The Expedition to the South Pole – Roald Amundsen

Amundsen’s success, which brought him fame in his home country and international respect, was unfortunately overshadowed by the death of his rival, Robert F. Scott. Scott and his team paid for the return journey from the South Pole with their lives.

The story of Roald Amundsen and Robert F. Scott can still teach us many lessons for teamwork and leadership today.

❄️ Preparation

Roald Amundsen’s expedition was characterised by meticulous preparation and very detailed planning. For his crossing to the southern Arctic Circle, he used a ship that had already been tested for this region, Fridtjof Nansen’s Fram. In order to be able to assess the surroundings of the South Pole in a meaningful way, he orientated himself on the indigenous peoples living there. The material he used for clothing, footwear, skis and sledges was closely coordinated with the environment in which it was to be used. Even when he arrived in the Bay of Whales with his team, he used the time until departure to set up depots in order to be prepared for any eventuality on the way to the pole as well as on the way back. This was all done with his planning in mind, which was mainly dependent on the time of year and weather conditions.

 „Good preparation is the key factor in any endeavour, an expedition, a project, a change within an organisation – whatever goal we set ourselves as leaders with our teams. We need to keep both the journey and the destination in mind and equally prepare for contingencies that may cross our path. In particular, we should focus on and integrate into our preparation the life and impact space in which we move in order to achieve a goal. Since we are always interacting with our environment through our actions, we may also pay special attention to the environment.”

❄️ Adaptability

For his expedition to the South Pole, Roald Amundsen took the Inuit as an example, the indigenous ethnic groups that still live in the Arctic Central, North-Eastern Canada and on Greenland today. To survive in this wilderness of ice, snow and wind, he immersed himself in their way of life and dealing with the prevailing nature. He chose his clothing, some of his food and his means of transport for the journey across the eternal ice based on the Inuit model.

One of his greatest advantages over Scott was shown in his decision to use sledges and dogs pulling those sledges for the passage to the South Pole. Scott decided to use horses and clumsy snowmobiles for transport, which were not really suitable for this environment. The engines, which needed vast amounts of petrol, failed already on the first half of the route to the South Pole. The horses, which also had to carry large amounts of hay as their food source, were not up to the conditions. Amundsen’s dogs were fast, light, able to make themselves small so as not to give the wind too much of an attack and ate meat, which was a natural food source like seals and fish.

 „As leaders and teams, we should always be aware of our environment and validate the framework in which we are operating. Our decisions on how to deal with our environment, how to act or how to react to our environment are strongly dependent on our own assessment and adaptability. Experiences and approaches are usually context-dependent, or at least have to be transferred to new situations, scales or even cultural aspects. And sometimes we may let go of our experiences and perspectives to engage with a new environment – in our organisations, companies and projects.“