Jeff Appelquist and Jack Uldrich are accomplished business guys with diverse experience whose careers partly focus on learning from history to navigate the future and applying the lessons to your enterprise.
Appelquist, a lawyer and former Target and Best Buy manager, and Uldrich, a business consultant and futurist who once was state planning commissioner, are also former military officers and award-winning writers. Their latest initiative helps business people anticipate change and learn leadership by studying the great journey into the northwest territories by Lewis and Clark in 1804-06.
This course is based on Uldrich's 2004 book, "Into the Unknown: Leadership Lessons from Lewis & Clark's Daring Westward Expedition."
That work distilled important aspects of Lewis and Clark's journey and challenges, from maintaining morale amid uncertainty and fear to dealing with diverse people, including a female American Indian guide.
Lewis and Clark failed their original objective to find a water passage to the Pacific. But they gave America more in terms of science, geography and how understanding and respect can lead to good relationships with Indians. We sure didn't heed those lessons later in the 19th century.
"They failed in their primary purpose to find the Northwest Passage," said Appelquist. "But they had a common purpose, and they were adaptable."
They mapped the great unknown territory of the West to the Pacific Ocean through a grueling monthslong sail that started on the Missouri River. They traversed by boat and foot 8,000 miles over 863 days, cataloging flora and fauna and encountering, mostly in peace, 70-plus Indian tribes.
"It was the 19th-century equivalent of putting a man on the moon," Appelquist said. "It was a metaphor for venturing into the unknown, what every business organization has to do, whether they like it or not."
Appelquist, 58, a Marine infantry officer after graduating from Carleton College, was the Minnesota Book Award business winner in 2010 for "Leadership Lessons from Gettysburg & the Little Bighorn," which examined those two pivotal battles in the context of business management. Suffice to say, Gens. Lee and Custer were not good listeners in the events that led up to these battles. And Appelquist has taken business groups to both sites over the years.
Uldrich, 52, and Appelquist recently returned with a crew of about 25 managers from Denver-based Farm Credit Corp. for a study of the Lewis and Clark expedition near Great Falls, Mont. They have another business group heading out in September.
The cost typically runs from $50,000 to $75,000 for a large group. And the reviews have been good, often besting the typical retreat at a golf resort. And few are better students than these experienced writers of the connections between pivotal moments in U.S. history, the implications and lessons, and how they can be applied by business to avoid the same mistakes today.
Uldrich, a former Navy intelligence officer who once was Minnesota's chief planning officer, is a popular speaker who has written interesting books ranging from the future of nanotechnology to Gen. George C. Marshall, the soldier-statesman of World War II.
Lewis and Clark were old-school military officers, but they put together a diverse team, and west of Fort Mandan, N.D., they were "flexible about discipline and more about encouragement and reward," Uldrich said.
"They took rational risks, hedged their bets, sometimes went backward to take stock," he said. "They reached the headwaters of the Missouri, and they were fired up. They expected to see a river … to the West Coast. All they saw was hundreds of miles of mountains. There are moments of truth for every corporation. Remember Blockbuster, Kodak and the hotel industry facing Airbnb. Yahoo was once valued at $25 billion, and now it's selling for $5 billion."
The well-paid leaders of those businesses didn't do a great job navigating the future before they started their declines.
Neal St. Anthony has been a Star Tribune business columnist and reporter since 1984. He can be contacted at nstanthony@startribune.com.
