Crazy People!

National will

I "lifted" the following text directly from the NASA History Office archives. Titled "The Decision to Go to the Moon: President John F. Kennedy's May 25, 1961 Speech before a Joint Session of Congress," it's worth reading today at a time when we face so many challenges.

On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced before a special joint session of Congress the dramatic and ambitious goal of sending an American safely to the Moon before the end of the decade. A number of political factors affected Kennedy's decision and the timing of it. In general, Kennedy felt great pressure to have the United States "catch up to and overtake" the Soviet Union in the "space race." Four years after the Sputnik shock of 1957, the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had become the first human in space on April 12, 1961, greatly embarrassing the U.S.

While Alan Shepard became the first American in space on May 5, he only flew on a short suborbital flight instead of orbiting the Earth, as Gagarin had done. In addition, the Bay of Pigs fiasco in mid-April put unquantifiable pressure on Kennedy. He wanted to announce a program that the U.S. had a strong chance at achieving before the Soviet Union.

After consulting with Vice President Johnson, NASA Administrator James Webb, and other officials, he concluded that landing an American on the Moon would be a very challenging technological feat, but an area of space exploration in which the U.S. actually had a potential lead. Thus the cold war is the primary contextual lens through which many historians now view Kennedy's speech.

The decision involved much consideration before making it public, as well as enormous human efforts and expenditures to make what became Project Apollo a reality by 1969. Only the construction of the Panama Canal in modern peacetime and the Manhattan Project in war were comparable in scope. NASA's overall human spaceflight efforts were guided by Kennedy's speech; Projects Mercury (at least in its latter stages), Gemini, and Apollo were designed to execute Kennedy's goal. His goal was achieved on July 20, 1969, when Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong stepped off the Lunar Module's ladder and onto the Moon's surface.



I thought of this historic speech and all of the accomplishments that followed its vision as I watched the bp oil spill continue to assault the Gulf of Mexico. Whenever I hear people say that alternative energy is "impossible" or "impractical" or "not going to happen" for this reason or that, I think of Kennedy, his leadership and his outrageous vision.

If, as a people, we were willing to sacrifice during the retooling period, our economy could shift to alternative sources of energy development and we could become more green, more fully employed and more secure as a people.

To say that "it can't be done" is to say more about ourselves as a people than about what is technologically possible. A new visionary policy, complete with incentives and tax credits, could spawn an entire new economy that would lead us in a much more sustainable direction.

Kennedy saw this when he looked up at the moon. Growing numbers of us can see it as we watch our devastated Gulf marshes, shores, friends and wildlife.

Creativity and impact. . .

Colin Powell on Leadership

Leadership lesson #18  "Command is lonely."

Harry Truman was right.  Whether you're a CEO or the temporary head of a project team, the buck stops here.  You can encourage participative management and bottom-up employee involvement, but ultimately the essence of leadership is the willingness to make the tough, unambiguous choices that will have an impact on the fate of the organization.  I've seen too many non-leaders flinch from this responsibility.  Even as you create an informal, open, collaborative corporate culture, prepare to be lonely. 

Colin Powell on Leadership

Leadership Lesson #17

"Have fun in your command.  Don't always run at a breakneck pace.  Take leave when you've earned it:  Spend time with your families.  Corollary: surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard."

Herb Kelleher of Southwest Air and Anita Roddick of The Body Shop would agree:  seek people who have some balance in their lives, who are fun to hang out with, who like to laugh (at themselves, too) and who have some non-job priorities which they approach with the same passion that they do their work.  Spare me the grim workaholic or the pompous pretentious "professional;" Ill them find jobs with my competitor. 

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson #16  The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise.

Too often, the reverse defines corporate culture.  This is one of the main reasons why leaders like Ken Iverson of Nucor Steel, Percy Barnevik of Asea Brown Boveri, and Richard Branson of Virgin have kept their corporate staffs to a bare-bones minimum-how about fewer than 100 central corporate staffers for global $30 billion-plus ABB? Or around 25 and 3 for multi-billion Nucor and Virgin, respectively?  Shift the power and the financial accountability to the folks who are bringing in the beans, not the ones who are counting or analyzing them.

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson # 15:  Part I:  Use the P=40 to 70 in which P stands for the probability of success and the numbers indicate the percentage of information acquired.    Part II:  Once the information is in the 40 to 70 range, go with your gut.

Don't take action if you have only enough information to give you less than a 40 percent chance of being right, but don't wait until you have enough facts to be 100 percent sure, because by then it is almost always too late.  Today, excessive delays in the name of information-gathering breeds "analysis paralysis."  Procrastination in the name of reducing risk actually increases risk.

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson #14:  Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.

Effective leaders understand the KISS principle, Keep It Simple, Stupid. They articulate vivid, over-arching goals and values, which they use to drive daily behaviors and choices among competing alternatives.  Their visions and priorities are lean and compelling, not cluttered and buzzword-laden.  Their decisions are crisp and clear, not tentative and ambiguous. They convey an unwavering firmness and consistency in their actions, aligned with the picture of the future they paint.  The result:  clarity of purpose, credibility of leadership and integrity in organization.

Certainty's downside

"No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty."

- T.S. Eliot

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson #13 "Powell's Rules for Picking People":  Look for intelligence and judgment, and most critically, a capacity to anticipate, to see around corners.  Also look for loyalty, integrity, a high energy drive, a balanced ego, and the drive to get things done.

How often do our recruitment and hiring processes tap into these attributes?  More often than not, we ignore them in favor of length of resume, degrees and prior titles.  A string of job descriptions a recruit held yesterday seem to be more important than who one is today, what they can contribute tomorrow, or how well their values mesh with those of the organization.  You can train a bright, willing novice in the fundamentals of your business fairly readily, but it's a lot harder to train someone to have integrity, judgment, energy, balance, and the drive to get things done.  Good leaders stack the deck in their favor right in the recruitment phase. 

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson #12  Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

The ripple effect of a leader's enthusiasm and optimism is awesome.  So is the impact of cynicism and pessimism.  Leaders who whine and blame engender those same behaviors among their colleagues.  I am not talking about stoically accepting organizational stupidity and performance incompetence with a "what, me worry?" smile.  I am talking about a gung-ho attitude that says "we can change things here, we can achieve awesome goals, we can be the best."  Spare me the grim litany of "realist," give me the unrealistic aspirations of the optimist any day. 

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson #11 Fit no stereotypes.  Don't chase the latest management fads.  The situation dictates which approach best accomplishes the team's mission.

Flitting from fad to fad creates team confusion, reduces the leader's credibility, and drains organizational coffers.  Blindly following a particular fad generates rigidity in thought and action.  Sometimes speed to market is more important than total quality.  Sometimes an unapologetic directive is more appropriate than participatory discussion.  Some situations require the leader to hover closely; others require long, loose leashes.  Leaders honor their core values, but they are flexible in how they execute them.  They understand that management techniques are not magic mantras but simply tools to be reached for at the right times.

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson #10  Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing.

Organization charts are frozen, anachronistic photos in a work place that ought to be as dynamic as the external environment around you.  If people really followed organization charts, companies would collapse.  In well-run organizations, titles are also pretty meaningless.  At best, they advertise some authority, an official status conferring the ability to give orders and induce obedience.  But titles mean little in terms of real power, which is the capacity to influence and inspire.  Have you ever noticed that people will personally commit to certain individuals who on paper (or on the organization chart) possess little authority, but instead possess pizazz, drive, expertise, and genuine caring for teammates and products?  On the flip side, non-leaders in management may be formally anointed with all the perks and frills associated with high positions, but they have little influence on others, apart from their ability to extract minimal compliance to minimal standards.

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson #9  Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.

Too often, change is stifled by people who cling to familiar turfs and job descriptions.  One reason that even large organizations wither is that managers won't challenge old, comfortable ways of doing things.  But real leaders understand that, nowadays, every one of our jobs is becoming obsolete. The proper response is to obsolete our activities before someone else does.  Effective leaders create a climate where people's worth is determined by their willingness to learn new skills and grab new responsibilities, thus perpetually reinventing their jobs.  The most important question in performance evaluation becomes not, "How well did you perform you job since the last time we met?" but, "How much did you change it?"

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson #8  Organization doesn't really accomplish anything.  Plans don't accomplish anything, either.  Theories of management don't much matter.  Endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved.  Only by attracting the best people will you accomplish great deeds.

In a brain-based economy, your best assets are people.  We've heard this expression so often that it's become trite.  But how many leaders really "walk the talk" with this stuff?  Too often, people are assumed to be empty chess pieces to be moved round by grand viziers, which may explain why so many top managers immerse their calendar time in deal making, restructuring and the latest management fad.  How many immerse themselves in the goal of creating an environment where the best, the brightest, the most creative are attracted, retained and, most importantly, unleashed?

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson #7:  Keep looking below surface appearances.  Don't shrink from doing so (just) because you might not like what you find.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is the slogan of the complacent, the arrogant or the scared.  It's an excuse for inaction, a call to non-arms.  It's a mind-set that assumes (or hopes) that today's realities will continue tomorrow in a tidy, linear and predictable fashion.  Pure fantasy.  In this sort of culture, you won't find people who pro-actively take steps to solve problems as they emerge.  Here's a little tip:  don't invest in these companies.

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson #6:  "You don't know what you can get away with until you try."

You know the expression, "It's easier to get forgiveness than permission."  Well, it's true.  Good leaders don't wait for official blessing to try things out.  They're prudent, not reckless.  But they also realize a fact of life in most organizations:  if you ask enough people for permission, you'll inevitably come up against someone who believes his job is to say "no."  So the moral is, don't ask.  Less effective middle managers endorsed the sentiment, "If I haven't explicitly been told 'yes,' I can't do it," whereas the good ones believed, "If I haven't explicitly been told 'no,' I can."  There's a world of difference between these two points of view.

Colin Powell on leadership

Lesson 5:  "Never neglect details.  When everyone's mind is dulled or distracted, the leader must be doubly vigilant."

Strategy equals execution.  All the great ideas and visions in the world are worthless if they can't

be implemented rapidly and efficiently.  Good leaders delegate and empower others liberally, but they pay attention to details, every day.  (Think about supreme athletic coaches like Jimmy Johnson, Pat Riley and Tony La Russa).  Bad ones, even those who fancy themselves as progressive "visionaries," think they're somehow "above" operational details.  Paradoxically, good leaders understand something else:  an obsessive routine in carrying out the details begets conformity and complacency, which in turn dulls everyone's mind.  That is why even as they pay attention to details, they continually encourage people to challenge the process.  They implicitly understand the sentiment of CEO leaders like Quad Graphics's Harry Quadracchi, Oticon's Lars Koline and the late Bill McGowan of MCI, who all independently asserted that the job of a leader is not to be the chief organizer, but the chief dis-organizer. 

Colin Powell on leadership

Lesson 3:  "Don't be buffaloed by experts and elites.  Experts often possess more data than judgment.  Elites can become so inbred that they produce hemophiliacs who bleed to death as soon as they are nicked by the real world."

Small companies and start-ups don't have the time for analytically detached experts.  They don't have the money to subsidize lofty elites, either.  The president answers the phone and drives the truck when necessary; everyone on the payroll visibly produces and contributes to bottom-line results or they're history.  But as companies get bigger, they often forget who "brought them to the dance":  things like all-hands involvement, egalitarianism, informality, market intimacy, daring, risk, speed, agility.  Policies that emanate from ivory towers often have an adverse impact on the people out in the field who are fighting the wars or bringing in the revenues.  Real leaders are vigilant, and combative, in the face of these trends.

Colin Powell on leadership

Lesson 2:  "The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them.  They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care.  Either case is a failure of leadership."

If this were a litmus test, the majority of CEOs would fail.  One, they build so many barriers to upward communication that the very idea of someone lower in the hierarchy looking up to the leader for help is ludicrous.  Two, the corporate culture they foster often defines asking for help as weakness or failure, so people cover up their gaps, and the organization suffers accordingly.  Real leaders make themselves accessible and available.  They show concern for the efforts and challenges faced by underlings, even as they demand high standards.  Accordingly, they are more likely to create an environment where problem analysis replaces blame.