"Failure is not an option!"

I can't wait to go see the new Tom Hanks' movie, "Sully."  Tom Hanks is a great actor who has been in a lot of great movies.  I will drop whatever I am doing and sit down and watch "Saving Private Ryan" whenever it is playing on the television.  I quote lines from "Forrest Gump" and "Cast Away"so often that I have probably ruined both movies for my wife and kids.  But hands down, one of my all time favorites is the movie, "Apollo 13."  To this day, I tear up every time that Tom Hanks' character says, "Houston this is Odyssey, it's good to see you again."  It's just an incredible movie about an even more incredible story.  Ron Howard did an absolutely brilliant job of directing the movie.

There are so many quotes in the movie that I have found inspirational.  The story itself is a perfect example of crisis leadership.  While Tom Hanks plays the hero (astronaut Jim Lovell),  Gene Kranz, played by the actor Ed Harris, really is the behind-the-scenes, unsung crisis leader.  Gene Kranz was the Flight Director at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) during the Gemini and Apollo programs.  The movie just briefly touches upon the failed Apollo 1 mission, in which the astronauts Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Roger Chaffee, and Edward White II all perished during a fire accident on the launch pad during a launch rehearsal on January 27, 1967.  There was an in-depth review by NASA following the accident, and I think Gene Kranz himself was particularly introspective. 

He said, "Space flight will never tolerate carelessness, incapacity, and neglect.  Somewhere, somehow, we screwed up. It could have been in design, build, or test. Whatever it was, we should have caught it. We were too gung ho about the schedule and we locked out all of the problems we saw each day in our work." 

In other words, rather than trying to pass blame, Kranz took personal responsibility and accepted full accountability for the actions of his team.  Some times, it is only through our worst failures that we learn and improve. 

Kranz went on further to say, "Every element of the program was in trouble and so were we. The simulators were not working, Mission Control was behind in virtually every area, and the flight and test procedures changed daily. Nothing we did had any shelf life. Not one of us stood up and said, ‘Dammit, stop!’ I don’t know what Thompson’s committee will find as the cause, but I know what I find. We are the cause! We were not ready! We did not do our job. We were rolling the dice, hoping that things would come together by launch day, when in our hearts we knew it would take a miracle. We were pushing the schedule and betting that the Cape would slip before we did." 

"From this day forward, Flight Control will be known by two words: 'Tough’ and 'Competent.’ Tough means we are forever accountable for what we do or what we fail to do. We will never again compromise our responsibilities. Every time we walk into Mission Control we will know what we stand for. Competent means we will never take anything for granted. We will never be found short in our knowledge and in our skills. Mission Control will be perfect."

"When you leave this meeting today you will go to your office and the first thing you will do there is to write 'Tough and Competent’ on your blackboards. It will never be erased. Each day when you enter the room these words will remind you of the price paid by Grissom, White, and Chaffee. These words are the price of admission to the ranks of Mission Control."

I truly believe (as do many safety experts and leadership gurus) that there is absolutely NO WAY that NASA could have saved the three astronauts on Apollo 13 without first going through the tragic moments on January 27, 1967 with Apollo 1.  Apollo 1 was NASA's first major accident - they had a string of successes that made them complacent and perhaps a little cocky.  After Apollo 1, with Gene Kranz's leadership, they changed their culture and became the kind of organization that could quickly adapt and deal with the crisis that occurred 3 years later with Apollo 13.  Apollo 1 provided the kind of culture change where "Failure is not an option" and allowed Kranz to confidently state, "I believe this is going to be our finest hour."

I am not saying that every organization needs to go through a tragic moment like NASA did with Apollo 1.  But I do think that we absolutely need to learn from each and every one of our failures.  Some times, it takes a crisis to focus an organization's attention on its culture, resiliency, competency, and accountability.