Overcoming the Impossible (Walter Bonatti, 1950s, Alex Honnold, 2017 and Tommy Caldwell, 2015)
Working successfully in business often involves overcoming the impossible. In the very simplest form, to be truly oneself as a leader is always a novel undertaking, requiring, as Carl Jung put it, something ‘almost supernatural’ if to be done truly and consistently with fidelity to the law of one’s own being, amidst the demands of organisational life. Increasingly also the challenges leaders are facing are novel, with no templates, guidance, models or tips that can really help, due to the nature of their complexity, depth, pervasiveness and dynamic nature.
But in certain ways, others have gone before us. Over a period of time we have grown to draw extensively from the metaphor and practice of mountaineering in helping leaders be deeply connected to reality, working with it, while also surmounting it in the pursuit of a goal or endeavour.
Walter Bonatti is an Italian mountaineer from the 1950s. In his work (in English translation), The Mountains of My Life, he details the most memorable climbs of his career, along the way reflecting on his practice: Deep preparation, perseverance, alertness, perspicacity, commitment to the wellbeing of others, humility towards the mountain, attunedness to intuition, savouring and celebration of beauty are qualities that permeate his writing, and must be seen to be largely responsible for his successful completion of a series of climbing ‘impossibilities’, often solo and often of North faces in midwinter – here ‘successful’ meaning not just that the summit was attained, but that the mountaineer returned to those he loved.
Alex Honnold is famous for his free solo ascent of El Capitan in June 2017 (featured later in the book Alone on the Wall and film Free Solo). Alex’s climbs are widely agreed to be in the arena of the very definition of the impossible. In addition to his elite physical performance, for us, Alex stands out in his persistence in subduing the physiological sensations of fear through meticulous care of every possible element of a climb that might cause death, frequently practising elements over and over again until their lose their fear-capacity through complete mastery. To watch Alex finally free solo El Capitan, after seven years, is like watching a form of poetry embodied in a human being, a work of art and a wonder. Alex inspires our work through his refusal to deny or dismiss fear, nor to be controlled by it, but to go into it, to learn its movements, to work through it, and therefore achieve something beyond anyone’s imagination but his own.
Tommy Caldwell offers another perspective. For his discovery and first ascent of the Dawn Wall on El Capitan in 2015, he spent years of meticulous research, patience and endurance, not only to find the route that could be climbed, but also to become the person who could climb it. Yet at an all or nothing moment, he faced a decision that reached into the deepest purpose and meaning of his own humanity; to abandon his less-experienced climbing partner, Kevin Jorgeson, failing repeatedly to make a critical traverse, and master the route alone, or to wait in hope, putting on the line the dream he had spent years of his life training for? To the breath-holding wonder of everyone who loved him, Tommy demonstrated that the inner summit of one’s personal integrity and values is more precious than any climb or accolade.
These lessons inform our own work helping leaders face impossibilities and tame the intimidation that accompanies them. Mountaineers and climbers must hold together certain paradoxes in their vision and humility, the bigger goal and the tiny, often mundane details, self-awareness and astuteness about others. They must be willing to prepare with intense commitment, yet abandon all at the sight of a suspicious cloud. They must be willing to let their life hang on the rope and positioning of another human being, and they must be willing to hold that rope for another, or to leave a rope behind. At their best mountaineers integrate the deep qualities needed of leaders to ensure that their followers find trust, compassion, stability and hope in their presence.
While caution must always be exercised in highlighting ‘lone ranger’ heros, in the leader’s own lived experience many moments occur in which they must themselves decide or act. Alongside more communal examples, the mountaineers offer something to help us in those moments of pivotal, sometimes life-transforming import.