What can Columbus teach us about intuition, or about selling a project?
What can we learn from Shackleton, Amundsen or Scott about business leadership?
What did Magallanes know about resilience and motivation?
What could Edmund Hillary tell us about ambition and risk management?
What does Livingstone have to do with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and business ethics?
Why did Darwin show us that lateral thinking is key to creating value?
And what would happen if Marco Polo showed us that cooperation and collaboration may be better than competition?
Very often, we look to sport for inspiration when analysing exemplary attitudes to business management and leadership, but the experiences of the great adventurers and explorers are seldom used.
We can learn a great deal from historical explorations since their management is more comprehensive than that of competitive sports, and they more closely resemble the reality of our lives or those of our organisations.
Through important historical explorations, such as the Discovery of America, the first round-the-world journey, The Silk Route, crossing of Africa, the conquest of the poles, of Everest or the moon, we can learn values which are key for the management of our organisations, such as; Intuition, Conviction, Sales Capacity, Resilience, Leadership, Motivation, Generosity, CSR, Business Management, Optimism as well as Lateral Thinking, Innovation, Risk Management, Responsibility, Ambition, Communication, Adaptation and even the much sought-after and craved for Ethics.
Society’s evolution has been linked to these great voyages and expeditions beyond the effect they had on their protagonists; they have had a large impact on society and have made an immense contribution of value and knowledge in every respect.
And I bring this issue to your attention because we are living in complex and extremely changeable times, and it is not hard to guess that times ahead will be even more so.
In our personal, professional or business lives we can live with this as a threat to be suffered in fear or unhappiness; or as a great opportunity that we can live with passion, creating value and happiness.
And it is this which the great explorers have much to tell us.
In light of this future of vertigo, approach your life from the points of view of curiosity and a desire to learn, connect to what is new and its potentials, assuming the associated dangers and risks with the conviction that there you will find opportunities.
During these holidays, I invite you to load up your rucksacks with books and films which recount their adventures.
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