Stephen Carter

The Meaning of Mountains

Steve Venables has been described as one of the most talented climbers of his generation - and one of the most articulate. He was one of the first Britons to climb Everest without oxygen, reaching the summit on his own in May 1988. In doing so, he pioneered with a small team a remarkable new route up the Kanshung face, the biggest wall on Everest. It has been a privilege to have met and worked with Steve many times over the last ten years and our conversations were one of the inspirations behind this book.

Walking the Dangerous Edge

We have seen that the reward for audacity at an individual level is heightened reward in all of the eight states of our being. Whether focused on mastery or sympathy, being serious or playful, rebelling or conforming, concerned with oneself or others, audacity has a role to play. Organisationally, audacity allows us to enter those areas where value can be created through innovation, differentiation and decisive action.

The Road from Morocco

The impulse for this book came in a small room in a tower on the roof of a Kasbah, looking out over the dry, dusty, snow-capped mountains of the High Atlas. I was staying there as the result of a determination to do something totally different to create a more liberating approach to the way organisations regenerate themselves. I was seeking new ideas and places that would stimulate radical and innovative thinking: a place where people could think through what they wanted to achieve and let go of tired assumptions and prejudices.

Of Wildebeest, Buffalo and Bison

So, who should line up in the parade of audacious businesses? Until recently, the usual suspects would have been the bright young things of the technology industries, or perhaps some Internet business that had stolen all the headlines. Unfortunately, current data would be difficult - such businesses have either gone bust or are in hiding. Audacious they may have been - but successful? Only for a moment, and despite their audacity, rarely because of it. Of course, some businesses in these sectors will be successful again, and undoubtedly some of these can be fairly classed as audacious. However, in looking for role models it is useful to avoid always equating brilliant product innovation with audacity. Audacity, as we have tried to picture it, is a richer and more complex phenomenon.

Dancing with Customers

Is your best friend a corporation? Do you long for 6 pm, when you know that those nice telesales people will start calling your home? Do you shout ‘yippee!’ when you receive dozens of unsolicited emails, and do you feel relieved and reassured to know that your name, buying habits and personal preferences are being tracked, analysed and used by complete strangers?

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Employee?

In dealing with volatile, uncertain conditions, how do organisations become audacious? We have argued that audacity requires motivational connectedness - the opportunity to achieve success in a broad range of states; a ‘confidence frame’ to feel able to access all eight motivational states, and a real awareness of how things are evolving. To talk about ‘audacious’ organisations, we need to focus on the conditions that foster audacity among their people - after all, organisations are defined, in the end, by the actions of their people.

Building a New Eden - Audacity at Work

In March 2001, the world’s largest conservatories opened; The Eden Project was the culmination of an audacious vision that Tim Smit and his team refused to let die. It is a story of the effort and determination required to turn dreams into reality. But, more than that, it is about having the courage and vision to formulate a dream - to be audacious - in the first place. In the case of The Eden Project, this required life-changing decisions, an ability to see beyond the horizon and an unfailing belief in oneself. As Tim Smit himself says: No one has a monopoly on dreams, but only a rare few discover the alchemist’s art of making them real. Making things real demands… a single-mindedness and determination to succeed that persuades others as much by the force of your conviction as by the idea itself.1

The Eight Ways of Being

Imagine this. You are on ‘The Vortex of Certain Death’, the latest fun ride at a major amusement park. Firmly strapped into your seat alongside one hundred other terrified, screaming people, you are being slowly pulled up to a great height. At the apex of your ascent you will then be turned rapidly through 720 degrees. Before you can orient yourself you then plummet through an enormous wall of fire. Hopefully emerging from the other side, you find yourself rushing at a seemingly fantastic speed towards what appears to be a formidable rock wall. As you bellow out an incoherent and terror-struck request for someone to stop the ride immediately, the ride itself executes another dizzyingly fast manoeuvre, misses the wall and comes to rest in a large, and until that point unseen, trough of water.

What is Audacity

Audacity is—what? It involves courage, boldness, achievement, but it is more than that. It is a complex idea with a cultural perspective. An American friend questioned the use of it, saying that as a child she would hear her mother reprimand her, crying: ‘You had the audacity to do that!’

Why? The Audacity Factor

A bullfighter is now judged and paid much more on his ability to pass the bull quietly, slowly, and closely with the cape than on his ability as a swordsman. (It) has become a moment of truth… The danger is so real, so controlled, and so selected by the man, and so apparent, and the slightest tricking or simulating of danger shows so clearly… The matadors rival each other in invention and in seeing with what purity of line, how slowly, and how closely they can make the horns of the bull pass their waists, keeping him dominated and slowing the speed of his rush with the sweep of the cape controlled by their wrists; the whole hot bulk of the bull passing the man who looks down calmly where the horns almost touch and sometimes do touch, his thighs while the bull’s shoulders touch his chest, with no move of defence against the animal, and no move of defence against the death that goes by in the horns except the slow movement of his arms and his judgement of distance. (Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon1)