The Essex: Risks and Leadership

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The greatest risk In the HEART of the SEA The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex was the owners giving George Pollard Jr. the commission of captain. Risk is a measurement of exposure of danger in a situation. Risk is extremely important to understand in a project, management, investments and everyday life situations. As individuals risk can be a choice, such as riding a bike into oncoming traffic or we can be exposed to risk without even knowing, such as the chemical company illegally dumping waste into your drinking water. Understanding risk is an important concept for one to achieve their goals. If one is able to identify risk, the risk itself could be eliminated or reduced for one to have a successful outcome.

The owners of the Essex must have had much success the way they managed their operations considering that the Essex was one of the oldest ships in Nantucket at the time of the final journey of the ship. This leaves little incentive for the owners to invest into the ship or the crew. Risk-taking pays but business should be down with a conscience and a paternalistic employment practices will develop, which will cement loyalty employees. (Matsushita, 1988). When the Essex left port for the last time the ship and crew had probabilities of success stacked against them. “What is bought with money or with goods is purchased by labor, as much as what we acquire by the toil of our own body. They contain the value of a certain quantity of labor which we exchange for what is supposed at the time to contain the value of and equal quantity.” (Smith, 1991). The owners essentially put little value into the captain and the crew from their actions; examples are lack of training of crew, captain and mates, the rundown resources on the ship...

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