In spite of the pandemic, 2021 has been an amazing year for space travel. Virgin Galactic conducted their first suborbital space flight, Blue Origin sent eight civilians into space including Jeff Bezos and William Shatner, SpaceX sent private citizens into a 3-day orbital space flight, China began construction of the Tiangong space station, and the International Space Station added two modules. In addition, Russian movie director Klim Shipenko filmed the first feature length film on the ISS in October 2021.

Way back in April 2020, one of the first blog posts I did was about The Martian (by the way, a fantastic movie and superb book if you haven't seen/read it). At the end of the movie, after spending 560 days alone on Mars before his rescue, Mark Watney (the astronaut played by Matt Damon) talks to a new bunch of astronauts. He tells them "At some point, everything’s gonna go south on you… 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." 

Although the book and the movie are fiction, it is based on NASA's culture. Space travel is inherently risky, especially when you consider the millions of parts that all have to operate perfectly in the rocket, the command module, and lunar module to get astronauts to the moon and back during the Apollo Program. Every launch that the United States of America has done, all the way back to the Mercury Program, has had some complications small or big, especially Apollo 13 (also a great movie). Along the same lines as Mark Watney, Gene Kranz in the movie Apollo 13, one of NASA’s Flight Directors, says after the explosion, “Let's work the problem people. Let's not make things worse by guessing.” NASA has always exhibited this mindset -- the astronauts and the teams at mission control identify the problem, break the big problem down into smaller problems, work each problem as it presents itself, and keep solving problems until they get the astronauts home safely. 

The idea of breaking down a problem and solving small parts isn’t just for NASA, though. You and your team broke down big problems into small ones and solved them this year and last year. You and your family did the same, as well. This concept comes up again and again in the leadership topics I discussed in both 2020 and 2021 and will talk about more in 2022. It plays a role in conflict management, team building, and problem solving. More importantly, it energizes our individual grit and our organizational grit.

Now we all aren't stranded on Mars or trying to get a damaged spacecraft home (although 2021 sometimes felt like it!) But, we, as leaders, all have a series of problems to break down into smaller ones and solve them or our company, our team, and our families on into 2022.

Conclusion

The next blog post — Post #190 (January 4, 2022) TFCG will transition to one blog post a week. Also, blog posts will come out on Tuesday mornings. All the previous and future posts will remain on-line and free at www.thefivecoatconsultinggroup.com.

Go on the offense in 2022 and keep working the problem until you, your family, and your team get through the year.