"Remote" Learning: Wharton EMBA Students Talk about Leadership Venture in Antarctica

Shea, along with several EMBA classmates and full-time MBA students, recently returned from the Wharton Leadership Venture in Antarctica. We asked the EMBA students to share some of the highlights of their experience. Here’s what Shea, a member of the corporate development group at Intel, had to say: “I don’t want to spill the beans and ruin all the fun for future participants by saying exactly what we did during the venture so I’ll just say that the structure of any given day was loosely defined. Each team had to figure out what had to be done, how they were going to do it, and in what time frame.

“You start to learn things about leadership when you are so highly dependent on your team in this type of environment. Authoritative rule doesn’t do you any favors because if your team doesn’t perform, there is no comfort you can retreat back to. If they don’t perform, you are hungry, cold, or don’t have a tent set up.

“If you like challenge and adventure, this is a fantastic experience. The fact that Wharton takes this type of experience so seriously and puts an emphasis on doing it right is a reflection of what a great school it is.”

Second-year Philadelphia EMBA student Jason Shapiro recalls, “When you get there, it’s surreal. The sun is shining, it’s freezing, there are glaciers and you realize this is not National Geographic. It’s real! You take pictures, but the pictures don’t do it justice at all.

“A big lesson that I learned during the venture is that good leaders don’t always make the big decisions. They make good little decisions to help prevent having to make big decisions. By thinking proactively, you make sure you don’t put yourself in bad predicaments. For example, during the venture you plan ahead with extra batteries because the GPS will die in the middle of the mountain. All of the things that can go wrong will go wrong and this was not a forgiving environment.”

Philadelphia second-year EMBA student Priyaa Raman, a vice president at Goldman Sachs, says New Year’s Eve was her most memorable moment in Antarctica. “We were in one of the most remote camp areas that night. To get there, we had to cross over a glacier. My team had a lot of fun, but also faced a lot of challenges. Apart from the glacier, we got stuck in the mud and were afterward baptized the ‘Mud Team.’ But that made it all the more triumphant that we could get over that in good spirits and be stronger for it. We celebrated New Year’s Eve that night even more and the seals close to our tent added to the magic of the moment.

“As for leadership lessons, I learned to be more calm in a crisis situation and more attentive to what others are saying. The guides on the venture don’t tell you what to do. They do the behind the scenes work, nudging you along, but it’s never direct directions. It all comes from your team. You are in the wild, you don’t know the terrain and everyone reacts differently. It’s a spectacular opportunity and it would be a travesty to forget the lessons learned.”

Avi Borthakur, a second-year EMBA student in San Francisco and director of development at Oracle Corp., adds, “To go into this physically challenging environment and rely on a group of people you’ve just met and create a successful and sustainable team that stays intact and motivated was very interesting. I would absolutely do this again and recommend it for other EMBA students!”