Decision making and what we can learn from the movie Apollo 13

Houston, we have a problem.

Apollo 13 was NASA’s third mission to the moon. Two days in and an explosion caused by a wiring short circuit seriously compromised the life support systems for the three astronauts creating a series of complex and extremely time sensitive problems.

What Flight Director Gene Kranz and his team achieved was a masterpiece of leadership, teamwork, communication innovation and decision making.

In this workshop we'll examine the 5 crucial steps they took to turn disaster into triumph.

In the immediate aftermath of the explosion we see them not as brilliant men but like the individual components of a clock floating in zero gravity. They have not trained for this contingency, there is no plan and, momentarily, they have lost sight of their goal.

In the movie we see Gene Kranz, portrayed by Ed Harris, step in to try and reassemble his team and harness their expertise.

We can’t all be brilliant rocket scientists but we can all be Flight Director Gene Kranz.

We can be the person who listens patiently to all the competing voices in our head that say it’s too hard or it’ll take too long or there are too many things we don’t know.

We can constantly push our thinking back on task or the overall goal.

Then we can be the one who says ‘Sure, this is not what we planned but it’s what we have now’

We can avoid losing ourselves in speculation and what ifs.

We can close down avenues that look tempting.

We can end a destructive relationship.

We can quit an unfulfilling job.

We can go with the plan in hand with 100% commitment until circumstances require us to make changes.

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