernbaum is author, lecturer, scholar, mountaineer, and experienced trek
leader. Ed holds a doctoral degree in Asian Studies from the
University of California, Berkeley, where he is a Research Associate.
A member of the World Conservation Union, he directs the Sacred Mountains
Program at The Mountain Institute with projects at Mount Rainier, Rocky
Mountain, and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks.
He is the author of The Way to
Shambhala: A Search for the Mythical Kingdom Beyond the Himalayas (Shambhala
Publications, 2001), a study of Tibetan myths and legends of hidden valleys, and
of the award-winning Sacred Mountains of
the World (University of California Press, 1998), which was the basis for an
exhibit of his photographs at the Smithsonian Institution.
A past instructor at the Colorado Outward Bound School and a member of
the American Alpine Club, Ed has done extensive research on the role of mountain
metaphors in leadership and has climbed, trekked, and led groups in mountains
around the world. He consults and
lectures widely on mountains, creativity, leadership, and teamwork to
organizations such as the American Museum of Natural History, AACSB
(International Association for Management Education), the National Geographic
Society, the Smithsonian Institution, and Sprint Corporation.
Tel.: 510-527-1229. E-mail:
<bernbaum@socrates.berkeley.edu>.
Michael
Useem is William and Jacalyn Egan Professor of Management and Director of
the Center for Leadership and Change Management at the Wharton School,
University of Pennsylvania. Mike is
author of Leading Up: How to Lead Your Boss So You Both Win (Crown
Business/Random House, 2001), The
Leadership Moment: Nine True Stories of Triumph and Disaster and Their Lessons
for Us All (Random House, 1998), Investor
Capitalism: How Money Managers Are Changing the Face of Corporate America (Basic
Books/HarperCollins, 1996) and Executive
Defense: Shareholder Power and Corporate Reorganization (Harvard University
Press, 1993). He has consulted on
organizational development with companies, U.S. Agency for International
Development, U.N. organizations, and other agencies in the Latin America, Asia,
and Africa. His university teaching
includes MBA and executive-MBA courses on leadership and change, he offers
programs for managers in the U.S., Asia, Europe, and Latin America, and he has
climbed in the Alps, Cascades, Sierras, Tetons, and East Africa.
Tel.: 215-898-7684. E-mail:
<useem@wharton.upenn.edu>.
Sanjay
Saxena, a native of New Delhi, is the Director for Geographic Expedition’s
India, Nepal and Tibet programs. The son of a Brigadier General in the Indian
Army, fluent in Hindi/Urdu, Nepali, and English, Sanjay has lived and traveled
all over the subcontinent. His deep, insiders' knowledge of his homeland and his
talent for creating handcrafted itineraries to traditional and little-seen
destinations make him one of the travel world's ranking India specialists.
Sanjay began mountaineering and rock climbing in the high Himalaya at age
fifteen after successfully completing mountaineering courses from the Nehru
Institute of Mountaineering. A few of the many peaks he has climbed are Mt.
Kolahoi (18,000 feet) and Kang-Lha-Chen (20,300 feet). He started guiding
professionally in 1979. Sanjay has led trekking and touring groups to all the
Himalayan countries and many regions of India including Arunachal Pradesh,
Kashmir, Ladakh, Zangskar, Garhwal, Sikkim and Rajasthan. In January of 1992,
Sanjay and three Americans did the first descent of the Brahmaputra River in
India. The 200 mile white water rafting trip was filmed for the BBC series
"Classic Adventures," and was shown in North America by Arts &
Entertainment (A&E). An accomplished photographer, Sanjay has led
photographic culture tours in India, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, China, Mongolia,
Venezuela and Iran.
TREK PHYSICIAN
Brad
Reinke, a
graduate of the Haas School of Business in Berkeley, is serving as our trip
physician. Brad is an Emergency Medicine physician practicing at
Sutter Medical Center in Santa Rosa, California. He is an Assistant Clinical
Professor at University of California San Francisco. Brad completed his
Emergency Medicine Residency at Loma Linda Medical Center and a Fellowship at
Stanford University Medical Center. He has traveled extensively and
lectured on numerous wilderness and environmental topics. He currently serves as
the Medical Director for the Sonoma County Sheriffs Rescue Helicopter and is an
instrument rated pilot having previously worked as a lifeflight physician. As
well as serving various administrative roles, Brad has lectured nationally on
areas of health system design. Brad is also co-owner of a new startup
winery in Amador County, California. Tel: 707-570-1533. E-mail:
<katmaif33@aol.com>
OUTFITTERS
Geographic
Expeditions, one of the leading American outfitters for treks of this kind, is
preparing and supporting the trip. Sanjay
Saxena, Michael Steigerwald, and Dara Connolly are responsible for our trip
(800-777-8183, sanjay@geoex.com, vivi@geoex.com), and Herbert Fong (herbert@geoex.com)
helps arrange travel to India and Sikkim.
In India, Far Horizons Tours provides our trekking support.
Conditioning
The trip entails much up and
downhill movement on mountain trails for six to seven hours per day.
We begin at an elevation of 6,800 feet and reach more than 16,000 feet at
our high points. Participants should follow a good aerobic and stair climbing
program or engage in frequent hiking in hilly country prior to the trip.
Extreme conditioning is not required, but a vigorous conditioning program
should be followed to ensure that you comfortably master the terrain, and you
must not be over-weight. For the sake of the group and your own enjoyment, it is very
important to be in good shape at the start.
The trek involves no technical mountaineering, and it does not use ropes,
crampons or other climbing equipment.
ORGANIZATION OF THE
TREK
We emphasize continuous learning on the trail through daily
pre-planned seminars and many unanticipated events on the trail.
Most days have a noontime seminar on a topic related to leadership and
teamwork, and an evening discussion generally related to the day’s experience
and plans for the next day. We devote time to considering leadership and team dynamics on
the historic climbs of Mt. Everest, Annapurna and other peaks, across
organizations and cultures, and within our own trekking party, and we draw out
the lessons for leadership and teamwork in our work and personal lives.
We engage with local people along the way.
We are sure to encounter a number of unanticipated events on the trail.
From time to time our group is divided into sub-groups for
trekking and discussion during part of the day to provide more opportunities for
personal engagement, but we re-gather for all meals and evening events.
ROTATING
LEADERSHIP
Two trek participants take responsibility for each day’s
events. They lead the mid-day
seminar and the evening discussion, and they carry responsibilities for the
day’s goal setting, special challenges, logistical issues, teamwork concerns,
organizational dilemmas, and personal problems ranging from irritation to
illness. They meet with Ed
Bernbaum, Mike Useem, and Sanjay Saxena the day before their day of
responsibility to review plans and challenges for the following day, and during
the evening discussion prior to their day, they outline the next day’s
departure times, itinerary, and preparations.
They are encouraged to come up with their own exercises and activities in
addition to what is in the itinerary. During
the evening discussion of their day, they describe the challenges in the day’s
leadership experience.
ENTREPRENEURIAL
AND DEVELOPMENT PLANS
Participants are encouraged to create plans for
entrepreneurial ventures and development projects for the region through which
we’ll be trekking, and awards for the best plans are presented at the trek’s
final dinner and celebration in Kalimpong.
Among the projects proposed on past treks are the introduction of solar
power for the spinning of prayer wheels along the trail and an investment in the
development of athletic facilities of a primary school in the Sherpa village of
Phortse.
ONLINE
INFORMATION
Additional information is available from the Wharton
leadership trek website at:
General information
http://leadership.wharton.upenn.edu/everest/index.shtml
Photos and videos from prior Wharton treks
http://leadership.wharton.upenn.edu/everest/photos_videos.shtml
Articles on the Wharton trek:
http://leadership.wharton.upenn.edu/everest/readings.shtml
TREK READINGS
Books
and articles on leadership, teamwork, trekking, mountaineering, Himalayan lore,
and Indian and Sikkimese culture are usefully read as preparation for the trek.
Everybody should independently purchase and read Jon Krakauer’s Into
Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster. (Villard/Random
House, 1997).
The
trek reader includes the following articles and book excerpts:
Edwin Bernbaum, Sacred
Mountains of the World. Berkeley,
Ca.: University of California Press, 1998, Introduction (pp. xiii-xxii) and
Chapter 1, “The Himalayas: Abode of the Sacred” (pp. 2-23).
Infoplease.com,
The World’s 14 Highest Mountain Peaks.
MntEverest.net,
Quotes on Everest.
National Outdoor
Leadership School, Leadership Education
Toolbox. Lander, Wyoming:
National Outdoor Leadership School, 2000, pp. 30-32 and 40-42.
Maurice Herzog, Annapurna:
First Conquest of an 8000-meter Peak. New York: Dutton, 1997.
Foreword; Ch. 1 “Preparations”; Ch.12, “The Assault”; Ch. 13,
“The Third of June”; Ch. 14, “The Crevasse”; Ch. 15, “The
Avalanche”; Ch. 17, “The Woods of Lete”; Ch. 20, “There Are Other
Annapurnas.”
Arlene Blum, Annapurna:
A Woman’s Place. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1998 (20th
anniversary edition), Chapter 7, “The Mountain Gods,” pp. 96-108.
David
Roberts, “Rewriting Annapurna?” Climbing
Magazine, December 15, 1997 – February 1, 1998, pp. 72-78.
Edwin Bernbaum, The
Way to Shambala: The Search for the Mythical Kingdom Beyond the Himalayas.
Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1980, Ch. 1, “Behind the Ranges”;
Ch. 3, “The Hidden Valleys”; Ch. 5, “The Wheel of Time.”
Excerpts from Buddhist
Scriptures, Edward Conze, translator. New
York: Viking Press, 1959 reprint.
Sherry B. Ortner, Life
and Death on Mt. Everest: Sherpas and Himalayan Mountaineering.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Chapter 3, “Sherpas.”
Christoph von
Furer-Haimendorff, The Sherpas of Nepal:
Buddhist Highlanders. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964, pp.
281-283.
Edwin Bernbaum,
compiler, Mountain Passages.
Thomas
F. Hornbein, Everest, The West Ridge.
New York: Mountaineers Books, 1998, excerpts.
Trip Gabriel,
“Scaling Corporate Heights Without Going Over a Cliff,” New York Times, June 1, 1997, p. F 10.
Bowen
McCoy, “The Parable of the Sadhu,” Harvard
Business Review, September-October, 1983, pp. 103-108.
Excerpts from The
Song of God: The Bhagavad Gita. Swami
Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, translators. New York: New American Library, 1987.
Excerpts
from The Way of Life According to Lao Tzu,
Witter Bynner, translator. New York: Berkeley Publishing Group, 1986 reprint.
Merck
and River Blindness.
We recommend reading John Gardner’s On Leadership (New York: Free Press, 1993) and Mike Useem’s The
Leadership Moment: Nine True Stories of Triumph and Disaster and Their Lessons
for Us All as general foundations for thinking about leadership.
We also recommend, time permitting, the full books by Arlene Blum,
Maurice Herzog, and Thomas Hornbein cited above.
TREK
ITINERARY AND SEMINARS
Himal jane bela ayo!
Nepali: It’s time to go to the Himalayas.
Tanda ngantso kangrila dro goyö.
Tibetan: Now we must go to the glacial snow mountains (the Himalayas).
April 22: depart home
Travel: Depart your home city for Delhi.
APRIL 23: ARRIVE DELHI
Travel: All of today is spent flying toward India, arriving in Delhi
late April 23 or very early April 24.
April 24: Darjeeling
(7,000 feet)
Travel:
After negotiating immigration and customs, you will step out into the receiving
area of Delhi International Airport. Here
you will be met by our Delhi staff and transferred to the Airport Radisson
hotel. You have few hours of rest
before we transfer to the domestic airport for the group flight to Bagdogra.
Depart
Delhi
10:10 AM
Jet Air 601
Arrive Bagdogra
1:45 PM
From Bagdogra Airport we take a spectacular 3-4 hour drive
to Darjeeling. Perhaps the most
fabled of the Hill Stations of the British Raj, to which the British rulers
escaped the summer heat of the plains, Darjeeling has entranced travelers for
more than a hundred years. Perched
at an altitude of 7,000 feet above sea level, it’s streets zigzag playfully
with no two houses built on the same level. It is a beautiful and intriguing
place, redolent still of Anglo-India. 28,168-foot Kangchenjunga, the “Five
Treasures of the Great Snow”, looms over Darjeeling, rising more than 20,000
feet over intervening blue ridges and valleys. The peaks is in many ways the
most imposing of the Himalayan giants and certainly its holiest.
Our first group discussion will begin on the way to Darjeeling and will
continue over dinner at the Mayfair Resort.
Discussion:
Trekking, Leadership, and Teamwork
Self-introductions, the purpose of the trek, personal
reasons for joining the trek, and building a trekking team.
Future prizes are announced for participants who can name all of the
world’s fourteen 8,000-meter peaks and who know the names of all of our guides
by dinner of our second evening in Dzongri.
April
25: DARJEELING
Day:
An early wake to make the famous dawn drive to the 9,000-foot top of Tiger Hill
to catch the sunrise as it awakens the slumbering peaks in golden light.
Kangchenjunga dominates the view, but far to the west we may be able to
glimpse Everest, Lhotse, and Makalu, putting four of the five highest mountains
in the world in one view. After spending a couple of hours on top (we can
arrange to have a picnic breakfast up here), we return to visit the Everest
Museum at the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, established in 1954 by Tenzing
Norgay. In the 20's and 30's the historic English Everest expeditions set
out from Darjeeling, entering Tibet via Sikkim. After lunch we will go to the
Tibetan Buddhist monastery of Ghoom, which has murals of the hidden kingdom of
Shambhala. The name Darjeeling comes from the Tibetan dorje
ling, place of the thunderbolt.
Lunch
seminar and evening discussion: Mountain Lore and Metaphor
Trekking
and climbing provide natural metaphors for moving through a corporate
environment and attaining personal and organizational goals.
By examining the variety of ways people approach mountains, we can use
mountains as metaphors to help us find new and more creative ways of dealing
with problems in the office or at home. Discussion
establishes a framework for relating experiences on the trek to issues of
leadership and teamwork in the workplace. We
look during the days that follow to identify a mountain that best represents the
work career and personal course that lie ahead for each of us.
Reading:
Ed Bernbaum, Sacred Mountains of the
World, Introduction and Chapter 1, “The Himalayas”; Quotes on Mt.
Everest.
april 26: YUKSAM
(6,800 ft)
Travel: After breakfast we start our drive to the trailhead at
Yuksam, stopping at the tourist lodge in Pemayangtse for lunch.
Another two-hour drive brings us to Yuksam (6300 ft), the old capital of
Sikkim. In 1641 the first Chogyal
(Dharma-raja) King of Sikkim was crowned here. Only a memorial chorten remains today, with the palace in
ruins and the oldest monastery of Sikkim not very active. Depending on driving conditions, if we get into Yuksam early
afternoon we may have time for a short hike to visit this monastery.
Lunch Seminar:
Leadership, Teamwork, and Responsibility When It Really Counts
What went right – and what went wrong – on the fateful
day of May 10, 1996 when three climbing expeditions, simultaneously nearing the
summit of Mt. Everest, are hit by a violent storm?
The evening discussion is also devoted to a reporting of
the day’s experiences by the various groups, and a planning for the next
day’s several options.
Readings: Jon
Krakauer, Into Thin Air; Trip Gabriel,
“Scaling Corporate Heights Without Going Over a Cliff.”
Evening
discussion: Setting the stage: Debriefing on the day, what lies ahead, a report on the
day’s leadership experience, a reporting by all on their physical and health
conditions, and an introduction to all of the members of the trekking staff (we
present trek shirts to each).
Reading:
National Outdoor Leadership School, Leadership
Education Toolbox, excerpts.
april 27: BAKIM
(9,900 ft)
Trek: An
eight-mile, six-hour hike through dense moss laden vegetation, two mountain
streams, with a steady increase in altitude makes the first day's hike a tough
one. Pine, magnolia and
rhododendron make up most of the forest. We
have good chances of seeing deer. We
camp by the trekker's hut (which we may use) at an altitude of about 10,000 ft.
Lunch seminar: Leadership,
Decisions, and Risk
We use
excerpts Maurice Herzog’s and Arlene Blum’s books on Annapurna to discuss
the extent to which the leader should become directly engaged in the daily work
of the organization, and how they make decisions and manage risk.
Maurice
Herzog’s climb of Annapurna is unusual in that it offers one of the few
examples of the leader of a large expedition actually going to the top and
making a first ascent. Given what
happened to Herzog and others on the way down, would they have been better off
if he had stayed below in a better command post where he could have communicated
and coordinated evacuation efforts more effectively?
On the other hand, did his act of leading to the top prove critical in
motivating and guiding the team on the way up?
In Arlene
Blum’s expedition, she does not go for the top for herself, but four others do
succeed in reaching it. Then, two
others set out for a second ascent despite Blum’s misgivings and her
cautioning against it. The two
never return. Should – and could
– Blum and others on the expedition have prevented the twosome’s fateful
decision to go for the summit?
Readings:
Chapters from Maurice Herzog, Annapurna,
and Arlene Blum, Annapurna:A Woman’s
Place
Exercise:
Today the two leaders experiment with walking at the front of the
group, in the middle, and at the rear, focusing on the pros and cons of each for
team leadership, both on the trail and in the work world.
On succeeding days, the two leaders experiment with this and other
approaches, and the day’s experience becomes part of each evening’s
discussion.
Evening discussion: Setting
the Stage and Divergent Participant Accounts of Shared Events
Why
was Maurice Herzog’s account of his historic climb of Annapurna different from
the memories of some of the other expedition members? More generally, what explains why participants in the same
set of events often have such different memories of them or create such
different accounts of about them?
Reading:
David Roberts, “Rewriting Annapurna?”
april
28: DZONGRI (13,200 feet)
Trek:
A steady, sometimes steep, climb all day long.
We pass through a high altitude Tibetan village Tso-ka in the first two
hours, after which the trail becomes steep up to the ridge, a point called
Deorali. Kangchenjunga at 28,253
feet and all its satellite peaks loom overhead.
Mt. Pandim dominates the eastern vista with the meadows of Thangsing (our
campsite three days from now) seemingly just a stone's throw away.
To the west of Pandim we can see the deep gap of Go-cha la, the high pass
and the highest point of this trek. The
trail now evens off making the last one-hour hike to our campsite just beyond
Dzongri at an altitude of 13,200 feet easier.
Koktang, Kabru, Kabru Dome, Frey's peak and many unnamed mountains
surround our campsite. We will camp
here for two days.
Lunch
seminar and evening discussion: The Buddhist Path to Awakening
A
survey of the nature and history of Buddhism as preparation for understanding
and appreciating our experience of Tengboche, and as a basis for approaching
Eastern conceptions of action and leadership.
Readings: Ed Bernbaum, The
Way to Shambhala, Chapter 5, “The Wheel of Time,” and selections from Buddhist
Scriptures.
Exercise: We
become acquainted with basic techniques of relaxation and meditation and explore
their possible applications and benefits for those in stressful leadership
positions. We also examine their
relevance for doing business in Asian cultures, such as Japan, China, and India.
April 29: DZONGRI
Acclimatization Day: Acclimatization and rest day, many optional day
hikes to Frey's peak or sunrise point (15,000 feet) are possible.
Lunch
seminar: Divergent Conceptions
of Leadership and Teamwork.
Sherpas
traditionally elect people to serve as village heads only if they do not
aggressively seek the position. Anybody
who wants the job for personal benefit is viewed as unfit to serve the
community. This leads to a more general examination of divergent conceptions of
leadership in non-Western cultures.
Readings: Christoph von Furer-Haimendorff, The Sherpas of Nepal, excerpts; Sherry Ortner, Life and Death on Mt. Everest, Chapter 3, “Sherpas.”
Exercise:
Each of us selects an inspirational passage from “Mountain Passages” in the
reader – or a passage of our own choosing – and goes off in the afternoon to
a scenic spot to contemplate the view in light of the chosen passage, going back
and forth from mountains to text.
Evening
Discussion: We discuss our
impressions of the Mountain Passages exercise and relate the experience to the
role of inspiration and renewal in leadership.
Prizes are presented to those who identify all fourteen of the world’s
8,000-meter peaks and all of our guides.
april 30: THANGSING (13,300
feet)
Trek: A five mile, four to five-hour day to the base of Jopine peak.
Hiking along the gradual Dzongri ridge is a refreshing change from the
steady climb of the past two days. This
leads to a steep 1,200 foot descent to the moraine of Pandim River.
Walking on boulders for a while and then across the river on a
precariously angled bridge leads us to a gradual climb to the open meadow at
Thangsing, with Pandim and Jopine dramatically above us.
This is the base camp of Jopine Peak at an altitude of 13,500 ft.
We camp here.
Lunch seminar:
Obligations and Responsibilities
What is our obligation and responsibility for assisting
those who are faltering around us? Arlene
Blum writes about her discomfort in unloading tons of goods and expensive
equipment in front of children with bare feet.
Is there an obligation of the fortunate to aid the less fortunate, and if
so when? Did Buzz McCoy do or not
do the right thing when he encountered the freezing Sadhu near the high pass not
far from Annapurna? Did Anatoli
Boukreev, Rob Hall, Scott Fischer, and others take the right actions in
assisting others in distress as the storm enveloped Mt. Everest late on the
afternoon of May 10, 1996?
Readings: Bowen
McCoy, “The Parable of the Sadhu”; Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air.
Exercise: Teams are
formed for the day’s hike, and each team creates a name, slogan, logo, theme,
joke, and song for a dinner-time presentation.
Evening Discussion:
Each team presents its name, slogan, logo, theme, joke and song to the entire
group. We discuss applications of
this exercise to team building, branding, marketing, advertising, etc.
may
1: SIMITY LAKE (14,200 feet)
Trek: Today's
easy three to four hour hike take us to the small Lake Simity.
The lake with its backdrop of Kangchenjunga, Jopine and Pandim peaks
makes for a picture book campsite. We
will be camped here for two very cold nights………bring out the down!
There is small lodge here and we will make use of the Smithy lodge for
our kitchen and dining requirements.
Lunch seminar: Alternative Paths to the Top
In Thomas Hornbein’s Everest:
The West Ridge, an account of the first American ascent of Everest and the
first-ever ascent of its West Ridge in 1963, we see two objectives and two kinds
of leadership and teamwork at work: those who choose the unclimbed but less
certain West Ridge and those who choose the previously climbed but more certain
regular route via the South Col. The
former is achieved by a small group in “alpine” style, the latter through a
large team effort in “siege” or “assault” manner.
What are the distinctive styles of leadership and teamwork required to
make small teams and large organizations successful?
Reading: Thomas
Hornbein, Everest: The West Ridge,
excerpts.
Exercise:
Each team from the previous day divides into pairs, who walk together and
learn about each other’s lives outside their work.
Then each member of each pair relates what he or she has learned about
the other to the rest of the team. We
discuss the pros and cons of knowing people personally as a basis for team
building and leadership.
Evening discussion: Reaching
the Summit and Getting Back.
Did George Mallory and
Andrew Irvine reach the summit of Mt. Everest on the afternoon of June 8, 1924?
What accounts for the immense interest in whether they did reach the
summit? What defines reaching a
summit, and why is that so important in mountaineering – and in management?
What are the pitfalls and dangers of getting to the top and then down
from it, both in climbing and business? How
can we better anticipate and plan for problems?
We
plan our goals and logistics for the next day.
Some trekkers will aim for the Go-Cha La , others for other destinations.
How can teams within your organization seek alternative route to the same
– or perhaps even different goals – without undermining the objectives of
one another or the whole?
Readings:
David Roberts, “Out of Thin Air: 75 Years Later, Everest Finally Gives up
Mallory’s Ghost.”
may
2: CLIMB TO GO-CHA LA (16,350
feet) AND BEYOND
Trek: A day hike to Go-Cha La, 16,350 feet, is one of the highest
point of the trek. From the pass we
see the Kangchenjunga ridges, Jannu, Fluted peak, Sinichula and a host of other
peaks of Nepal and Tibet. A
pre-dawn start will be amply rewarded as we see the sunrise light up the
mountain peaks, from the top of the ridge.
Leaving camp we skirting – very carefully because of the wet stones –
around the lake before starting up a steep climb to the top of the buttress,
which opens up to spectacular mountain views and glacial moraines. Sunrise from here is magnificent. We now descend sharply to the white sands of Zimathang (15,
400 ft), the base camp of Mt. Pandim. The
trail is now level to the base of the pass and then another steep ascent over
boulders to the viewpoint at the top. From
the top of the pass we have options of hiking along the ridge to view points
higher up. Hikes up to 18,000 ft
are possible. Return to our camp by Simity Lake.
Evening discussion:
Individuals and teams report on their experiences of the day and the
implications of those experiences for leadership and teamwork issues, their
personal lives, and work back home.
may 3: DAY
HIKE / RETURN TO THANGSING (13,300 feet)
Trek: Before starting off on our day hike we will pack up our gear.
While we are out hiking our camp staff will pack-up camp and take it down
to Thangsing. We will end our day
hike by returning to the meadows of Thangsing.
Lunch seminar and evening discussion: Leadership in a Multi-Cultural
World
Starting from our earlier of Sherpa conceptions of
leadership and teamwork, we go on to explore these issues in Indian, Chinese,
and Japanese cultures and how they influence the way we do business across
cultures in general. What relevance
do the Bhagavad Gita’s conceptions
of selfless action and Lao Tzu’s ideal of invisible leadership have in
today’s world, both in our work and personal lives?
Readings: Excerpts from the Bhagavad
Gita and from The Way of Life
According to Lao Tzu.
Exercise:
We begin by focusing on our destination ahead.
During the next phase of the exercise, we focus on what is around us. Finally, we imagine a place or activity where we would like
to be or be doing if we were not trekking into one of the great mountain
landscapes on earth. With this
experience, our evening discussion also addresses issues of strategic planning,
goal setting, process, personal inspiration, and responding to changing
situations and evolving conditions.
may 4: TSO
KA (10,600 feet)
Trek: Traversing the northern side of the Dzongri ridge we reach the
Tibetan Village of Tso ka. Most of
the day the trial goes through pristine Rhododendron forests. It joins the main
Dzongri/Yuksam trail at Pethang, where we start our steep descent to the Tibetan
Village of Tso Kha. Our yaks our unable to use this trail (thick forest) and
will be climbing up the Dzongri ridge and then descending down. Chances are we
will reach camp well before our camp gear will.
There is small lodge at the village and we will utilize their kitchen and
dining facilities.
Lunch seminar:
Divergent Concepts of Mountains, Money, and Responsibility
Westerners often view mountains as an objects to be
conquered, while many Sikkimese see mountains as sacred places not to be
disturbed. U.S. companies operate
across national boundaries, and they frequently encounter enormous disparities
in wealth and wage rates. How well
should you compensate your factory or office workers in a third-world country?
Do you have an obligation to assist people who are destitute?
Did Merck do the right thing in committing itself to donating Mectizan
for treating river blindness forever?
Reading: Merck and River Blindness
Evening
discussion: Conservation and Environmental Leadership
We
examine questions of sustainable development, environmental protection, and the
differing roles of national parks and conservation efforts in developing
countries and the U.S. We also
consider the role of culture in preserving the environment and how business
leaders can contribute.
may 5: YUKSAM
(6,800 feet)
Trek: Our final day of trekking brings us down another four thousand
feet to Yuksam. Hot showers and a
bed for everyone. This evening we
shall be joined by some of the local villagers, our trek staff and yak herders
for a grand dinner and an evening of music and dance.
Lunch seminar: The Myths and Mysteries of Modern Life
Beliefs and assumptions, both true and false, underlie
almost every facet of modern life, functioning for us as myths do for people in
traditional cultures. Elaborated in
the form of stories, theories and ideas, they shape the ways we think, feel and
perceive ourselves and the world around us.
We explore Himalayan legends – including Hilton’s Shangri-La – and
the myths of our own work world to examine the ways they shape our behavior and
the ways in which they can be used to shape the behavior of others.
Reading: Ed Bernbaum’s The
Way to Shambhala, excerpts.
Evening celebration:
We celebrate the end of our trip with the trekking staff through their
songs and dance – and American songs and dance.
may 6: KALIMPONG
(4,500 feet) VIA PEMAYANGTSE
Travel: After
a leisurely breakfast, we drive (two hours) to Pemayangtse Monastery,
(the Sublime Lotus), the site of an ancient Tibetan Buddhist enclave, the
second in Sikkim. The drive to
Pemayangtse is scenic, the monastery exciting, especially the top room in which
is housed a beautiful 3-D mandala of Padmasabhava's heavenly Palace.
Along with a hot lunch, the Norbugang Resort also offers spectacular
views of Mt. Pandim and Kangchenjunga. After
lunch we continue our drive on another spectacular serpentine mountain road to
Kalimpong, formerly a terminus point for the mule trains from Tibet, now a
relaxed and quiet “hill station.” Amidst
the splendor of beauty and the fragrance of flowers stands Kalimpong at an
altitude of 4500 ft.. Depending
upon our arrival time we may have the opportunity to visit the Tibet Center, the
bazaar or Kalimpong Monastery. In
Kalimpong we are guests of the MacDonald family in their Himalayan Hotel.
MacDonald travelled to Tibet at the turn of the century with the
Younghusband expedition and was stationed in Lhasa for 20 years as the British
Trade Agent to Tibet. His
grandchildren are currently running his home as a hotel.
Lunch seminar:
We review our experiences during the trek, focusing on the leadership and
teamwork implications for our work and careers back home.
Evening celebration:
Lasting lessons from the Himalayas, and awards for the best entrepreneurial and
development plans prepared during the trek.
may 7: Delhi and return Home
Travel:
After breakfast we depart for Bagdogra airport, a 2-3 hour drive, for our
mid-day flight back to Delhi.
Depart
Bagdogra
12:35 PM
Jet Air 602
Arrive Delhi
4:40 PM
We will be met at the airport and
taken for a short sightseeing tour of Delhi followed by a “traditional
Indian” farewell dinner. Depending
upon your departure flight time you will be transferred to the airport in time
for your flight back to the USA.
MAY
8: EN ROUTE HOME
Travel:
Depending upon your international carrier you connect to the USA or other
destination, arriving at your home town late the same day.
SUGGESTED ADDITIONAL READINGS
Most of the suggested books are
available through online booksellers.
Leadership,
Teamwork, and Mountaineering
Conrad Anker and
David Roberts, The Lost Explorer: Finding
Mallory on Mt. Everest.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999.
Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman, Organizing
Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration.
Reading, Ma.: Addison-Wesley, 1997.
Edwin Bernbaum, Sacred Mountains of the World.
Berkeley, Ca.: University of California Press, 1998.
Anatoli Boukreev and G. Weston
Dewalt, The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on
Everest. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997.
David Breashears and Audrey Salkeld, Last Climb: The Legendary Everest Expeditions of George Mallory.
Washington: National Geographic Society, 1999.
Jim Collins, Good
to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t.
HarperBusiness, 2001.
Roger Frison-Roche and Sylvain Jouty, A History of Mountain Climbing. New York: Flammarion. Trans. Deke
Dusinberre, 1996.
Howard Gardner, Leading
Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership. New
York: Basic Books, 1995.
John Gardner, On
Leadership. New York:
Free Press, 1993.
Jochen Hemmleb, Larry A. Johnson, and Eric R. Simonson, Ghosts
of Everest: The Search for Mallory & Irvine.
Seattle: The Mountaineers Books, 1999.
Thomas F. Hornbein, Everest,
The West Ridge. New York : Mountaineers Books, 1998.
Baiba and Pat Morrow, Footsteps in the Clouds:
Kangchenjunga a Century later. Vancouver,
B. C.: Raincoast Books, 1999.
Jamling Tenzing Norgay,
Touching My Father's Soul: A Sherpa's
Journey to the Top of Everest. New York: Harper San Francisco, 2001.
Michael Useem, Leading
Up: How to Lead Your Boss So You Both Win.
New York: Crown Books/Random House, 2001.
Culture
and History (in addition to those suggested by Geographic Expeditions)
Witter
Bynner, trans., The Way of Life According
to Lao Tzu. New York: Berkeley Publishing Group, 1986 reprint.
James
F. Fisher, Sherpas: Reflections on Change
in Himalayan Nepal. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1990.
Mary-Jo
O’Rourke and Bimal Shrestha, Lonely
Planet Nepali Phrasebook. Oakland,
Ca.: Lonely Planet Publications, 1996 (3rd edition).
Swami
Pradhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, translators, The Song of God: Bhagavad-Gita. New York: New American Library,
1993.
Philip Rawson,
Sacred Tibet. Thames & Hudson,
1991.
Stanley F. Stevens, Claiming
the High Ground: Sherpas, Subsistence and Environmental Change in the Highest
Himalaya. 1993, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Guide Books
Harish Kapadia, Trekking
and Climbing in the Indian Himalaya. Mechanicsburg,
Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2001.
Bradley Mayhew, Indian
Himalaya, 2nd Edition. Oakland,
Ca.: Lonely Planet Publications, 2000.
Garry Weare, Trekking
in the Indian Himalaya, 3rd Edition. Oakland, Ca.: Lonely Planet Publications, 1997.
©
Edwin Bernbaum, Michael Useem, and Wharton Executive MBA Program, 1998-2002.
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