“This could be the worst disaster NASA has ever experienced.”
“All due respect, sir, I believe this is going to be our finest hour.”
~ Team Flight Director Gene Kranz responds to NASA Director Chris Kraft in the film, “Apollo 13”
As a kid, I remember my friends and I fantasizing about what we were going to be when we grew up. “Firefighter” and “policeman” were popular answers. So was “astronaut.” What young boy could resist the raw, adventurous aura surrounding the new age explorers? It was the dawn of the technology era; all very exciting in a way that captivated our imagination. Little did we contemplate the perils that had occurred, none more captivating as the Apollo 13 incident that nearly cost the crews’ lives.
I really don’t want to write another COVID-19 article. Frankly, I’m exhausted with the daily firehose of them. I mean no disrespect to all the folks who do provide them. Their work has been meaningful and a lifeline for us all. But I don’t want to write the umpteenth iteration. The fact is that we are dealing with COVID-19 every day, so it’s difficult to ignore the subject when writing in a trade publication. So, I am going to write about adversity instead.
Let’s look to the wisdom of the ages and apply it to today’s crisis. There is a rich repository from which to draw. For example, there is the wisdom of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who ruled during a far worse pandemic. He relied on his stoic training and wisdom to guide his leadership. Aurelius knew that he could only control his actions and choices, and the rest was up to God. Happiness and contentment are truly realized by doing virtuous work, not by our circumstances. These tenets sustained his leadership and kept him effective where many would have floundered.
Victor Frankl managed to survive the Nazi death camps. He credits his survival to “Logotherapy,” his own psychotherapy theory based on the concept that humans are driven by their search for “meaning.” When in deep adversity, if there is a “why,” you will endure. As Frankl faced torture and indignities, he carefully took note of what he was experiencing and how it affected him and his fellow inmates. His experience became a living experiment and research vehicle for his theories. These are just two examples of leaders masterfully conquering adversity.
Which brings us back to the Apollo 13 disaster. The mission was suddenly changed from a moon landing to a survival crisis caused by the explosion of an oxygen tank. The crew and mission control worked as a team under intense time pressure to overcome many hurdles in bringing the astronauts home safely. Each item had to be figured out with unbridled creativity and unerring precision. New problems unexpectedly arose that might have demoralized or derailed them as they clawed their way back to the earth. They took them in stride, one by one, and landed safely back home.
Another film about a space accident, this time taking place in the future, serves the same lesson. In “The Martian,” Matt Damon’s character is accidentally abandoned on Mars by his fellow crewmates. He, the crew of the departed ship, and the NASA team on Earth figure out how to keep him alive for many months and then bring him home. After the ordeal, he tells a class at NASA, “At some point … everything’s going to go south and you’re going to say, this is it. This is how I end. Now you can either accept that, or you can get to work. That’s all it is. You just begin. You do the math. You solve one problem … and you solve the next one … and then the next. And if you solve enough problems, you get to come home.”
Timothy Muessle, CCM, CCE, is chief operating officer of The Olympic Club in San Francisco and a director of the National Club Association. He can be reached at [email protected].