High Altitude Leadership: What the World's Most Forbidding Peaks Teach Us about Success

The book swtiches between 2 story lines. Exciting life and death mountain climbbing combined with business lessons. It uses mountain climbing as an analogy for leadership. And it turns out to be a fairly good one. Usually I am a business junky; however, I found the mountain climbing stories to be the page turner. Mountain climbing has a lot to do with fear so there is a lot of discussion on fear and how you tame it in leadership. Arrogance can also be death on a mountain climbing expedition and the infection of arrogance in leadership can also be death to leadership. One of the concepts that I really liked was skilled based luck. This is preparing for what might eventually happens and by being properly prepared (having the skill), it creates luck when things do happen. I found the book to be a highly compelling and exciting page turner.

This ended up being one of the few business books that I couldn't put down... High Altitude Leadership: What the World's Most Forbidding Peaks Teach Us About Success by Chris Warner and Don Schmincke. The positioning of leadership skills compared to mountain climbing made a lot of sense, and the stories of what happened during the expeditions were riveting. Contents: Preface; Acknowledgments; Introduction; Danger #1 - Fear of Death; Danger #2 - Selfishness; Danger #3 - Tool Seduction; Danger #4 - Arrogance; Danger #5 - Lone Heroism; Danger #6 - Cowardice; Danger #7 - Comfort; Danger #8 - Gravity; Danger #9 - The Journey Begins; Resources; Notes This combination of authors is what makes the book work as well as it does. Don Schmincke is the management consultant, someone who teaches leadership concepts to thousands each year. While on a climbing expedition, he met up with Chris Warner, the leader of the climb. Warner runs a company called Earth Treks, which is known for its expertise in leading climbs up the most dangerous peaks each year. When Schmincke and Warner started comparing notes on how leadership plays out while climbing, Schmincke realized that these concepts played out both in the boardroom and at 25000 feet. This book is their collaboration. The format of the chapters follows a general pattern. You start with a story about one of Chris's expeditions. The story continues to weave its way through the chapter, as the leadership skills are highlighted and discussed in terms of both the organization and the climb itself. Within each chapter you have a survival tip that applies to your position as leader, a summary of the key learnings, and concrete steps you can take to make this learning part of your reality. It's hard *not* to internalize this information, as the climbing stories involve life-or-death situations. Distilling leadership skills from these stories may not be something you'd naturally do if you were just reading a book on climbing, but Schmincke does an excellent job in making the correlations. While all the chapters were compelling, the chapter on selfishness struck home with me. The climbing story involves a group of Italian climbers who abandon a fellow team member on their descent without concern as to whether he made it back to camp. Warner's group has to alter their plans to mount a rescue. To make matters even worse, the Italian climbers bypass an injured Czech climber, take a pair of crampons not belonging to them, and refuse to help transport the Czech climber to safety (among only a few of their selfish actions). This DUD behavior (dangerous, unproductive, and dysfunctional) drains energy and motivation from the entire team, and can jeopardize the existence of the group. Schmincke recommends this behavior be fought by creating a compelling saga. There needs to be something that can drive the group to a common goal, and something that will transcend individual differences and behaviors in order

Finally, someone saw the wisdom in combining the world of high peak mountaineering with the corporate career. Indeed, the analogy goes way beyond just our working lives and can (and should) extend into the other - more important - areas of our life. As a corporate human resources director, I seek books that will inspire me and prod me to think in different ways. Far too many of the books on the business book conveyor are viewed by me as "one-trick ponies". That is, they deal with a singular problem in a very limited sense. On several of my listmania's I have recommended Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why and The Crystal Horizon: Everest - The First Solo Ascent as "management" books that for me, teach leadership far better than the run-of-the-mill business leadership materials. This book is vastly different due to its scope and ability to establish a completely new mind-set. I find it to be a perfect fit between my desires and needs. Chris Warner and Don Schmincke are to be congratulated on hitting the right cord with this book. This book's Oct '08 release is perfect timing as our American industries and organizations are in great need of a "different" leadership. I hope you find this review helpful. Michael L. Gooch, Author of Wingtips with Spurs: Cowboy Wisdom for Today's Business Leaders.

This book was a compelling read. I found the business advice helpful and well-juxtaposed against the mtn climbing stories. I would recommend it to anyone.

This lovely book deals with two streams, tales of conquering mountains and managing business people, which are artfully integrated. The mountain stories are well told and breathtaking. Chris Warner is a wonderful storyteller. His adventures make this book compelling to read and motivated me to get through the business metaphors and lessons. For those interested in business insights, Don Schmincke has drawn on contemporary business examples from leading companies and executives. Overall the book is the best of this genre, a compelling and enjoyable read.