Apollo 13 and The Physics of Advantage-Making

Remember the scene: deep space, spacecraft breaking apart, oxygen running out, producing more CO2 than can be handled by the crew. A deadly situation.

And then the Director of Operations Control brings the remaining parts that exist on the space capsule to the engineers on the ground.

This is all they have, nothing else; this is the distance and approximate time they have; make it work… Failure is not an option!

The rocket scientist were extraordinary and brilliant. They worked feverishly to figure out the trajectory, the velocity and arrange the parts to produce a big enough result (magnitude) that reduced the CO2 while they limped home to Mother Earth.

They did it!

Thank goodness.

So are you telling me i have to be a rocket scientist to be an Advantage-Maker?

No.

But, all leadership advantages have 3 factors.

1) Trajectory, what is the direction, and if necessary, course correction.

2) Velocity, speed wins, reducing drag, getting rid of friction – I’ll bet you can work the metaphor here

3) Magnitude, big wins, big gains, failure is not an option, big expectations

When you take on a high stakes challenge, consider

1) the trajectory

2) the current and desired velocity

3) the magnitude of the gain you want to create.

This is the internal guidance system of Advantage-Makers.

How’s your guidance system doing?

Do you need to shift your trajectory?

You can work with the constraints to find advantages whether your

high stakes challenge is in space or on planet Earth.