Katrina (1): Crisis Leadership.

I just read a “White Paper” from the Center for Creative Leadership addressing the type of leadership that emerges in a crisis situation like the one produced by the hurricane Katrina. And it is amazing how close their findings are to the leadership situations we experienced during the days we spent in the Andes.

The article says that in Leadership Crisis, what matters is that the “leadership function” gets accomplished, no matter by whom or by how many, but that setting direction, creating alignment and building commitment has to be done, anyway. It is a matter of “what” not of “who”.

It also says that in these situations leadership can be happening in a group of people who are discussing what to do and, although unsure, they are figuring out. When disasters do occur, people are thrown into a peer context, and everyone is forced to take decision regardless wherever they are on the leadership structure. In crisis situations, systems collapse, plans are insufficient, the picture is distorted, time is compressed, authority is limited and limiting and new leadership emerges. The formal leadership authorities are many times overwhelmed by reality.

I am impressed how much this describes our situation in the Andes. We were peers, we didn´t know what to do, we were not prepared for such an ordeal, we were let by ourselves and we had just to figure out how to survive and to get out of the mountains. And I don’t want to imply that some of us didn´t play a more significant role than others in the Andes, but everyone contributed according to its possibilities, and we all mattered. Even those who were ill or injured played a significant role; just taking care of themselves was important for the group.

Obviously, this has an impact on the type of contingency plans everyone should have for disasters. On top of protocols and contingency plans, that you must have, it is crucial to build more communication skills, team working capabilities and networking. And when you plan for the worse, there will always be another worse scenario.


Katrina (1)

Acabo de leer un borrador de trabajo del Centro para el Liderazgo Creativo ocupándose del tipo de liderazgo que emergió en una situación de crisis como el huracán Katrina. Es increíble cuan cerca están sus conclusiones sobre el tipo de situaciones de liderazgo que nosotros experimentamos durante los días que pasamos en los Andes.

El artículo dice que en situaciones de crisis de liderazgo, lo que importa es que la función de liderazgo sea realizada, no importa por quien ni por cuantos, pero que establecer los objetivos, crear el alineamiento y construir el compromiso tiene que ser hecho de alguna manera. No es un tema de quien, sino de qué.

También dice que estas situaciones el liderazgo puede estar ocurriendo en un grupo de personas que discuten qué hacer y, aún inseguras, le encuentran la vuelta. Cuando ocurren desastres, la gente se encuentra en una situación de pares, y todos son obligados a tomar decisiones sin importar que lugar ocupaban en la estructura formal de liderazgo. Porque en situaciones de crisis, los sistemas colapsan, los planes son insuficientes, la visión general está distorsionada, el tiempo está comprimido, la autoridad está limitada y limita y obviamente emergen nuevos líderes. Los líderes formales muchas veces son sobrepasados por los acontecimientos.

Me impresiona, cuanto esto describe nuestra situación en los Andes. Éramos pares, no sabíamos qué hacer, no estábamos preparados para la tragedia, nos habían dejado solos y tuvimos que ingeniarnos para salir de las montañas. Con esto no quiero implicar que no hubo algunos que jugaron un rol más importante que otros en los Andes, pero aún aquellos que estaban enfermos o heridos tenían un rol significativo que jugar. Simplemente ocuparse de ellos mismos era importante para el grupo.

Obviamente, esto impacta en el tipo de planes de continencia que todos deberíamos tener para emergencias. Además de tener protocolos planes de contingencia, que hay que tener, no hay que olvidarse de desarrollar más habilidades de comunicación, capacidad de trabajo en equipo y relaciones. Y cuando planificas para el peor escenario, siempre puede haber otro peor.

My Old Friends/ Mis Viejos Amigos

I also think on all my friends I had at the time when we crashed in the mountains and whom I haven’t seen any more. After our rescue, I stayed for some weeks in Uruguay and then went back to live in Argentina with my parents and started a new life almost from scratch. This was a turning point in my life, it is one of my crucibles, as I decided to change and start again in Argentina. But many of my old friends, either in Uruguay, Chile or even in Argentina, who had cried for me when they thought me dead when we crashed in the Andes didn´t have the chance to be with me as I became again a normal guy. They probably understood that I would be better off if they allowed me a fresh start. And they seldom came to see me. Probably I shoved them away with a not very friendly attitude from my part.

They respected my silence and helped me reconstruct my life. I appreciated that very much because it allowed me to close my wound, put the mountain into my backpack and look ahead. Three months after our rescue, I entered the University without saying who I was, what had happened to me. And one year later, I met Noelle, with whom I married and got three great children. But today I think on my old friends, José, Jorge, Pancho, Cristián, Walter, Alito, Pedro, Ana Luisa, Ana, Elina, and many others, who have also their part in my story and I have listened to them very little what they have to say.


Mis Viejos Amigos

También pienso en todos mis amigos de la época en que nos caímos en la montaña y a quienes no he visto más. Después del rescate, me quedé por algunas semanas en Uruguay y después me vine a vivir a la Argentina donde vivían mis padres y empecé una vida casi de cero. Esto fue un punto de quiebre en mi vida, una de mis encrucijadas, el decidir empezar de nuevo. Pero muchos de mis viejos amigos, ya sea en Uruguay, Chile o también en Argentina, que habían llorado por mi cuando me había caído en los Andes, no tuvieron la oportunidad de estar conmigo cuando volví a la normalidad. Probablemente entendieron que tenían que dejarme probar empezar de nuevo. Y casi no vinieron a verme. Probablemente los alejé con mi actitud poco amigable de mi parte.

Ellos aceptaron mi silencio y me ayudaron a reconstruir mi vida. Eso lo aprecio hoy porque fui capaz de cerrar mi herida, poner la montaña en mi mochila y mirar para adelante. Tres meses después del rescate entré en la Universidad sin decir quién era, qué me había pasado. Y un año después conocí a Noelle, mi esposa, con quien nos casamos y tuvimos tres maravillosos hijos. Pero hoy pienso en mis viejos amigos, José, Jorge, Pancho, Cristián, Walter, Pedro, Ana Luisa, Ana María, Elina y muchos otros, que también han sido parte de mi historia y a quienes he escuchado muy poco lo que tienen para contar.

A Letter From Germany / Una Carta desde Alemania

One of my surviving brothers told me the other day that he had received a note from a German WW2 survivor thanking us for the courage we had shown when we accepted that we had fed on the dead bodies of our friends. In his letter, this person said that the reading of our story encouraged him to talk to his people about his own ordeal. He and his friends had resorted to cannibalism in the war but he had not been able to speak openly about it and his remorse was consuming out his life. But now, as we spoke, he found the courage to speak. And he found great compassion and understanding from his people.

Sometimes, I find people who might think, “I wouldn’t have done it”. And I think that they don’t know what they are talking about. I am convinced that anyone in similar circumstances would have done the same, because we are just humans that want to live. We didn´t have any other thing to eat, and we had to eat if we wanted to stay alive.

I don’t have any ethical or moral doubts about it.


Una Carta desde Alemania

Uno de mis hermanos sobrevivientes, me dijo el otro día que había recibido una carta de un sobreviviente alemán de la Segunda Guerra Mundial agradeciéndonos el coraje que habíamos mostrado al aceptar que nos habíamos alimentado de los cuerpos de nuestros amigos muertos. En su carta, esta persona dice que leyendo nuestra historia se había animado a hablar a su gente de su propia tragedia. Él y sus amigos también habían recurrido al canibalismo en la guerra pero no se había animado a hablar abiertamente del tema y el remordimiento estaba consumiendo su vida. Pero ahora, viéndonos a nosotros hablar, él había encontrado el coraje de para hacerlo. Y encontró una gran compasión y comprensión de su gente.

A veces, encuentro gente que puede pensar que ellos no lo habrían hecho. Y en esos casos siento que no saben de lo que están hablando. Estoy convencido que cualquiera en circunstancias similares lo hubiera hecho, porque somos seres humanos que queremos vivir. No teníamos otra cosa que comer, y teníamos que comer si queríamos seguir viviendo.

No tengo ninguna duda ética o moral sobre el tema.

No Surprise

When I wrote the previous post on My Old Man, some thoughts came to my mind:

One was about the moment I met my father at the San Fernando’s Hospital the day after our rescue. I remember he said to me: “Forgive me Pedro, I thought you dead”. But I didn´t understand him, because I had not died, I was alive. In that sense, I think that our story is much more complicated and tough for our friends and relatives that had lost us and thought we were dead, than for us, whom we just spent 72 days surviving. The fact is that we had heard on our small radio that Canessa and Parrado had arrived in Chile and that a rescue team was on its way to rescue us. I remember that in our way, we prepared for the event. We cleaned the place, we combed our hair, brushed our teeth, smoked the last cigarettes and sat and waited for the helicopters to come. And when they came, we felt excited, happy and proud; we felt we were getting to the end of a horrible journey to where we knew that we had to get. We had worked very hard to get there. But it was not an explosion of joy and emotions, there was no surprise, we were waiting for that moment and it had to come.

For the rest of the world it was different, it is an incredible story. With the exception of some of our mothers that always thought that we were still alive, we were given by lost and dead. And now, 72 days after we had crashed in the Andes, we were coming back, skinny and rugged, but coming back from death. But not for us, because we didn´t die, we had just spent those 72 days, surviving.

Sin Sorpresa

Cuando escribí el post anterior sobre mi Padre, algunos recuerdos pasaron por mi cabeza:

Uno fue sobre el momento en que me encontré con él en el Hospital de San Fernando, el día posterior al rescate. Recuerdo que me dijo: “Perdoname Pedro, te habíamos dado por muerto”. Y la verdad es que en ese momento no lo entendí, porque yo no había muerto, estaba vivo. En ese sentido, pienso que nuestra historia es mucho más complicada y fuerte para nuestros familiares y amigos que nos habían perdido y dado por muertos, que para nosotros mismos, quienes solo pasamos 72 días viviendo bajito. El hecho es que habíamos escuchado en nuestra pequeña radio que Canessa y Parrado habían llegado a Chile y que un equipo de rescate venía por nosotros. Recuerdo que a nuestra manera, nos preparamos para recibirlos. Ordenamos un poco el lugar, nos peinamos, nos cepillamos los dientes, fumamos nuestros últimos cigarrillos y nos sentamos a esperar los helicópteros. Y cuando llegaron, sentimos una gran alegría y orgullo, sentimos que estábamos llegando al fin de un horrible viaje, a donde sabíamos que teníamos que llegar. Habíamos trabajado muy duro para llegar allí. Pero no fue una explosión de alegrías y emociones porque no había sorpresa, estábamos esperando ese momento y sabíamos que tenía que llegar.

Pero para el resto del mundo es diferente, es una historia increíble. Con la excepción de algunas de nuestras madres que siempre creyeron que estábamos vivos, habíamos sido dados por perdidos y muertos. Y ahora, 72 días después que habíamos caído en los Andes, volvíamos, flacos y rudos, pero volvíamos de la muerte. Pero no para nosotros, porque no habíamos muerto, solo habíamos pasado 72 días sobreviviendo.

My Old Man / Mi Viejo

Algorta Senior is turning 86 this March. He is definitely aging and it is showing it as time goes by. In 2003 with the help of Noelle, my wife, he directed the reconstruction of our house in our ranch. When it was finished, he looked at the finished house and said with enormous pride and a little of his fine irony, that that was his LAST work.

Today, five years later, he wouldn’t be able to direct such a job.

When I crashed in the Andes in 1972, he was about 50, even younger than what I am today. At that time, he was living in Buenos Aires with my mother and had decided to spend the long weekend of October the 12th in Punta Del Este with some friends. On October 13th they were returning to Buenos Aires, when they heard the news of a plane that had just got lost in the Andes. They were shocked but they didn´t believe it would be ours; we should have flown to Chile on the 12th. But then, the news became rather confusing until it was confirmed that we were lost in the middle of the Andes and there was little hope that we were alive.

My parents went back to Buenos Aires to tell my brothers something really bad had just occurred and then they both took the first plane that was leaving for Santiago. With many other parents of the missing passengers, they went to the Uruguayan embassy, they talked to the Chilean Air Force, they even went near to the area where we might have crashed. Everyone was eager to help in the search and give some comfort to those parents who have lost their children.

I’d lived in Chile for three years sometime before; I even had a girlfriend at that time in Santiago, and had many friends who were absolutely shocked to lose such a young friend. After some days, a mass was offered for my soul at my high school, San Ignacio Pocuro. I guess Father Del Piano offered the mass which was attended with enormous grief by my friends, my parents and my girl friend. I was given up for dead; I was lost in the Andes Mountains, only my mother kept the hope that I was alive.

Their return to normal life in Buenos Aires was hard. My father with enormous courage insisted that life should carry on. My mother didn´t leave her room in which she would weep and pray for hours. My brothers faced the new reality; their eldest brother was not going to come back. My brother, moved into my room, life had to continue as usual and he was now the “big brother”.

But on December 21st, a word was heard in the news; people were saying that two guys had appeared at the foot of the mountains near San Fernando, in Chile, claiming to be survivors of the ill fated Uruguayan airplane. Many news had been given before and none had been true. But this was anyway a new shred of hope. Without thinking too much, my father boarded the first plane leaving for Chile; my mother stayed at home waiting for a confirmation of the news. They didn´t even know who the two will-be survivors were nor what had happened to the rest.

When my father arrived in Chile, the news was confirmed, “the walking” men were Canessa and Parrado, and 14 more guys were alive in the mountain. But the list of the survivors was not known yet and my father still didn´t know if I was dead or alive. He took a taxi to the Uruguayan embassy, and asked the driver to turn on the radio to listen to the latest news. And at that very moment, they started broadcasting the list of the survivors, and I was in it, I was in. My father kissed the driver and went to San Fernando´s Hospital. But it was too late to allow him to see me. The next morning once allowed he came into my room and found me, a ghost, I was not the same person he had left alive 72 days before, but it was me. Without knowing what to say, absolutely shocked he embraced me and said, “Forgive me Pedro, I thought you dead.”


Two years ago, while he was going to watch a football match at the Parque Central he slipped and hurt his head very badly. He spent an entire month in intensive care and in many occasions we thought he was to pass away. I cried very much because he was in pain and leaving us but also because if he passed away he would not be there to continue loving us. Happily, he is still alive, a little diminished but loving us a lot.


Mi Viejo

Algorta Sr. va a cumplir 86 en este Marzo. Y con el paso del tiempo, se está poniendo más viejito. En el 2003 con la ayuda de Noelle, mi esposa, él como arquitecto dirigió la construcción de una casa en el campo. Cuando terminó, miró la casa terminada y dijo con gran orgullo y algo de su típica ironía fina que esa era su ÚLTIMA obra.

Hoy, cinco años después no podría realizar ese trabajo.

Cuando nos accidentamos en los Andes en 1972, él tenía cerca de 50 años, aún menos de los que hoy tengo yo. En esos momentos, ellos vivían en Buenos Aires y habían decidido pasar el fin de semana largo del 12 de octubre en Punta del Este con algunos amigos. El 13 de octubre, estaban regresando a Buenos Aires, cuando escucharon las noticias de un avión perdido en los Andes. Estaban consternados, pero no creyeron que era el nuestro, nosotros debíamos haber llegado a Chile el día 12. Pero después, las noticias empezaron a ser confusas hasta que se confirmó que efectivamente estábamos perdidos en el medio de los Andes y había pocas esperanzas de que estuviéramos vivos.

Mis padres volvieron a Buenos Aires para contar a mis hermanos las malas noticias y luego tomaron el primer avión que estaba saliendo para Santiago. Con muchos otros familiares de los pasajeros desaparecidos fueron a la Embajada Uruguaya, hablaron con la Fuerza Aérea de Chile, incluso fueron cerca de la zona donde pensaron que habíamos caído. Todos querían ayudar y confortar a aquellos padres que habían perdido a sus hijos.

Yo había vivido en Chile por tres años algún tiempo atrás. Incluso tenía una novia en Santiago y tenía muchos amigos que estaban muy golpeados por perder a un amigo tan joven. Unos días después del accidente, rezaron una misa por mí en el Colegio donde había terminado mis estudios secundarios, el San Ignacio de Pocuro. Supongo que el padre Del Piano dirigió la misa a la que asistieron gran cantidad de amigos, mis padres, mis hermanos y mi novia. Me habían dado por muerto, me había perdido en la Cordillera de Los Andes, sólo mi madre mantenía la creencia de que yo estaba vivo.

La vuelta de mi familia a Buenos Aires, fue difícil. Mi padre, con enorme coraje insistió en que la vida tenía que continuar. Pero mi madre no abandonaba su habitación donde lloraba y rezaba por horas. Mis hermanos afrontaron la realidad, su hermano mayor no iba a regresar. Mi hermano se mudó a mi habitación, la vida tenía que seguir, él ahora era el mayor.

Pero el 22 de diciembre empezaron a escucharse algunos rumores. Había gente que decía que dos personas habían aparecidos en las montañas cerca de San Fernando en Chile diciendo que eran sobrevivientes del avión uruguayo. Muchas noticias se habían dado antes pero ninguna había sido cierta. De todas maneras era un hilo de esperanza. Sin pensarlo demasiado, mi padre tomó el primer avión que partía para Chile mientras mi madre se quedó a la espera de la confirmación de la noticia. Todavía no se sabía quienes eran estos posibles sobrevivientes ni que habría sucedido con el resto.

Cuando mi padre llegó a Chile, la noticia se confirmó, los caminantes eran Canessa y Parrado y 14 muchachos más estaban vivos en las montañas. Pero la lista de los sobrevivientes no había sido comunicada todavía y mi padre no sabía si yo estaba vivo o no. Tomó el primer taxi hacia la Embajada del Uruguay y le pidió al taxista que encendiera la radio para escuchar las noticias. Y en ese mismo momento empezaron a emitir la lista de los sobrevivientes, y yo estaba en ella, si, yo estaba en ella. Mi padre abrazó al taxista y fue directo al Hospital de San Fernando. Cuando llegó ya era muy tarde para que lo dejaran entrar a verme. A la mañana siguiente lo dejaron entrar a mi habitación y me encontró hecho un fantasma. No era la misma persona que había dejado vivo 72 días antes, pero era yo, y estaba vivo. Sin saber que decir, totalmente conmovido me abrazó y me dijo: “Perdoname Pedro, te habíamos dado por muerto”.

Un par de años atrás, cuando él estaba yendo a ver un partido de fútbol al Parque Central, se tropezó y se golpeó muy mal su cabeza. Estuvo un mes entero en terapia intensiva y en muchas ocasiones pensamos que se nos estaba yendo. Lloré mucho porque él estaba sufriendo, pero también lloré porque si se nos iba, no íbamos a poder seguir recibiendo su amor. Felizmente, está todavía vivo, un poco más viejito, pero queriéndonos un montón.

London Thoughts

The Stanford University people invited me to London to participate in an Alumni meeting. It was a great meeting, extraordinary well organized by Laura Moore and her team. I spent a great week in London.

In the meeting, Prof. Charles O’Reilly presented Stanford’s new curricula and talked about leadership, presenting several vignettes of leaders taking tough decisions. Beforehand, I had made my presentation, which went very well.

As it always is, the best part came with the Q&A and later in the cocktail.


The lessons of the ordeal.

Someone asked me what my accident had meant to me. What I took from it in my day to day life. My easy answer was that I didn’t really know, that I couldn’t tell to what extent our ordeal had affected my life. But that is not really an honest or profound answer. Although it is true that I cannot trace the traits of my personality to what happened in the mountain, it is true that I have learned something from it. And it is about hope, it is about trust, it is about not having all the answers, it is about not having the last word. And up there, we knew that. We knew that even after doing all what we did, after doing all what was humanly possible, we didn’t have the last word. And that is something that I learned. Later in life I fought hard to attain my objectives but once I have fought hard, the result will eventually come if they have to come. We are not the owners of the end results; we only know how hard we can work, because in this life we don’t have everything under control.

Up there in the mountains, we were not sure that we were going to survive; we only knew that we had a chance to survive, and we fought hard for it. God was with us but we didn´t have all the answers. When now I face a crucible, I fight hard, I do what I can, but I know in advance that I can’t control everything. That is hope, it is trust and it gives me an enormous peace of mind.


Motivations

In the cocktail after the presentation, one alumnus asked me if after going through such an ordeal, which required all that adrenaline, I didn´t feel bored with ordinary life. I was shocked with the question; I never tried to imply that an ordinary and balanced life is a boring life. I have been misunderstood. What I mean is that we need to find motivation and meanings in our day to day life, not necessarily in far reaching objectives.

The truth is that after those mountains in the 70´s, I had others to climb, and they all came with their additional doses of adrenaline and challenge. And mountains do come, even as if we don’t look for them. Mountains do appear in life, climbing mountains is what life is all about.

I wonder what type of mountain this guy was aiming to climb. Maybe he was told at school that he should climb the highest of all the mountains. But not all of them are going to get that high, and even those who get to the top, I ´m sure that they see ahead higher steps which we don’t see. But they see them. And the truth is that everyone has to know that the ladder does not always go up, sometimes it is just flat, and it can come down.

Sometimes, people just don’t get me when I say that I am proud to have lived an ordinary life out of an extraordinary episode. We all need to have a meaningful life, contributing from the actual situation of our life, from there we are demanded to live a fruitful and meaningful life. In some cases, just taking care of yourself is what you have to do, it is what some of us did in the mountain.


Giving up.

We were having dinner at a nice Italian Restaurant in London. One of the guys who was with us told me that he heard me saying that people don’t give up, but he himself, having served in the military forces for many years and actually been in the Vietnam war, he saw people giving up.

Yes, it is true, and I know that people commit suicide, and that is really giving up. But what I saw in the mountains, is that as long we thought we had a chance to survive we fought hard to survive and we didn´t give up.

I asked him why people that come from war don’t talk about it as we do about our ordeal. We love talking about it, sometimes we have a compelling need to talk. And the answer was that people coming back from WWII did talk, but people from Vietnam are stigmatized and their experience is not socially welcomed. He said that they talked among themselves.

Thinking twice, I believe war has other ingredients. It is a limit experience and maybe heroic as well, but people are driven into such extreme and unique situations which are difficult to understand by those who were not there.

Piers

I have met my friend Piers Paul Read (Jay) each time I have been to London. He is the author of the book “Alive”. I have been always welcomed to his beautiful house where he and his wife Emily live. I´m very fond of them.

As we always do, we talked about “Alive”. I asked him how he got to write the book, how difficult it was, what the process of writting such a book had been.

He told me that he was approached by Ed Burlingame from Lippincot, at that time a large publishing house, who had read in the media the news of our ordeal. Some of our parents and friends had organized a competitive bid to choose a writer that would guarantee the truth of the story, that would guarantee that the friendship and faith that inspired us in the mountain would emerge from the book, that would respect the memories of the dead, would also avoid scandal and at the same time offer a reasonable check to the survivors. When they came to Uruguay their offer was clearly the best, although not financially. But Piers Paul Reed, a British catholic writer was the winning card.

His first trip to Uruguay was made on February 1973; he met the survivors and friends at a nice welcome party at Carlos Paez´s Casa Pueblo in Punta del Este. He was impressed by the nice welcome in a beautiful mild evening watching the sunset from Casa Pueblo. Then he started to work. I remember we told everything to Piers in very long individual and group interviews. He says that we were very fragile and had a compulsive need to talk. When asked why we were so open to him he wonders if it was because he was not our father, not a priest, not a therapist, just someone that wanted to listen to us. And he indeed was a good listener. I had just heard the tapes of his interviews to me made 35 years ago. I said then nothing different from what I say now about the odyssey. In those tapes, he continuously asked me about my political views and about my understanding of the dynamics of our group.

He went back to London with 80 hours of tapes. And he worked on a big matrix, on one entry he listed all the survivors, and on the other entry he listed the events, and then he started knitting a tremendous patchwork. By the end of that year, he finished his draft and came back to Montevideo to show his manuscript. He says that it was a terrible week; most of us were disappointed with his presentation of our story. According to him, some of us thought that their role in the mountain was not accurately depicted; others said that the spiritual dimension of the ordeal was not there, others said that people in Uruguay were going to be scandalized by all the details that were given on what we fed on. Some even said that the Uruguayan society would stigmatize us and we would have to leave the country. Others even feared the reaction of the relatives of our friends who did not come back. Well, it was very difficult for all of us to be happy with the book at the onset; it is really very difficult to write in just a few pages what the 16 of us went through during our ordeal. But on the overall, I feel he did a great job, I feel that the book conveys a good idea of what happened to us up there.

He told me that the book was published without any changes from the manuscript we read. Just a small caveat was added in the acknowledges of the book:

“………some (of us) felt that the faith and friendship which inspired (us) in the cordillera do not emerge from the book………perhaps, it was beyond the skill of any writer to express our own appreciation of what (we) lived through……………”

And as we all know, his book (and ours too) has been a tremendous world wide success. It has been translated to more than 50 languages, although Piers himself does not recall how many copies of it have been sold.

Piers is very proud of his book, but curiously, one of the few negative critics came from William Golding, the author of the Lord of the Flies, who reviewed Alive for a London magazine some time ago. In the Lord of the Flies, William Golding writes about an hypothetic case in which a group of English schoolboys get stranded in a desert island. The survivors fail to organize themselves and finally turn into savagery. But we did not turn into savagery, we organized ourselves to survive and we made it, and we were always human beings. Maybe Golding didn´t like Piers book because it went against his main hypothesis. Ok, we didn´t degenerate into savagery, is it because we were not pushed that far? Piers says we didn´t and we wouldn’t have turn into savagery, and he is the one person who understands best what happened up there. I have to admit I have not read Golding’s book. I have just added it to my reading list.

Restriction to Suffering?

I just spent a few days in the south of Argentina. Nice weather, beautiful lakes, great mountains and some fishing expeditions, but overall a nice environment and a lot of friends.

One of them was my dearest friend Marcelo Serantes, who has always encouraged me to talk openly about my ordeal. One evening I found myself surrounded by his friends and their children talking about my mountain experience.

In these conversations, many issues arose. One was about the “restriction to sufferings”. I cannot say that being expose to 40° below zero, is 10 or 40 times worse than being expose to just zero. I cannot say that we felt much more hunger, pain or loneliness than any one exposed to an extreme situation in our ordinary lives. I am convinced that we have a limit to sufferings and there is only so much pain a human being can bear. I just can’t remember the sufferings in the mountain, I blocked them away, and time and life have also done their job. In fact, the worst sensation of cold I remember is the cold I felt on a skiing trip with my children. I don’t remember the 40° below zero we had in the mountains 35 years ago! You can’t go on with your memories and open wounds; they necessarily must be healed and forgotten.

The other side of that coin, is probably that we also have a limit to happiness. If there is only so much pain we can bear, there must be also so much happiness that we can enjoy. Is it then that happiness and sorrow are only relative measures?

How I started to talk/ Como empezé a hablar

The Documentary (again)

For many years, I kept the story of my odyssey just to myself and my family. Only some very close friends heard me talk about it. But not because I had any particular problem to talk about it, I was just very busy working, living through my corporate career and raising my family. I also watched with a hint of disgust my survivor fellows talk about it. At that time I even thought that our story didn´t have too many particular insights.

But things started to change. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but little by little, I found myself talking to small groups of teenagers that would gather around my story. Then, Gonzalo Arijón showed up with his project of a new documentary on the Andes issue. I turned him down, but as he insisted, I went to my brothers and my children to ask them what they thought about me participating in a new documentary. They came back with a surprise to me, they wanted to hear me, they wanted to know what I had to say about the mountain.

I enjoyed participating in Arijón´s project and later in a book by Pablo Vierci, which has not been published yet, in which all 16 survivors give our own view of what happened in the Andes and how we managed through life.

But the fact is that my mountain is coming back to me with incredible strength. When I relate to my mountain I feel enormous energy and vitality, it is when I feel I´m 100% alive. And maybe my message of hope also touches the heart of some people. That is why I talk now.


The Urdimbre

Marcelo Serantes has always shown a keen interest in our experience, and he has always encouraged me to talk about it. He thinks the message is very strong and fits in very well with his strong Christian beliefs. He is very fond of me and I will always cherish his friendship. He introduced me to the Urdimbre people. These are incredible guys. The Urdimbre is an organization that takes care of teenagers coming from very poor social environments that have gonne through a drug recuperation program. These people provide the teenagers with contention and guidance to help them start a new life in society. A titanic job.In December 2005, I was invited to share my story with a small group of these youngsters. They heard my story with rapt attention, but what they also valued is that I dedicated part of my time to spend with them one entire evening. They realized that ordeals happen to everyone, even to those who seem to have a happy and successful life. Their stories were also awesome; one of them had lost one of his ears to the bite of a pork when he was a toddler. They all had incredible tough personal experiences, but they were very glad to realize that theirs were not the only ones, and that it is possible to come back.


The Woman in the Mountains

But then the episode of the woman in the mountains happened. I was in a business trip with my wife Noelle, we were in the area close to where we had crashed in the mountains. One of our guides was a woman in her 40s. She came to me and told us that her only child had committed suicide, and the only reason why she was alive, was because our history had inspired her hope. If we overcame our mountain, she would overcome hers. I was confused and almost told her that I wasn’t any role model and that I didn´t have anything to do with her personal disgrace. But I let her go with our story, if our story would inspire her so much hope and meant the difference between life and death, it wasn’t the one to take her back to brutal reality. I started to realize again that our story is quite a strong one and that it can inspire others beyond our personal life!!

Cartagena, Colombia

A few weeks later, my friend Claudio, who heads one of the top leading Head Hunters firms, called me to ask me for a reference on Fernando Parrado as a speaker. He was intending to hire him as a key notes speaker for the senior partners meeting of his firm to be held in Athens later that year. During the conversation, at some point I thought Claudio would be interested in having me as a speaker in such an important meeting. But Claudio was clear, Parrado had his talks very well organized and he couldn’t take the chance of hiring someone who hadn’t started talking yet. Going to Athens to speak to the partners of such a prestigious firm was a nice challenge. Parrado got the job and he did a great presentation. But I started to think about it. So, when two months later I received a call from someone in Colombia asking for a reference for someone willing to go to Cartagena and address a group of Traumatologists, I said I would go.

And that is how I showed up in Colombia, talking openly to complete strangers for the first time in my life. It was a nice experience and I enjoyed it very much. I learned a lot from my Colombian experience, nevertheless I just don’t want to present my experience in the Andes as an isolated life experience. I did a lot of other things in my life and I think I can add a unique value to the leanings of my ordeal.

Bogotá, Colombia

When I went to Cartagena, Colombia, to address the Traumatologists, I made a stop over in Bogotá where my brother Santiago lives. His daughter Alejandra, a beautiful 15 year-old girl, had invited me to speak to her school class mates. The 15 year old girls waited for me with their homework done, they all had read the book Alive in their English class and they had very profound and serious questions. They even confronted me to what I said in the book!!! After my presentation, they discussed among themselves the meanings of my message. I was really very impressed. It was a marvelous event and I really enjoyed talking to this group

El Documental (De nuevo)

Por muchos años, guardé la historia de nuestra odisea para mí y mi familia. Solo unos pocos amigos muy cercanos me habían escuchado hablar sobre ella. Pero no porque tuviera algún problema en particular para hablar, sino porque estaba muy ocupado trabajando, haciendo mi carrera corporativa, criando mi familia y observando con algo de disgusto a mis compañeros sobrevivientes hablar sobre ella. Encima, pensaba además que nuestra historia no tenía demasiadas aristas particulares.

Pero las cosas empezaron a cambiar. No recuerdo exactamente como pasó, pero paso a paso, me encontré hablando a pequeños grupos de adolescentes que se juntaban alrededor de mi historia. Después, Gonzalo Arijón se presentó con su proyecto de un nuevo documental sobre el tema de los Andes. Le dije que no, pero como insistió mucho, le pregunté a mis hermanos y a mis hijos qué pensarían si yo participaba de este nuevo documental. Y para mi sorpresa, encontré que querían oírme, que querían saber qué tenia yo que decir sobre la montaña.

La verdad es que disfruté participando del documental de Arijón y más tarde del libro de Pablo Vierci que no ha sido publicado aún, en el que cada uno de los 16 sobrevivientes da su versión de lo que vivimos allí arriba y cómo nos hemos arreglado después en la vida.

Pero la verdad es que la montaña aparece con una fuerza increíble. Cuando hablo de ella siento una enorme energía y vitalidad. Me siento 100% vivo. Cuando hablo, siento que mi mensaje de esperanza toca a mucha gente. Por eso hablo ahora.


La Urdimbre

Marcelo Serantes siempre ha mostrado un verdadero interés en nuestra experiencia y siempre me ha alentado a hablar sobre ella. El piensa que el mensaje es muy fuerte y muy en línea con los ideales Cristianos. El me presentó a la gente de la Urdimbre. Son muchachos increíbles. La Urdimbre es una organización que se ocupa de adolescentes de origen muy humilde que han terminado un programa de recuperación de su adicción a las drogas. Esta gente les ofrece a estos adolescentes contención y guía de cómo empezar de nuevo en la sociedad. Un trabajo bien difícil.

En Diciembre del 2005, me invitaron a compartir mi historia con un pequeño grupo de estos chicos. Escucharon mi historia con increíble atención y creo que también valoraron que me haya tomado el tiempo de compartir con ellos una tarde completa. Se dieron cuenta que tragedias le ocurren a cualquiera, aún a aquellos que parecieran tener una vida exitosa. Sus historias eran impresionantes, uno de ellos había perdido una de sus orejas mordido por un cerdo cuando era pequeño. Todos tenía tremendas historias personales, pero estaban contentos de saber de que las de ellos no eran las únicas, y que además se puede volver a empezar.


La Mujer en la Montaña

Después pasó el episodio de la mujer en la montaña. Estaba en un viaje de trabajo con Noelle en el área cercana al lugar en el que habíamos caído en la montaña. Una de nuestras guías era una mujer de unos 40 años. Vino hacia nosotros y nos contó que su único hijo se había suicidado y que la única razón por la que ella seguía viva era porque nuestra historia le inspiraba esperanza. Si nosotros pudimos sobrellevar nuestra montaña, ella podría sobrellevar la de ella. Quedé confundido, y casi le digo que yo no tenía nada que ver con su desgracia personal y que tampoco era un modelo de vida. Pero la dejé ir con nuestra historia. Si nuestra historia le inspiraba a ella tanta esperanza y es la diferencia entre la vida y la muerte, no era yo quien le quitara esa esperanza y la colocara frente de su dura realidad. Empecé nuevamente a reflexionar que nuestra historia es realmente muy fuerte y que puede inspirar a otros más allá de nuestra vida personal.


Cartagena, Colombia

Unas semanas más tarde, mi amigo Claudio que lidera una de las compañías de Búsquedas de Personal más importantes, me llamó para pedirme referencias de Fernando Parrado como conferencista. Pretendía llevarlo como presentador principal a la reunión de socios de su empresa que se iba a desarrollar en Atenas más tarde ese año. Durante la conversación, en algún momento pensé que Claudio me quería llevar a mí como conferencista a esa reunión tan importante. Pero Claudio fue claro, Parrado tiene sus charlas muy organizadas y él no podría correr el riesgo de contratar a alguien que no ha comenzado a hablar todavía. Parrado realizó ese trabajó y tuvo un gran éxito. Pero yo comencé a pensar sobre ello. Así que dos meses después recibí una llamada de alguien en Colombia pidiendo una referencia de alguno que quisiera ir a dar una charla a Cartagena a hablar a un grupo de Traumatólogos. Y contesté que yo iría.

Y así fue como aparecí en Colombia, hablando abiertamente a desconocidos por primera vez en mi vida. Fue una buena experiencia y la disfruté mucho. Aprendí mucho de mi experiencia Colombiana, aunque no quiero presentar mi vivencia en los Andes como algo aislado o fuera de contexto. He hecho muchas otras cosas en mi vida y creo que puedo aportar un valor especial a las lecciones de nuestra odisea.


Bogotá, Colombia

Cuando fui a Cartagena, Colombia, ha hablar ante los Traumatólogos, nos quedamos unos días en Bogotá donde vive mi hermano Santiago. Su hija Alejandra, una lindísima chica de 15 años, me había invitado a hablar a su clase del colegio. Las chicas de 15 años me esperaban con sus deberes hechos, todas habían leído el libro “Viven” en su clase de inglés y tenían preparadas varias preguntas muy serias y profundas. Incluso me confrontaron con lo que yo había dicho en el libro!!!!!! Después de mi presentación, discutieron entre ellas el significado de mi mensaje. Quedé muy impresionado. Fue un evento maravilloso y disfruté mucho conversar con ese grupo de adolescentes.

Stranded, The Documentary

Two years ago, Gonzalo Arijón, a Uruguayan film maker, asked me to participate in a new documentary. As I had always done, I turned him down because I thought nothing more could be said about our odyssey. He insisted, so I asked my brothers and my children what they thought about it. To my surprise, they all wanted to hear my testimony. I had been silent for so long.!

So, I participated in Arijon´s documentary, and actually I enjoyed doing it. And participating in this documentary was one of the events that made me abandon my stubborn rejection to share my mountain with others.

When I finally saw an advance of the documentary, I didn´t like it that much. I thought it was a little boring, rather long, and technically weak. On top of that, my participation in the film is very small indeed. Arijón insisted with his work, he fought hard to deliver it, he ran out of cash and his sponsors were uneasy. I thought he was not going to make it.

But now, Chapeau!!!!! Stranded won the Joris Ivnes Award at the International Documentary Film Festival at Amsterdam and is being presented at the Sundance Film Festival these days with chances of winning a new award. What an accomplishment!!.

To be honest, I didn´t have faith in Arijón´s film success. I recognize my mistake and now I strongly congratulate Arijón and all those who believed in his film from the onset. The Joris Ivnes Award is already a tremendous recognition and he is just starting his road show.

Watch Trailer

Shackleton

I have just read a book about Shackleton. He and 27 more men tried to walk across the South Pole from one sea to the other. When they were getting to the South Pole in 1915 on their ship "Endurance", the freezing sea caught the "Endurance" in the ice until it was broken up by the enourmous pressure of the ice on the ship. Shackleton and his men lived for almost two years adrift hopping from one iceberg to another, feeding on seals and penguins. Finally, Shackleton and two more men sailed a small boat for more than 3000 miles until they got to an island from where all his men were rescued.

It is an amazing story, they all came back!. Shackleton died a few years later, but most of his men lived long lives, and many spent a lot of their time speaking about their ordeal.

Shackelton people chose to go on that trip, and they knew it was going to be dangerous and demanding, they even knew they would be talking about it since most of their adventure was well depicted by a photographer who was part of the expedition. Shackleton always led the group with handfist, he was a strong and dedicated leader.

We were not prepared for our ordeal, we didn´t have a strong formal leadership structure, we didn´t know where we were, we didn´t have any mountain experience, but as Shackleton´s people, we are very happy to have survived our ordeal, and we enjoy talking about it.

But I am sure that for every Shackleton and for every "Alive" experiences, there are plenty of other human ordeals of which their survivors don´t want to talk about it. Just think about war, on concentration camps, famine situations in Africa, or the most recent Colombian kidnaps, how many extreme episodes still do occur!! And those who survive them, do not talk about them, they just can´t open their heart and memories to others and simply look ahead.

Why is that? What makes our story so unique?

Stanford, December 5th

When I went through my MBA at Stanford University I didn’t talk openly about my Andes ordeal. Although I have to admit that I stated it in my Application Form. But no one ever asked me about it, no one brought up the issue to me, and very seldom any one did later in my life.

When we came back from the 25th annual reunion, I sent an e mail to the Life Long Learning people telling them about my case. I told them that now I was willing to talk, that I wanted to conceptualize more what had happened to me 35 years before in order to find out the lessons that could be drawn from my ordeal. Their reaction was immediate; they asked me to be interviewed for the next GSB Magazine, they invited me to talk to students and alumni at the GSB and asked me to participate as a judge in the Executive Experience, organized by the Center for Leadership and Research, an activity within the new curricula for MBA students.

Everything went fine; my presentation was attended by a nice group of my class of 82, eager to know more about my story of which they had only heard rumors. The interview is expected to appear in the next March issue of the GSB Magazine and the Executive Experience was a great experience for me too.

In my presentation, I was asked a difficult question. Someone mentioned a quote in Jim Collins´ book, “Good to Great”, relating the attitude of soldiers in war to the fact that they might come back or not. Did the ones that came back from our mountain have a different attitude from those who didn’t come back? I think that that was not our case, because what I saw was that as long we were alive and we had hope to make it through we all fought to survive. Implying that those who didn’t come back did not have the right attitude was not true in our case, because some of the most optimistic and inspiring guys, boys that would have helped a lot because of their strength and willingness to survive, happened to be sitting in the wrong place the day we crashed in the mountains, happened to be sleeping in the wrong place the night of the avalanche, and they did not come back.

At Stanford, everything went well and my classmates were impressed by the fact that I didn’t talk about my ordeal for so long. They really appreciated the fact that I was opening my story to them. Upon my return home, the Stanford University invited me to participate in an Alumni meeting to be held next February in London. In this meeting I will be sharing my presentation with Prof. Charles O´Reilly, the top big shot in Human Resources at Stanford! What an honor. There we go, London!!!!

Dallas, December 2nd

Victor Arias and Johnny Williams were one of my closest friends at Stanford. We spent a good time there and also when we met at our GSB 25th alumni meeting. But I never imagined they were going to be so important for me when they encouraged me to start talking about my old ordeal. So, that is why I went to Dallas, to visit them. I spent a weekend with their families and gave a lecture at their Church. Again, I was very impressed by the religiosity and piousness of their lives. Both have lovely families, with nice wives and beautiful children. Johnny and Cecy, have 9 children!

The day I arrived they took me to an Alejandro Sanz´s concert. I felt very much at home. We really enjoyed it very much. The next day, I gave a lecture at their Church Group. Again, lots of families, a great audience that listened to my story with awe and impression.

Victor and Johnny were very helpful; they strongly recommended me to continue speaking, “touching people´s hearts”, improving the support of my presentation, and actually taking the audience to the place of the accident. I will consider many of their recommendations. Anyway, I feel the power of my message is myself as a ordinary guy, who has been able to live an ordinary life out of an extraordinary experience. They suggested me I move to Dallas, which I appreciate although I don´t think I will. They also recommended me to hire an Agent, which I might.

Harvard, November 28th

Bill George is a great professor at Harvard University; he has written a tremendous book named “True North, Discover your Authentic Leadership”. But basically he is a great and generous person. I like what he says about being ready to follow your own and authentic leadership, and that you will find your authentic leadership looking into your own story. It is when you are full of energy and vitality, your internal compass is heading towards your true north and therefore you are being authentic to your own leadership. And that helped me to understand my own leadership style, why I enjoyed so much working with people, taking care of them, empowering people and helping them to their success. Bill George says that one thing is to become a leader; another is to become a hero. Thinking about my corporate life, I have been a good leader, but not a hero. I just made groups work. When I was asked to do heroic things, I was not necessarily a good hero. Look, I didn’t leave the mountain walking, I didn’t put the group on my back and went for help. Roberto and Nando did it. I stayed with the rest of the group, trying to contribute with what I could, although I was prepared to leave walking in the next expedition should Nando and Roberto fail.


In some way, I´ve been in the mountain the kind of leader I´ve been later in my life.

Bill George invited me to address his class at Harvard, which was for me a great honor. The presentation was very good, a large attendance, students and staff from other schools and from an enormous variety of origins such as India, Pakistan, Iraq, Peru, England, Argentina and of course, some locals. There were over 150 people sitting in the formal and majestic Harvard setting. The Harvard Students listened to my story with rapt attention, and finally they closed the meeting with the biggest standing ovation I have ever had.

Later, Bill George sent me a feedback. He said his students were “spellbound” by my remarks and that they rated my presentation as the best in their semester, even better than those of very well known CEOs and professional speakers. What an accomplishment!!

New Jersey, November 26

Last June, Noelle and I went to Stanford to attend our MBA 25th year reunion. One of the most outstanding moments was when Mike O’Brien, who had survived the Twin Towers attack on September 11th, stood up in front of the entire class and with enormous courage told us all what he had been through since that date. When he finished his speech, I approached him and said. “I want to tell you my story”, which I did. I thought that sharing my story with him would help us both see life with hindsight. I was eager to show him that 35 years after my ordeal, I was totally recovered and that I had been able to live an “ordinary life”. I told him that when I came to Stanford for my MBA, that was too fresh for me, I just couldn’t share it the way he had just done it.

And when I got back home, I sent him an email saying that if he wanted, I would go to New York, and share my story with his people. I really wanted to do it. And that is why we got to New Jersey, where Mike and his great family live. And we learned so much from him and his family. When they say they have Jesus in the center of their life, they really mean it. I was impressed by their children, young teenagers, so mature and so honest with their religion.

I gave a lecture at his Church. There were about 150 men and women who came to listen to my story. They listened in silence, shocked and with enormous interest. When I finished, I started answering questions.Then Mike invited them to discuss my testimony in small groups and to share their thoughts. They were all very inspiring. I remember they were touched by my remark that “after climbing a mountain we had another one to climb, and that is what life is all about.”

I finally asked Mike to tell me what he had learned after his own ordeal, and he said to me: “that we are not here for ever”. I was expecting a very complex and sophisticated thought, but I loved his answer, it is so compelling, it says so much.