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advancing business through people
An Expedition to Mount EverestA Leadership Learning Experience
Introduction
a leadership learning experience
1
Photo of Ben
before training
Map of the
journey
Everest base camp route
My trip to Mount Everest across four high passes over 5,000m was, as you would imagine,
exhilarating, exhausting, inspirational and challenging; all of these I expected. What
blindsided me, was the motivation driven by a fear of failure, not just for the charities that I
was supporting, but from the persistent thought of “was I capable of making it?” I also
hadn’t anticipated how closely the challenge correlated to the experiences I have the
privilege to observe in my professional life. Far removed from my normal working life in an
office, I was well and truly out of my comfort zone.
2
Goal settingDeveloping readiness; self-reliance & autonomy; the importance
of a guide and achieving your goals.
a leadership learning experience
In March of 2019 I set off on a 21 day
high altitude expedition in the Nepalese
Himalayas. The route took me to the top
of Gokyo Ri at 5,300m, over the Cho La
Pass at 5,400m, across the biggest
glacier in Nepal to Everest Base Camp
and finally, to the highest point - the
summit of Kala Patar at 5,545m. The 12
months preceding the trek and the trek
itself taught me some valuable lessons;
setting ambitious but achievable goals,
building capability, the importance of
having a guide or a mentor and
ultimately what happens when you reach
your destination and achieve the thing
that you set out to do.
For me, it took quite a long time to decide and commit to doing the trek. I have two young
children, zero high altitude experience and, at the time, I wasn’t exactly the fittest person in the
world. As I toyed with the idea, I started looking for support from friends ideally, for someone to
say to me, ‘yep, that’s a good idea’. I was also searching for someone to join me on my
adventure.
I had some random conversations with
friends and tried to persuade a few of
them to join me, but after about a year or
so, I gave up trying to convince people to
come with me. Instead, I realised I had to
do it alone it was my idea, my goal and I
had to commit myself to it. I knew that if I
waited or relied on someone else to hold
my hand it may never happen. This was
the first valuable lesson I learnt: be
committed and accountable for your
own goals and aspirations.
Once the decision was made, things became easier. I’ve come to believe that no matter
if the goal you set is personal or business, once it becomes public, something changes.
You are suddenly confronted with a different degree of pressure as you are now having
to deal with other people's expectations. You naturally get a spectrum of commentary
from others. Mine ranged from people saying that what I was doing would be easy and
being quite negative, through to intense encouragement. Some people were jealous,
some said they would never entertain the idea and some people said it would be the
experience of a lifetime, although most likely the hardest thing I’d ever do. Despite the
range of opinion, the thing that was consistent was my own sense of ‘purpose’ and
ultimately, knowing ‘why’ I was doing it namely, to get fit, live longer and to raise money
for a deserving charity.
3
Goal settingDeveloping readiness; self-reliance & autonomy; the importance of
a guide and achieving your goals.
a leadership learning experience
All of these meant something to me
personally. They resonated with me and
had benefits for both myself and my
family. The same is true in business.
When you are navigating your way
through your career goals, you need to
have a clear understanding of ‘why’ you
are setting out on that course. A
compensation package is great but it’s
not what gets you out of bed in the
morning and if it is, then the job will wear
thin quickly. It’s well documented that the
things that are important to people in
their professional lives are autonomy,
mastery and purpose.
It is purpose that is important to define with purpose you gain direction and if you know
where you’re going, you can work out how to get there. It’s those incremental steps that take
you from point A to point B; clear, definable, achievable and measurable steps that take
people to their objective.
The business world can be conquered one step at a time so long as you are fully committed
and do not deviate from the path. Not too different to climbing a mountain – or in my case,
two medium sized mountains that took me to the bottom of the biggest one looking up.
.
Once you’ve clearly defined your objective and
have a solid sense of purpose, getting yourself
ready becomes easier. The ownership and
accountability for getting ready for the Everest
trek was squarely on my shoulders and I knew
building fitness and mental resilience would be
two things critical to my success.
Altitude sickness is pretty much indiscriminate;
you could be a tri-athlete or a 40-a-day smoker
and could still suffer from altitude sickness. So
for me, getting ready was about enjoying the
experience when I got there. Over the course of
12 months I gradually built up cardio, core
strength and resilience by completing 18 mile
treks carrying a 22kg pack. I would also do one
hour treadmill sessions on 15% gradient with
the same weight pack in the gym; people must
have thought I was either insane or just a show
off!
The build-up wasn’t haphazard though, it was
structured, considered, slow and incremental. I
took guidance on what I needed to do and over
time I noticed real improvements. These small
but incremental achievements really helped
build my self-confidence, eventually developing
into a self-sustaining belief that I could achieve
my goal.
Developing readiness and building capability
a leadership learning experience
In Holmes Noble we have found that it is critical for both individuals and organisations to
formalise their approaches to improving capability and building an individual’s experience
for future business needs. Very few executives and HR leaders I speak to say that their
companies do this as well as they could do. Almost all companies encourage their
employees to develop their skills but very few HR functions and business units seem to co-
own learning. This mutual ownership reinforces the importance of skill development and
aligns individual learning objectives with overall business needs; the best businesses
recognise individual strengths and tailor capability, and consequently build accordingly.
To be effective and sustainable, capability building cannot happen in a vacuum. Learning
objectives need to align with strategic business interests and ideally, capability building itself
should be a strategic priority for both individuals and businesses. Making HR functions and
individual business units co-owners of skill-building responsibilities and then integrating
learning results into performance management are effective steps toward achieving this
alignment. These actions will also ensure broad buy-in for learning success, at both
organisational and individual levels.
As a consequence, executives and individuals at all levels of an organisation will feel well
equipped with the tools and well supported to achieve their business goals.
You wouldn’t set out for a high-altitude trek of 5,500m without physically and mentally
preparing and meticulously planning what kit you will need for the duration of the journey
and the same is true in developing your career. Ensure you are structured in learning
and gaining experience and of equal importance, make sure the business you work
for is equally committed to your development to support your aspirations.
4
5
advancing business through people
The importance of a guide
6
a leadership learning experience
There was a point in the trek that really crystallised for me the importance of having a
guide.
At the bottom of the Cho La Pass, which was
the second highest point we would cross, we
were all resting and mentally preparing to climb
up to the pass to come; we had already walked
for six hours in -18c. As we were resting, a
random, really dishevelled guy came over a
ridge and explained to us that he was lost and
trying to get to Jonglei, the town we had left six
hours ago. Basically, he’d come the other way
across the pass with no guide, descended too
late, darkness had fallen and he had lost his
way. He ended up camping alone at 5100m
with no idea which direction to head.
He asked us which way to go and our lead Sherpa Kami pointed him in the right direction.
The guy went off on his way and Kami said that he was so lucky to be alive, as where he
had camped regularly gets 8ft of snowfall and he could have been trapped in his tent and
perished. If there was no one else on the trail, he would have been lost in a sea of possible
directions and no one would have ever found him.
Our main guide Nirmal and the head Sherpa
Kami were both veterans of the
environment. They had over 600 base camp
treks between them, summits of Island and
Mera Peak and both aspiring to summit
Everest at some point in the future.
The value they added was not just around
keeping us on the right track and keeping us
alive; they inspired, they motivated, they
shared knowledge and made sure cohesive
relationships were formed. They gave
objective advice. At points they would tell us
to go as fast as the slowest team member,
whilst at other times they would push us
harder than we ever thought we could go.
It’s surprising how fast you can move across a glacier when boulders are flying down the
side of a mountain!
For Senior Executives, it can often be quite a lonely place in business - particularly at the
top. They have their inherent knowledge to rely upon and often as the ultimate decision
maker in a business, it is difficult to seek guidance. Now, it’s always possible to give
ownership to subsidiary teams but in some instances, like determining strategic direction;
moral or ethical quandaries they might encounter; or coping with mis-alignment between
their personal values and business requirements. External guidance and coaching is often
the only way to go to get unbiased opinion and clarity. A mentor or an executive coach in
these instances is essential - mentors help executives cross that bridge between knowing
and doing. They pass on their skills and knowledge, acquired over the years, and will give
mentees insights into various situations and scenarios that sit outside of their experience.
Mentors pass on what they have learned, and in turn, mentees can learn from their
mistakes.
The importance of a guide
7
Holmes Noble are increasingly being
asked by clients to provide executive
coaching in combination with the search
assignments we execute. This might
range from on boarding, coaching,
executive development, the design of
high performing teams or indeed,
supporting cultural transformation.
a leadership learning experience
What is undeniable though, is that
executives wish to improve –
coming back to the reasons why
people are driven, autonomy,
mastery and purpose. The
importance of a guide, either a
mentor or a coach is a definite way
to contribute toward accelerating
mastery.
They may also help prevent you from falling down a metaphorical crevasse!!
8
a leadership learning experience
Reaching a goalWhat do you do once you achieve your goal? It can be a problem if you spend all your
time and energy trying to reach a specific place and then when you get there, the only way
you can go is down. It happens to athletes, celebrities and even in our professional lives.
The problem is either maintaining the position or deciding where to go next. From a
professional perspective, if you achieve your biggest goals and then lie back, put your feet
up, and stop pushing yourself, you can easily become lost and directionless.
So where to go next? It seems that there are a many options available, ranging from
setting bigger goals to being comfortable not being at the top. You may choose to
disseminate knowledge and help others achieve their goals, you may decide to quit, start
again and do something different or you may choose to simply reflect on the journey
rather than the outcome.
For me, my next goal is to work on my negotiation skills – It’s likely I’ll get some guidance
from a mentor because the objective is to persuade my wife to let me go and climb
another mountain. This may well be my hardest negotiation and test to date – clearly I
love a challenge.
Ben Gilbert | Board Member and Partner
Ben has over 14 years of experience in recruitment which includes working for a global
blue-chip firm based in both Australia and the UK, as well as in a boutique consultancy
specialising in Engineering and Manufacturing. He has worked across multiple sectors with
an emphasis on placing executives across Europe and Asia Pacific for SME businesses
through to major blue chip organisations. Alongside his executive search remit, he is
responsible for the strategic direction, quality and delivery of Holmes Nobles Industrial
Practice. Ben holds a BSc in Production and Cultural Studies from the University of
Sunderland.
+44 (0) 121 779 0864
TS2 Building, Pinewood Business Park,
Coleshill Road, Birmingham B37 7HG
About Holmes NobleHolmes Noble is an executive search and consulting firm that prides itself on being
different, thereby standing out from the ‘herd’. Founded in 2005 by the Chief Executive,
Michelle Carson-Williams, because she wanted to provide a more strategic and
partnership based service to her clients, where the industry had been known to be very
transactional in nature. To this day the DNA of the firm is permeated with this desire.
Consequently, not only does the firm provide executive search, it offers a complete
portfolio of services, including leadership coaching and development, and interim
management.
All organisations, no matter which market or sector, depend on the right talent for the right
role at the right time. This is no different at Holmes Noble. The Executive Team and
Heads of Practice have been chosen because of their experience, reputation, sector and
functional knowledge, and belief in the founding principles of the firm.