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Wally Bock's Supervisory Leadership Tips The Apollo Principles
A real rocket scientist, Werner von Braun, described the difficulty of sending a human being to the moon this way: "It's like hitting a bumblebee with a shot from an air rifle while you're riding on a merry-go-round."
Even though the moon is a pretty big target, it's a long way away. Not only that, everything, the moon, the earth and the spacecraft - is moving very, very fast. Being off course by only a fraction of a degree might mean an unscheduled trip to interstellar space, leaving the moon and the safety of earth far behind.
Despite the difficulty, the American Space Program managed to put human beings on the moon and bring them back safely, not once but several times. How did they do that?
One of the secrets was small course corrections. If you fired that bb out of the air rifle, once it left the muzzle, there was no control. But there was control on the rockets carrying the Apollo astronauts. So, frequently, ground controllers would adjust the course to make sure that the astronauts wound up where they were supposed to. Some observers have said that the Apollo missions were off course far more than they were on course.
If you want to get where you are going, either to a physical destination or to a goal or to a performance target for a subordinate, there are some things you can learn from the Apollo program.
First, it helps to know where you are going. The moon's a pretty big, clear target. Your target should be big and clear, too.
Next, make sure everyone else knows where you are going. It wouldn't have done to have the controllers with one objective and the astronauts with another and the politicians with a third. Get everybody onboard. Make sure everyone has the same goal.
Plan well. The planning for the Apollo missions was some of the most complex ever up to that time. Rigorous, realistic planning makes it far more likely you'll hit the target you want.
Make small course corrections. Lots of small changes in direction are much easier to do and much more likely to result in success than fewer big-course corrections.
No matter what you're shooting for, having a clear goal, effective planning, and lots of small course corrections will make it more likely that you'll be successful.
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