Could there be any better example of team work, dedication, professionalism and achievement than the Apollo space program which ultimately put a man on the moon? As a role model could you wish for a better employee than an astronaut , a skilful and knowledgeable team player, totally committed to the project? Well that’s the myth the truth is rather closer to the experience of the average organisation.
Everything about the Apollo 7 mission worked smoothly , except the crew. The flight commander became more openly critical and sarcastic as the mission progressed. Once in orbit he attempted to assert his authority over that of mission control. The crew never missed an opportunity to complain about the support people . Their, ” we know best” arrogance caused resentment and ill feelings. However If you creat an extremely competitive environment where the goal is to beat the rest and get one of those precious three seats on the space rocket then you are not going to get individuals willing to admit problems or to be complementary about their peers. And if you tell people they are the best of the best, then it’s not surprising if they start to behaviour like rock stars.
What NASA and the Apollo space programme shows us is that to succeed an organisation does not need perfect employees, teams where everyone gets on or operational staff who appreciate their support staff. To those of us who have made some bad appointments there is something reassuring about an extremely competitive selection process, a rigorous training program and the extensive use of psychological assessments that can still result in the organisation finding itself dealing with highly skilled and motivated individuals who colleagues describe as arrogant and difficult to work with. What this tell us is that managers and leaders can and inevitably have to ,get the organisation to deliver the most ambitious of “missions” with the personnel they have.
Even if like NASA you were able to select from the best of the best you would still find there were those who were overly critical of their support staff, people considered arrogant and difficult to work with by their colleagues. And yet organisations can and do deliver on the most ambitious of missions.
Although it should be noted that after their successful mission the crew of Apollo 7 , at the insistence of NASA flight operations director, never flew again.
