Leader on the Edge

Jeremy Topple, a training consultant for BUPA, a London-based health-care provider with 42,000 employees, left from Ushuaia in January 1999, crossed the nausea-inducing Drake Passage, stopped at King George Island, and then proceeded to the Antarctic Peninsula. Along with two crew members, Topple and his corporate teammates were responsible for photographing and logging the e wastthat they saw, recording information about 15 sites where global warming appears to be taking place (so that future teams can compare climate differences), visiting other ice stations on King George Island (to keep people there apprised of the clean-up efforts), testing plastic "penguin" rings (a possible alternative to metal rings), and posting reports of their work on the Internet. During the journey, Topple recorded events on video, and the footage was later made into a documentary. Along the way, he also dealt with the unfamiliarity both of the environment and of his shipmates. He summarizes the experience in a phrase: "small boat, large ocean, strange team."

Topple, who had presented his trip application to BUPA by freezing it inside a three-foot-high ice sculpture of a penguin, plans to use what he observed on board the ship -- in particular, the productive ways in which the team interacted -- in a leadership program that he runs for Pupa's 750 senior managers. But he hesitates when asked to name one tangible way in which the journey was valuable -- "I've been trying not to force conclusions," he says -- because that would undercut the magnitude of the experience. "A trip like this doesn't quite fit into BUPA's normal activity," he notes. "But when you put pictures of penguins and whales and icebergs in the in-house newspaper, that shows a leap of faith on the part of the company. It's about fostering inspiration, feeding people's imagination."

When Swan interviews applicants for a trip, he does not require them to make any promises about the ways in which they or their companies will change upon return. "People find their own stories; they get their own visions for the future," Topple says. "You can assert your values or your wishes, but change will happen only if people want it, if they're motivated. And that basically comes down to whether they feel inspired."

Topple does indeed feel inspired -- and, as Swan would be glad to know, the trip has motivated him to take environmentally positive steps within BUPA. Just as Topple hopes to distribute his documentary as widely as possible, so many of the people who go on Swan's trips begin speaking both inside and outside of their companies about what they have seen in Antarctica. It might seem unrealistic to imagine that sending one employee out of thousands to steer a yacht and to gape at icebergs for five weeks will somehow affect an entire company, but Topple begs to differ. "The experience doesn't just stay with the individual," he says.

Do Swan and the companies that he works with have the same goals? Not exactly. Swan's true passion these days is working with kids. As for business, it's no secret that smart companies always have an eye both on their short-term performance and on their long-term reputation. But the relationship that Swan has with the business community reflects a recognition of the ways that both parties can help each other. Companies have the money and power needed to further the causes that Swan cares about. And Swan has some remarkable stories of adventure, exploration, fear, and triumph that provide an apt metaphor for the feelings of adventure, exploration, fear, and triumph that many companies are experiencing today.

When it comes to teamwork, for example, Swan can tell some pretty compelling stories -- starting with his experiences in 1986, when he spent nine months in Antarctica in a 16-by-24-foot hut with four other men. "And we were five people who did not get on well even in London," Swan notes. Finally, weather conditions were right for Swan to set off with Wood and Mear for the pole. (The other two men -- Michael Stroud, a doctor, and John Tolson, a cameraman -- remained behind as planned.) The hut proved to have been palatial compared with the new quarters: Swan, Wood, and Mear slept head to foot in a single tent.

The key to how they tolerated one another -- apart from the significant fact that they shared the same goal -- was the diversity of personalities and skills that they brought to the expedition. "If I did one thing right as leader, it was choosing very different people to be on that team," he says. "If everybody is the same, you won't have the diversity that you need to survive. You need to have different attitudes, different ways of thinking and doing things.

"Roger Mear is one of the finest mountaineers that Britain has produced," Swan continues. "He's also the most pessimistic person: He won't go shopping unless he has read a weather forecast. You ask me anything, and I just say yes. Ask Roger anything, and he just says no. But you need somebody like Roger to be always thinking about the worst-case scenario.