In the first edition of this book, I retold Don Berwick’s story of how Phil
Ershler, a world-class mountaineer, taught a group of climbers “how to
walk and how to breathe” to illustrate my point that managers need to learn
the difference between methods and results and that this book was about
methods.
As the story goes, Berwick and a group of climbers met Phil Ershler,
who has stood on the summits of Mount Everest and K2. Ershler was to
guide Berwick and the group on their climb to Mount Rainier, which is no
Everest but is a serious mountain nonetheless. Although Berwick had climbed
Mount Rainier several times before, he arrived at the top exhausted each
time. Now Ershler was the guide on his fourth climb. Before the climb,
Ershler said he was first going to teach the group “how to walk and how
to breathe.” Berwick “thought he was crazy,” and the group laughed, saying,
“We are here to learn technique… not walking and breathing!” Six
hours into the climb, Berwick and the group were no longer laughing, as
“Phil had done exactly what he said.”