Upward Bound: Nine Original Accounts of How Business Leaders Reached Their Summits ¼Ùéà¢Õ¹ Michael Useem professor of management and director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at Wharton; mountaineering is no mere metaphor for management, it is management itself, $24.
Nine Original Accounts of How Business Leaders Reached Their Summits
Michael Useem, Jerry Useem, and Paul Asel, co-editors and co-authors New York: Crown Business/Random House, 2003
Table of Contents of Upward Bound Authors of Upward Bound Article on Upward Bound Publisher's Release on Upward Bound Read an Excerpt from Upward Bound
Your team has faltered at a critical moment. A key member says he can’t continue, requiring a snap decision: Do you write him off? Or do you risk the whole venture by trying to get him back on his feet?
It could be a scenario straight from the business world. Yet it occurred high on the slopes of the world’s deadliest mountain, K2, where lives, not just livelihoods, would depend on the leader’s choice.
Decisions don’t get much starker. That’s why mountains—though seemingly a world apart from business—hold unique and surprising insights for managers and entrepreneurs at any altitude. More than just symbols of our upward strivings, they are high-altitude management laboratories: testing grounds where risk, fear, opportunity, and ambition collide in the most unforgiving of settings.
Upward Bound brings together a remarkable team of nine writers equally at home among the high peaks and the corridors of corporate power, from Good to Great author Jim Collins to legendary climber and outdoor clothing entrepreneur Royal Robbins to Stacy Allison, the first American woman to summit Mt. Everest. Their riveting, often harrowing accounts, reveal
· Why a rock climber’s distinction between failure (giving up before reaching the edge of one’s abilities) and what he calls “fallure” can help companies transcend their vertical limits
· What happens when a leader abdicates responsibility in the Death Zone of Mount Everest—and how a similar vacuum at sea level can corrupt corporate purpose
· How large climbing expeditions use exquisite organization and “pyramids of people” to place just two climbers on top, making heroes of some from the sacrifice of all
· What “ridge-walking” between deadly avalanches and the lure of Mt. McKinley’s summit taught a venture capitalist about nurturing risky high-tech start-ups
· How a simple insight—using “proximate goals”—propelled a faltering climber up El Capitan in a seemingly undoable solo ascent, a 10-day lesson that would later jumpstart a business
· Why more accessible peaks like Mt. Sinai can exert a pull every bit as powerful as Mt. Everest
· How to think like a guide
While most will never find themselves in the thin air of the world’s high places, Upward Bound brings those places down to earth for anyone seeking the path to their own summit. Whether it’s the career ladder or a creative peak, Upward Bound addresses the fundamental question of why we climb—while capturing the power of mountains to instruct as well as inspire.
Michael Useem is professor of management and director of the Center for Leadership and Change at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of several books, including Leading Up and The Leadership Moment, and he runs programs for managers in the Andes, Patagonia, and Himalayas. Jerry Useem is a senior writer at Fortune magazine, where he has covered management in such diverse contexts as Wal-Mart Stores, the New York Yankees, and big corporate disasters. Paul Asel is an advisor to startup companies who helped pioneer venture capital in post-Communist Russia before bringing his experience to Silicon Valley. All three have wandered the world’s high—but mainly not so high—mountain ranges.
"Business decisions often feel like life and death. Climbing decisions often are life and death. The stories in this book will engross you and teach you lessons that will stay with you for a long time to come." – David S. Pottruck, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Charles Schwab Corporation
"In the clear light of mountain climbing, as Upward Bound demonstrates, everything is seen more intensely, and solving human management problems is the difference between success and failure." – Lester C. Thurow, Professor of Management and Economics, Sloan School of Management, MIT
"Upward Bound uses unconventional settings to provide powerful lessons that should be of interest to anyone in a leadership role." – Jack Brennan, Chairman and CEO, The Vanguard Group
"Mental alertness and agility, the end product of an intense climb, have often been key to a break-through thought in finding a solution to a problem in business, and Upward Bound demonstrates how." – Jürgen E. Schrempp, Chief Executive and Chairman of the Board of Management, DaimlerChrysler
"For anyone working in a startup, Upward Bound is a backpack full of energy bars, topo maps, and climbing ropes. The book is illuminating and inspiring for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists alike." – Robert Lisbonne, General Partner at the Venture Capital Firm Matrix Partners
"The real-life stories of Upward Bound describe with vivid detail how leaders facing life-or-death situations confront their most excruciating challenges. The metaphors of the survival tests we face in business are illustrated with lucid clarity for all of us preparing to face our own leadership crucibles." – Bill George, author of Authentic Leadership and former CEO, Medtronic
Also available as an eBook. Crown Business New York www.randomhouse.com printed in the U.S.A.
Table of Contents of Upward Bound
Foreword: Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.
Introduction: Why We Climb, Jerry Useem
Chapter 1: Hitting the Wall: Learning that Vertical Limits Aren’t, Jim Collins
Chapter 2: Peak Performers: Leading Teams in High Places, Stacy Allison
Chapter 3: Falling Up: Success through Failure in the School of Hard Rocks, Royal Robbins
Chapter 4: Killer Applications: An Entrepreneur’s Education in the Death Zone, Chris Warner
Chapter 5: Adventure Capital: Ridge-Walking from Silicon Valley to McKinley’s Peak, Paul Asel
Chapter 6: Strategy at the Crux: Life-and-Death Choices on Everest and K2, Rodrigo Jordan
Chapter 7: Peak Paradigms: Mt. Fuji, Mt. Sinai, and Other Mountain Metaphors, Edwin Bernbaum
Chapter 8: First Mover: Tenacity and the Business of Adventure, Al Read
Chapter 9: Thinking Like a Guide: Making Grounded Decisions at All Altitudes, Michael Useem
Postscript: On Becoming and Expert Beginner, Jim Collins
Authors of Upward Bound
Stacy Allison: Stacy is an extensively experienced mountaineer, the owner of a general contracting company, and a motivational business speaker. Early in her climbing career, Stacy climbed Mt. McKinley (Denali) in Alaska and Ama Dablam in the Himalayas. Later she became the first American woman to top Pik communism (at 24,600 feet, the tallest peak in the Russian Pamir Range) and to reach the summit of Mt. Everest. She has also led a successful expedition to K2, the world’s second highest mountain. Stacy is the author of Beyond the Limits: A Woman’s Triumph on Everest and Many Mountains to Climb: Reflections on Competence, Courage and Commitment. She owns and operates Stacy Allison General Contracting, a residential building company specializing in the renovation and remodeling of older homes. For more information see stacy@beyondthelimits.com, and her website is at //www.beyondthelimits.com. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Paul Asel: Paul brings fifteen years of experience investing in and working with emerging growth companies. As a General Partner with Telos Venture Partners and Senior Vice President at Delta Capital, he has advised more than one hundred startups. Paul has served as an advisor in restructuring the banking and financial systems in the former Soviet Union, and his advisory work has brought him to more than twenty countries in Europe, Asia and South America. He began his career in investment banking with Merrill Lynch. Paul received an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BA from Dartmouth College. In his free time, Paul enjoys triathlons and mountaineering. Paul has climbed extensively in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Africa, Asia, and the American Northwest. Paul prefers glaciers and ice to rock. Summits include Mt. McKinley, Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, and Mont Blanc. Paul can be reached at Paul_Asel@hotmail.com. He lives in Menlo Park, CA.
Edwin Bernbaum: Ed holds a doctoral degree in Asian Studies from the University of California at Berkeley and is presently a research associate at the University. He is director of the Sacred Mountains Program at The Mountain Institute, working on developing ways of taking the cultural and spiritual significance of mountains into account in environmental programs. Ed is the author of The Way to Shambhala (Anchor/Doubleday, 1980), a study of Tibetan myths and legends of hidden valleys resembling the fictional Shangri-La of Lost Horizon, 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. He consults and lectures widely on mountains, leadership, and teamwork; he has conducted extensive research on the role of mountain metaphors in leadership; and he has climbed, trekked, and led groups in mountains around the world. Ed can be contacted at bernbaum@socrates.berkeley.edu. He lives in Berkeley, CA.
Jim Collins: Jim is a student and teacher of enduring great companies – how they grow, how they attain superior performance, and how good companies can become great companies. Having invested over a decade of research into the topic, Jim has authored or co-authored four books, including the classic Built to Last, a fixture on the Business Week Best Seller List for more than five years, and Good to Great, a New York Times general non-fiction best seller with over 1 million hardcover copies and translations into 21 languages. Previously, he taught at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where he received the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1992. Much earlier in his life, Jim was one of the top rock climbers in the United States. Today, Jim climbs mainly for recreation and camaraderie, although he still onsights at the 5.12 grade and redpoints at the 5.13 grade. Jim can be reached at jcc512@aol.com. He lives in Boulder, CO.
Rodrigo Jordan: Rodrigo is founding director of Vertical S.A. in Chile, an organization devoted to using the mountains as classroom for groups ranging from company mangers to school children. He holds a doctorate in organizational administration from Oxford University, and he teaches innovation management in the MBA program of the Universidad Católica de Chile. Rodrigo has climbed throughout the Andes, he summited Mt. Everest by the difficult east face in 1992, and led a Chilean team in 1996 in a successful ascent of K2. Rodrigo is the author of Everest: The Challenge of a Dream and K2: The Ultimate Challenge, and his ascent of K2 was featured in 2001 in the National Geographic television series on the Quest for K2. In 2002, he led a four-person team in an unsupported 250-mile traverse, much of it unexplored, of the Ellsworth Mountains in Antarctica. Time magazine identified him in 1995 as one of the leaders of the “new millennium.” Rodrigo can be contacted at jordan@vertical.cl and information on Vertical is available at //and //www.vertical.cl. He lives in Santiago, Chile.
Al Read: Al is president of Exum Mountain Guides in Grand Teton National Park and Executive Vice-chairman of Geographic Expeditions in San Francisco. After graduating from Georgetown University, he worked in Nepal for twelve years, first as an American diplomat and then as managing director of the largest trekking and mountaineering outfitter in Asia. He pioneered river rafting in Nepal and founded its first rafting company, creating a new industry in Nepal. His mountaineering expeditions include Dhaulagiri, Minya Konka, and Mt. Everest. He led first ascent expeditions to Gaurishankar and Cholatse, and made the first ascent of the East Buttress of Mt. McKinley. He also co-guided a successful crossing in 2000 of South Georgia Island, retracing Ernest Shackleton’s historic route. Al is a former director of the American Alpine Club, a founding director of the American Mountain Guides Association, a former professional ski instructor, and a licensed pilot. Information on Geographic Expeditions can be found at //www.geoex.com and on Exum Mountain Guides at //www.exumguides.com. He lives in San Francisco, CA.
Royal Robbins: Royal is an acclaimed mountaineer, adventure kayaker, and founder of Royal Robbins Outdoor + Travel Clothing. His climbs include many first ascents in North America and the Alps. In 1957 he made the first ascent of the Northwest Face of Half Dome in Yosemite Valley, he went on to make first ascents of the three great faces of El Capitan, and he was the first to solo climb that wall as well. Royal pioneered many other routes, including one that was then considered the hardest rock climb in the Alps. In 1975 he became involved in kayaking and went on to make over thirty first descents in California and Chile. He started a rock climbing school, he is the author of Basic Rockcraft and Advanced Rockcraft (which together have sold nearly half a million copies), and he is an honorary member of the American Alpine Club. Royal can be contacted at royalrobbins@earthlink.net. He lives in Modesto, CA.
Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.: Arthur is chairman of The New York Times Company, and as the company’s senior executive, he is responsible for its long-term business strategy. The New York Times Company publishes The New York Times, The Boston Globe and sixteen other newspapers; owns eight television stations and two radio stations; and maintains more than forty Web sites. Arthur is also publisher of The New York Times, which he runs on a day-to-day basis. He was named “Publisher of the Year” in 2001 by Editor and Publisher Magazine. In 2002, The New York Times won an unprecedented seven Pulitzer prizes, and company ranked first in the publishing industry in Fortune’s 2003 list of America’s Most Admired Companies. Arthur is a founding board member and former chair of the New York City Outward Bound Center, and he is an avid rock climber who is frequently to be found on weekends climbing in the Shwangunks. Arthur can be reached at asulz@nytimes.com, and information on The New York Times Company can be found at //www.nytco.com and The New York Times at //www.nytimes.com. He lives in New York, NY.
Jerry Useem: Jerry is a senior writer at Fortune magazine, where writes about general management and corporate enterprise. His articles have focused on subjects including crisis leadership, the history of the CEO, why companies fail, New York Yankees manager Joe Torre, and such Fortune 500 standards as General Electric, Wal-Mart Stores, and Boeing. A graduate of Williams College, Jerry was previously a senior writer at Inc. magazine and a casewriter and researcher at Harvard Business School. His writing has also appeared in such publications as the Boston Globe, Wired, The American Prospect, and Business 2.0, while his commentaries have been heard on National Public Radio. Though he grew up hiking the White Mountains of New Hampshire, it was on such peaks as Mt. Rainier, Mt. Blanc, the Grand Teton, & around the Mt. Everest region that he established his reputation for mediocrity in the mountains. He lives in New York, NY.
Michael Useem: Mike is professor of management and director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He is author of Leading Up: How to Lead Your Boss So You Both Win (Crown Business/Random House, November, 2001), The Leadership Moment: Nine True Stories of Triumph and Disaster and Their Lessons for Us All (Random House, 1998), and Investor Capitalism: How Money Managers Are Changing the Face of Corporate America (Basic Books/HarperCollins, 1996). 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 management, he offers programs for managers in the U.S., Asia, Europe, and Latin America, and he has climbed in the U.S., Africa, Europe, and Asia. Mike can be contacted at useem@wharton.upenn.edu, and the Wharton Leadership Ventures may be viewed at //leadership.wharton.upenn.edu/l_change/trips/index.shtml. He lives in Philadelphia, PA.
Chris Warner: Chris is the founder and president of the Earth Treks’ Climbing Centers, based in Maryland. Earth Treks is one of the largest indoor climbing gym chains and climbing schools in the US. Chris has guided over seventy-five international mountaineering expeditions, including three trips on the North Ridge of Mount Everest, and he has pioneered some of the harder Himalayan routes on peaks such as Ama Dablam and Shivling. Chris was the first American to completely solo climb an 8000-meter peak with his 34-hour non-stop ascent and descent of the deadly South Face of Shishapangma (26,399 ft.). Chris founded the Shared Summits Program, a web-based educational partnership among Earth Treks expeditions, school teachers, and more than 20,000 school children. Chris’ adventures have been featured in hundreds of newspapers and magazine articles and he has appeared on dozens of television and radio programs including CNBC, Outdoor Life Network, and ABC. Chris can be reached at cw@earthtreksclimbing.com and information on Earth Treks may be found at //www.earthtreksclimbing.com. He lives in Columbia, MD.
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Publisher's Release on Upward Bound
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Tara Gilbride Crown Business, 212-572-2872 tgilbride@randomhouse.com
Hard-won leadership lessons from the high-altitude laboratories of Mt. Everest, K2 and more
Upward Bound
Nine Original Accounts of How Business Leaders Reached Their Summits
Michael Useem * Jerry Useem * Paul Asel
With a Foreword by Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., Chairman and Publisher of The New York Times
“Business decisions often feel like life and death. Climbing decisions often are life and death. The stories in this book will engross you and teach you lessons that will stay with you for a long time to come.”
— David Pottruck, Chief Executive Officer of Charles Schwab Corporation
“In the clear light of mountain climbing, as Upward Bound demonstrates, everything is seen more intensely, and solving human management problems is the difference between success and failure.”
— Lester C. Thurow, Professor of Management and Economics, Sloan School of Management, MIT
“High-impact leadership is a continually evolving concept. Upward Bound uses unconventional settings to provide powerful lessons that should be of interest to anyone in a leadership role.”
— Jack Brennan, Chairman and CEO, The Vanguard Group
“Mental alertness and agility, the end product of an intense climb, have often been key to a break-through thought in finding a solution to a problem in business, and Upward Bound demonstrates how.”
— Jürgen E. Schrempp, Chief Executive and Chairman of the Board of Management, DaimlerChrysler
Can the life-and-death leadership lessons of mountaineering work in corporate management? According to the authors of Upward Bound: Nine Original Accounts of How Business Leaders Reached Their Summit (Crown Business, September 23, 2003) the answer is yes. In fact, they say, mountaineering is no mere metaphor for management—it is management itself.
Wharton School Professor Michael Useem, together with Fortune’s Jerry Useem and venture capitalist Paul Asel, have compiled a one-of-a-kind collection of original essays that shed light on decision making, self-management, and team leadership in high pressure contexts, whether at sea level or five miles up. This riveting set of essays, including one from famed Good to Great author Jim Collins, explains how and why placing someone atop a summit is, above all, a triumph of organization.
The narratives take us to the savage slopes of K2, the boardroom of Royal Robbins, Inc., the “impossible” Genesis route in Eldorado Canyon, the business of Earth Treks, and the “death zone” of Mount Everest. Jim Collins explains his distinction between “failure” and “fallure” and why he set his calendar a decade ahead to conquer a sheer sheet of granite, while Paul Asel describes what “ridge walking” between deadly avalanches and the lure of Mount McKinley’s summit taught him about nurturing start-ups as a venture investor in Silicon Valley and Russia. Michael Useem combines a longtime study of leadership with a lifelong love of mountaineering to extract guiding principles for making fast and accurate decisions. Entrepreneur and legendary rock climber Royal Robbins tells the story of his ten-day, first solo ascent of Yosemite’s El Capitan as his awakening to the power of perseverance.
In the truly harrowing department, entrepreneur Chris Warner describes his ascent of India’s Shivling peak and its influences on the development of his climbing business, Earth Treks, while fellow entrepreneur Rodrigo Jordan talks about the essential ingredients of a peak performance team, as thrown in to sharp relief on the slopes of Everest and K2. Stacy Allison, the first American women to summit Mount Everest, reveals what happened when a leader abdicated responsibility on Mount Everest. Meanwhile, Edwin Bernbaum takes us to Mount Fuji and Mount Sinai, exploring why more accessible peaks can exert a pull every bit as powerful and Mount Everest’s. Finally, business leader and veteran explorer Al Read shows us how tenacity can help catapult a climbing passion into a lifelong career.
The book is filled with stories of risk, courage and determination—both in the corridors of corporate power and among the spires of the Himalayas. Some illustrate the importance of establishing a set of leading principles before crisis hits, and sticking to them when it does. Others focus on knowing when it is time to turn back from a summit or, in business, give up on an endangered project. All show why anyone who reaches a summit, or leads an organization, is standing atop a pyramid of supporters. And each demonstrates the importance of realizing that the summit is not the finish line.
Upward Bound brings together some of the world’s most elite climbers and leading business thinkers—and in several cases, people with feet in both camps—to chart their own paths to the summit. It offers what business people and mountaineers relish most: an unclimbed route. Their stories are for anyone who’s ever wondered why they push themselves so hard—and for anyone that wants fresh insight on how to reach their own summit.
Michael Useem is Professor of Management and Director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Jerry Useem is a senior writer at Fortune Magazine. Paul Asel is a venture capital investor and advisor to start-up companies.
##########
For more info see //www.crownbusiness.com or //leadership.Wharton.upenn.edu/Upward_Bound.shtml
Upward Bound: Nine Original Accounts of How Business Leaders Reached Their Summits
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Upward Bound
Nine Original Accounts of How Business Leaders Reached Their Summits
Michael Useem, Jerry Useem, and Paul Asel, co-editors and co-authors
New York: Crown Business/Random House, 2003
Table of Contents of Upward Bound
Authors of Upward Bound
Article on Upward Bound
Publisher's Release on Upward Bound
Read an Excerpt from Upward Bound
Your team has faltered at a critical moment. A key member says he can’t continue, requiring a snap decision: Do you write him off? Or do you risk the whole venture by trying to get him back on his feet?
It could be a scenario straight from the business world. Yet it occurred high on the slopes of the world’s deadliest mountain, K2, where lives, not just livelihoods, would depend on the leader’s choice.
Decisions don’t get much starker. That’s why mountains—though seemingly a world apart from business—hold unique and surprising insights for managers and entrepreneurs at any altitude. More than just symbols of our upward strivings, they are high-altitude management laboratories: testing grounds where risk, fear, opportunity, and ambition collide in the most unforgiving of settings.
Upward Bound brings together a remarkable team of nine writers equally at home among the high peaks and the corridors of corporate power, from Good to Great author Jim Collins to legendary climber and outdoor clothing entrepreneur Royal Robbins to Stacy Allison, the first American woman to summit Mt. Everest. Their riveting, often harrowing accounts, reveal
· Why a rock climber’s distinction between failure (giving up before reaching the edge of one’s abilities) and what he calls “fallure” can help companies transcend their vertical limits
· What happens when a leader abdicates responsibility in the Death Zone of Mount Everest—and how a similar vacuum at sea level can corrupt corporate purpose
· How large climbing expeditions use exquisite organization and “pyramids of people” to place just two climbers on top, making heroes of some from the sacrifice of all
· What “ridge-walking” between deadly avalanches and the lure of Mt. McKinley’s summit taught a venture capitalist about nurturing risky high-tech start-ups
· How a simple insight—using “proximate goals”—propelled a faltering climber up El Capitan in a seemingly undoable solo ascent, a 10-day lesson that would later jumpstart a business
· Why more accessible peaks like Mt. Sinai can exert a pull every bit as powerful as Mt. Everest
· How to think like a guide
While most will never find themselves in the thin air of the world’s high places, Upward Bound brings those places down to earth for anyone seeking the path to their own summit. Whether it’s the career ladder or a creative peak, Upward Bound addresses the fundamental question of why we climb—while capturing the power of mountains to instruct as well as inspire.
Michael Useem is professor of management and director of the Center for Leadership and Change at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of several books, including Leading Up and The Leadership Moment, and he runs programs for managers in the Andes, Patagonia, and Himalayas. Jerry Useem is a senior writer at Fortune magazine, where he has covered management in such diverse contexts as Wal-Mart Stores, the New York Yankees, and big corporate disasters. Paul Asel is an advisor to startup companies who helped pioneer venture capital in post-Communist Russia before bringing his experience to Silicon Valley. All three have wandered the world’s high—but mainly not so high—mountain ranges.
"Business decisions often feel like life and death. Climbing decisions often are life and death. The stories in this book will engross you and teach you lessons that will stay with you for a long time to come." – David S. Pottruck, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Charles Schwab Corporation
"In the clear light of mountain climbing, as Upward Bound demonstrates, everything is seen more intensely, and solving human management problems is the difference between success and failure." – Lester C. Thurow, Professor of Management and Economics, Sloan School of Management, MIT
"Upward Bound uses unconventional settings to provide powerful lessons that should be of interest to anyone in a leadership role." – Jack Brennan, Chairman and CEO, The Vanguard Group
"Mental alertness and agility, the end product of an intense climb, have often been key to a break-through thought in finding a solution to a problem in business, and Upward Bound demonstrates how." – Jürgen E. Schrempp, Chief Executive and Chairman of the Board of Management, DaimlerChrysler
"For anyone working in a startup, Upward Bound is a backpack full of energy bars, topo maps, and climbing ropes. The book is illuminating and inspiring for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists alike." – Robert Lisbonne, General Partner at the Venture Capital Firm Matrix Partners
"The real-life stories of Upward Bound describe with vivid detail how leaders facing life-or-death situations confront their most excruciating challenges. The metaphors of the survival tests we face in business are illustrated with lucid clarity for all of us preparing to face our own leadership crucibles."
– Bill George, author of Authentic Leadership and former CEO, Medtronic
Also available as an eBook.
Crown Business
New York
www.randomhouse.com
printed in the U.S.A.
Table of Contents of Upward Bound
Foreword: Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.
Introduction: Why We Climb, Jerry Useem
Chapter 1: Hitting the Wall: Learning that Vertical Limits Aren’t, Jim Collins
Chapter 2: Peak Performers: Leading Teams in High Places, Stacy Allison
Chapter 3: Falling Up: Success through Failure in the School of Hard Rocks, Royal Robbins
Chapter 4: Killer Applications: An Entrepreneur’s Education in the Death Zone, Chris Warner
Chapter 5: Adventure Capital: Ridge-Walking from Silicon Valley to McKinley’s Peak, Paul Asel
Chapter 6: Strategy at the Crux: Life-and-Death Choices on Everest and K2, Rodrigo Jordan
Chapter 7: Peak Paradigms: Mt. Fuji, Mt. Sinai, and Other Mountain Metaphors, Edwin Bernbaum
Chapter 8: First Mover: Tenacity and the Business of Adventure, Al Read
Chapter 9: Thinking Like a Guide: Making Grounded Decisions at All Altitudes, Michael Useem
Postscript: On Becoming and Expert Beginner, Jim Collins
Authors of Upward Bound
Stacy Allison: Stacy is an extensively experienced mountaineer, the owner of a general contracting company, and a motivational business speaker. Early in her climbing career, Stacy climbed Mt. McKinley (Denali) in Alaska and Ama Dablam in the Himalayas. Later she became the first American woman to top Pik communism (at 24,600 feet, the tallest peak in the Russian Pamir Range) and to reach the summit of Mt. Everest. She has also led a successful expedition to K2, the world’s second highest mountain. Stacy is the author of Beyond the Limits: A Woman’s Triumph on Everest and Many Mountains to Climb: Reflections on Competence, Courage and Commitment. She owns and operates Stacy Allison General Contracting, a residential building company specializing in the renovation and remodeling of older homes. For more information see stacy@beyondthelimits.com, and her website is at //www.beyondthelimits.com. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Paul Asel: Paul brings fifteen years of experience investing in and working with emerging growth companies. As a General Partner with Telos Venture Partners and Senior Vice President at Delta Capital, he has advised more than one hundred startups. Paul has served as an advisor in restructuring the banking and financial systems in the former Soviet Union, and his advisory work has brought him to more than twenty countries in Europe, Asia and South America. He began his career in investment banking with Merrill Lynch. Paul received an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BA from Dartmouth College. In his free time, Paul enjoys triathlons and mountaineering. Paul has climbed extensively in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Africa, Asia, and the American Northwest. Paul prefers glaciers and ice to rock. Summits include Mt. McKinley, Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, and Mont Blanc. Paul can be reached at Paul_Asel@hotmail.com. He lives in Menlo Park, CA.
Edwin Bernbaum: Ed holds a doctoral degree in Asian Studies from the University of California at Berkeley and is presently a research associate at the University. He is director of the Sacred Mountains Program at The Mountain Institute, working on developing ways of taking the cultural and spiritual significance of mountains into account in environmental programs. Ed is the author of The Way to Shambhala (Anchor/Doubleday, 1980), a study of Tibetan myths and legends of hidden valleys resembling the fictional Shangri-La of Lost Horizon, 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. He consults and lectures widely on mountains, leadership, and teamwork; he has conducted extensive research on the role of mountain metaphors in leadership; and he has climbed, trekked, and led groups in mountains around the world. Ed can be contacted at bernbaum@socrates.berkeley.edu. He lives in Berkeley, CA.
Jim Collins: Jim is a student and teacher of enduring great companies – how they grow, how they attain superior performance, and how good companies can become great companies. Having invested over a decade of research into the topic, Jim has authored or co-authored four books, including the classic Built to Last, a fixture on the Business Week Best Seller List for more than five years, and Good to Great, a New York Times general non-fiction best seller with over 1 million hardcover copies and translations into 21 languages. Previously, he taught at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where he received the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1992. Much earlier in his life, Jim was one of the top rock climbers in the United States. Today, Jim climbs mainly for recreation and camaraderie, although he still onsights at the 5.12 grade and redpoints at the 5.13 grade. Jim can be reached at jcc512@aol.com. He lives in Boulder, CO.
Rodrigo Jordan: Rodrigo is founding director of Vertical S.A. in Chile, an organization devoted to using the mountains as classroom for groups ranging from company mangers to school children. He holds a doctorate in organizational administration from Oxford University, and he teaches innovation management in the MBA program of the Universidad Católica de Chile. Rodrigo has climbed throughout the Andes, he summited Mt. Everest by the difficult east face in 1992, and led a Chilean team in 1996 in a successful ascent of K2. Rodrigo is the author of Everest: The Challenge of a Dream and K2: The Ultimate Challenge, and his ascent of K2 was featured in 2001 in the National Geographic television series on the Quest for K2. In 2002, he led a four-person team in an unsupported 250-mile traverse, much of it unexplored, of the Ellsworth Mountains in Antarctica. Time magazine identified him in 1995 as one of the leaders of the “new millennium.” Rodrigo can be contacted at jordan@vertical.cl and information on Vertical is available at //and //www.vertical.cl. He lives in Santiago, Chile.
Al Read: Al is president of Exum Mountain Guides in Grand Teton National Park and Executive Vice-chairman of Geographic Expeditions in San Francisco. After graduating from Georgetown University, he worked in Nepal for twelve years, first as an American diplomat and then as managing director of the largest trekking and mountaineering outfitter in Asia. He pioneered river rafting in Nepal and founded its first rafting company, creating a new industry in Nepal. His mountaineering expeditions include Dhaulagiri, Minya Konka, and Mt. Everest. He led first ascent expeditions to Gaurishankar and Cholatse, and made the first ascent of the East Buttress of Mt. McKinley. He also co-guided a successful crossing in 2000 of South Georgia Island, retracing Ernest Shackleton’s historic route. Al is a former director of the American Alpine Club, a founding director of the American Mountain Guides Association, a former professional ski instructor, and a licensed pilot. Information on Geographic Expeditions can be found at //www.geoex.com and on Exum Mountain Guides at //www.exumguides.com. He lives in San Francisco, CA.
Royal Robbins: Royal is an acclaimed mountaineer, adventure kayaker, and founder of Royal Robbins Outdoor + Travel Clothing. His climbs include many first ascents in North America and the Alps. In 1957 he made the first ascent of the Northwest Face of Half Dome in Yosemite Valley, he went on to make first ascents of the three great faces of El Capitan, and he was the first to solo climb that wall as well. Royal pioneered many other routes, including one that was then considered the hardest rock climb in the Alps. In 1975 he became involved in kayaking and went on to make over thirty first descents in California and Chile. He started a rock climbing school, he is the author of Basic Rockcraft and Advanced Rockcraft (which together have sold nearly half a million copies), and he is an honorary member of the American Alpine Club. Royal can be contacted at royalrobbins@earthlink.net. He lives in Modesto, CA.
Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.: Arthur is chairman of The New York Times Company, and as the company’s senior executive, he is responsible for its long-term business strategy. The New York Times Company publishes The New York Times, The Boston Globe and sixteen other newspapers; owns eight television stations and two radio stations; and maintains more than forty Web sites. Arthur is also publisher of The New York Times, which he runs on a day-to-day basis. He was named “Publisher of the Year” in 2001 by Editor and Publisher Magazine. In 2002, The New York Times won an unprecedented seven Pulitzer prizes, and company ranked first in the publishing industry in Fortune’s 2003 list of America’s Most Admired Companies. Arthur is a founding board member and former chair of the New York City Outward Bound Center, and he is an avid rock climber who is frequently to be found on weekends climbing in the Shwangunks. Arthur can be reached at asulz@nytimes.com, and information on The New York Times Company can be found at //www.nytco.com and The New York Times at //www.nytimes.com. He lives in New York, NY.
Jerry Useem: Jerry is a senior writer at Fortune magazine, where writes about general management and corporate enterprise. His articles have focused on subjects including crisis leadership, the history of the CEO, why companies fail, New York Yankees manager Joe Torre, and such Fortune 500 standards as General Electric, Wal-Mart Stores, and Boeing. A graduate of Williams College, Jerry was previously a senior writer at Inc. magazine and a casewriter and researcher at Harvard Business School. His writing has also appeared in such publications as the Boston Globe, Wired, The American Prospect, and Business 2.0, while his commentaries have been heard on National Public Radio. Though he grew up hiking the White Mountains of New Hampshire, it was on such peaks as Mt. Rainier, Mt. Blanc, the Grand Teton, & around the Mt. Everest region that he established his reputation for mediocrity in the mountains. He lives in New York, NY.
Michael Useem: Mike is professor of management and director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He is author of Leading Up: How to Lead Your Boss So You Both Win (Crown Business/Random House, November, 2001), The Leadership Moment: Nine True Stories of Triumph and Disaster and Their Lessons for Us All (Random House, 1998), and Investor Capitalism: How Money Managers Are Changing the Face of Corporate America (Basic Books/HarperCollins, 1996). 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 management, he offers programs for managers in the U.S., Asia, Europe, and Latin America, and he has climbed in the U.S., Africa, Europe, and Asia. Mike can be contacted at useem@wharton.upenn.edu, and the Wharton Leadership Ventures may be viewed at //leadership.wharton.upenn.edu/l_change/trips/index.shtml. He lives in Philadelphia, PA.
Chris Warner: Chris is the founder and president of the Earth Treks’ Climbing Centers, based in Maryland. Earth Treks is one of the largest indoor climbing gym chains and climbing schools in the US. Chris has guided over seventy-five international mountaineering expeditions, including three trips on the North Ridge of Mount Everest, and he has pioneered some of the harder Himalayan routes on peaks such as Ama Dablam and Shivling. Chris was the first American to completely solo climb an 8000-meter peak with his 34-hour non-stop ascent and descent of the deadly South Face of Shishapangma (26,399 ft.). Chris founded the Shared Summits Program, a web-based educational partnership among Earth Treks expeditions, school teachers, and more than 20,000 school children. Chris’ adventures have been featured in hundreds of newspapers and magazine articles and he has appeared on dozens of television and radio programs including CNBC, Outdoor Life Network, and ABC. Chris can be reached at cw@earthtreksclimbing.com and information on Earth Treks may be found at //www.earthtreksclimbing.com. He lives in Columbia, MD.