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Leading In The Face Of Disaster
The date was Saturday, April 11, 1970, the time 13:13 CST. The event to take place was to be one of NASA's finest hours; the launch of Apollo 13. Apollo 13 was supposed to land in the Fra Mauro area. However, an explosion on board forced the crew to circle the moon without landing. The first two days the crew ran into a couple of minor surprises, but generally Apollo 13 was looking like the smoothest flight of the program. At 46 hours, 43 minutes Joe Kerwin, the CapCom on duty, said, "The spacecraft is in real good shape as far as we are concerned." At 55 hours, 46 minutes, the crew finished a 49-minute TV broadcast showing how comfortably they lived and worked in weightlessness. Nine minutes later, oxygen tank No. 2 blew up, causing the No. 1 tank also to fail. The message came in the form of a sharp bang and vibration. Next, the warning lights indicated the loss of two of Apollo 13's three fuel cells, which were the spacecrafts prime source of electricity. Then, the crew aboard the spaceship, and the entire NASA staff spent the next 5 Days, 22 hours, 54 min, 41 seconds working to get the three-man crew back to earth. In the midst of this disaster this team of NASA employees demonstrated some leadership lessons that we can apply to our organizations (and lives) today. 1. You must be committed regardless - It has been said, "Teamwork is what makes the dream work." A group of people working as one will usually get the job done and come out on top. This team of NASA employees could not be any more diverse. Upon reviewing the team you see they are different in every way but one. They were different in age, education, experience, and agenda. But they all were committed to getting that spaceship back to earth in one piece and the crew back alive. Each team member demonstrated 100% commitment to his/her area of responsibility. In a time of disaster or crisis you simply don't have time for diversions showing up in the form of team members trying to fulfill their own selfish agendas. - Leadership lesson: Refuse to lose. 2. You must be willing to do what has never been done before - CapCom, the person responsible for the success of the mission, had to keep his staff believing they would not lose those astronauts aboard Apollo 13. His commitment was tested a few different times when his top leaders, letting human nature get the better of them, began to talk about the odds of getting those men back alive. As soon as he quickly put an end to this talk, his leadership skills were again tested with challenges such as the lack of power, oxygen, or water aboard the spaceship. As human beings it is easy for us to get comfortable and to settle for "what we have always done." For your organization to excel past all others you must be willing to think outside the box. One such organization is the Natural Resource Network (NRN). This small organization is taking the nation by storm revolutionizing the small home-business concept. It used to be that if you wanted a small home-business to make a few extra dollars you had to get a "kit" and hit the road selling some product to every relative, friend, and enemy you could find. Since most people don't enjoy this type of selling NRN is developing a way to have professional marketing agencies obtain customers for you. Your part is then to service that customer with the goods and services they need and want. - Leadership lesson: Thinking outside the box. 3. You must be willing to look at your job and organization in a totally new way. NASA had to look at space flight, specifically this flight, in a totally new way. Not being willing would have ended in the death of those three astronauts. It is certain that your organization (even your life) will face challenges this year. How you view these challenges will determine your future success. While at the same time, how you view your organization (the values, vision, and mission) will determine its success. - Leadership lesson: Your focus must be flexible in order to have your preferred future Next month's edition of Footprints and Monuments will explore in detail what it means to have a committed team that refuses to lose, a team that constantly thinks outside the box, with a focus on a preferred future. Footprints and Monuments is a free monthly leadership and motivational e-newsletter. No names receiving this e-newsletter are sold or distributed to any other source. You are encouraged to forward this monthly article to anyone in your address book. To un-subscribe please reply back with "Un-subscribe" in the subject field. About The Author Jeff Earlywine
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Coaching Partnership: Choose It or Lose It Charlotte decides to do good. Charlotte is a highly motivated worker. Something has been bothering her lately, something about the structure of the work flow that's causing redundancy, misallocation of resources, costly errors, and diminished productivity. On her own she does a careful study of the situation and convinced that she is on to something, she spends her evenings writing a detailed report that includes her observations, the apparent costs to the system, evidence of mismanagement (she is a bit caustic here), her vision of how the work flow should be structured, along with the steps she feels would turn things around and assure success. In the end, this is a detailed report, meticulously done, twenty-five single-spaced pages, with charts and graphs. Charlotte is proud of her work, the fact that she did this at her own initiative and on her own time, and she is truly excited about making a positive contribution to the organization. Charlotte finishes her report and sends it to the company president. And then she waits. And she waits. Certainly there will be a phone call, a meeting, some acknowledgment of her contribution, a bonus maybe, even a promotion wouldn't be out of the question. Something. But nothing comes. A week goes by. Two weeks. Still nothing. Hope wanes, and a bitterness begins to settle in. Those executives, she thinks, they go off to these programs on partnership or leadership or empowerment; they learn all the right words, but in the end it doesn't mean anything. It's more of the same old arrogance of top management. They really don't care. And this marks the end of Charlotte as a highly motivated worker. She is angry; she has her evaluations (all negative) of the president; she is feeling very righteous -- I did the right thing and what did it get me? -- and she has lost interest in pursuing her productivity project. What's the point? she asks. That's the last time I'll go out of my way for this company, A Leader?s Ultimate Goal Connect to Engage! Connect and Engage! Your People Are Your Power. Having Fun In Leadership "Don't measure your life by your goals, but rather by what you are DOING to achieve them." ?Unknown Tough Times Demand Resilient Leaders The stock market gyrates with unpredictable and heartburning results. Icons of solid companies become straw figures before balance sheets. Children are abducted from their front yards and networks of terrorists spiral throughout the world. Religious institutions cast shadows of duplicity while El Nino brings strange fish to the California coasts and out-of-control fires head toward ancient Sequoias. 3 Es For Leaders - Engage, Empower, Encourage! "Enflamed with the study of learning and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave... and worthy..., dear to God, and famous to all ages." - John Milton What Does Exceptional Business Success Require of Us? To excel in business we need conscious command of all our faculties, mind, body and heart to ensure our work/life balance. Then we can seize the moment of opportunity and create exceptional results. Dont Be a Complainer Complaining. There's room for legitimate complaining, but if you let this deadly disease of attitude - complaining loose, it will conquer you. Complaining can take over your life. Destroy you and leave you without anything. Heres The REAL Reason Bush Won: The Dark Night Of The Leadership Soul George Bush won the election because he was finally able to break out of the presidential bubble and give "leadership talks" on a consistent basis. The Defining Moment: The Straw That Stirs The Drink Of Motivational Leadership (Part Two) In Part One, I described the importance of establishing deep, human connections with people you lead. I said there were three ways to do that, by communicating information, by making sense, and by having your experience become their experiences. By far, the most important and most effective way, is the latter. In Leadership, The Eight Ways Of Right Action (Part 2) In Part 1, I said that leaders who can't have people take right action are ineffective, and I listed four of the eight ways of right action. In Part 2, I'll describe the remaining four ways. The Seven Army Values - Theyre Not Just For The Military The Army defines seven values that soldiers should strive to emulate in their daily lives. These core values establish a standard of conduct; they form the foundation of personal behavior that defines the person, as well as the expectations soldiers have of one another. These values are Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage. Leadership Challenges: The Walls In Our Lives We have all experienced walls or challenges in our work lives. How you handle the walls may be a defining point in your leadership and your career. There are a variety of ways to attach these walls some more effective than others. Leadership and Change in a Holographic Universe Have you ever noticed that since the early part of the 20th century, nearly every new scientific theory manages to sound more and more like the same sort of metaphysical philosophies science once dismissed? Well, it's happening again and this time our views on the structure of the universe, the power of human consciousness and even the nature of reality itself are being challenged by a startling new finding: that many hard to explain events and scientific puzzles become suddenly clear and easily understood if we consider that everything we see and experience around us is not in fact a physical reality, but rather our own interpretation of an infinitely large, dynamic and multidimensional hologram, constructed by and interpreted through our own consciousness. The Flexible Leadership Workshop The Leadership Challenge BIG-3 Leadership! "Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends." - Walt Disney Professional Organizations: Join or Fold? All of us join professional organizations for a reason--a friend belongs, we need to for credibility, etc. Many times we let years slide by and we don't stop and review those reasons. Unless something sets off a boundary--lack of funds, the organization runs itself into a ditch, or a leadership problem. What Makes A Good Leader? Ask Uncle Sam What do the major generals who are leading the war efforts in Iraq have in common with executives and entrepreneurs who are conducting business back home? When it comes to leadership, the answer is probably a lot more than you think. Evil, Hostile Grumpy Listeners? Think Again I hated Kyle Sisk*. A notorious bully, Kyle punctuated my grade school years with misery. He would tease me about my weight, purposely rattle me with shocking language, delight in making me look foolish at every opportunity. Kyle had scary, penetrating eyes and sharp, jagged teeth that looked, appropriately, like fangs. He even had his own evil henchman named Eddie who would follow him everywhere, laughing a conspiratorial little laugh asking, "Heh, heh, what are we going to do next, Kyle? Heh, heh." (All Eddie was missing was a hump.) A typical encounter was the time I was walking home from school and Kyle and Eddie pounced from behind some bushes, grabbed my books and threw them in the mud. Even worse, they snatched my precious, brand new little purse and threw it into the branches of a tree, far out of reach. They then ran off cackling in triumph. I, purseless, limped home in tears. 10 Attributes of Effective Strategic Leaders! Did you know that people who lead strategically resemble fine-tuned machines? By focusing on their strategies, leaders see a bigger picture, they understand the reasons why and recognize the worthiness of elusive opportunities. The Challenge to Lead The topic of leadership has been and continues to be one of the most vital topics in human history. From ancient civilizations to modern day multi-national corporations, men and women of passion, fervor and zeal have sought to discover the secrets of moving others beyond the gray of their mundane reality to the rich array of colors that embody the palate of the extraordinary life.
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