I don’t know if you watched the coverage of William Shatner’s very brief, but real, foray into space. I only caught a few seconds, I saw the unfortunately shaped Blue Origin launch vehicle take off and I saw Shatner’s tearful reaction as he thanked Bezos for the ride. So William Shatner becomes James Kirk. …well, not so fast. There isn’t a real Kirk today because we have yet to create starships that need captains. But if we did have one, it would be John Glenn not William Shatner. I was reminded of this recently when a client of ours kicked off a strategic planning session by recounting a conversation he had with late Senator John Glenn.
John, a former Marine Corps aviator, was one of the first seven American Astronauts, the third American in space, the first to orbit the Earth and the oldest astronaut to travel to space. Glenn emphasized the importance of maintaining control over the ship. On his first foray into space aboard Friendship 7, the automatic guidance system failed and he had to guide the ship on orbits 2 and 3 and during reentry. His takeaway from this is that a good pilot, astronaut or leader needs to have instruments and must be able direct the vehicle if necessary.
In fact, John and other astronauts insisted that the Mercury and later rockets had controls for the astronauts to direct the vehicle if necessary. These saved John’s mission and his life as he was able to redirect the flight and bring it home safely.
John Glenn’s flight on STS-95 made him the oldest astronaut. And this brings us to Shatner’s recent flight. The reason he’s still not Kirk is that he was never in control of the unfortunately shaped rocket he rode to space. He was a passenger. A tourist.
Call To Action
Be Glenn, not Shatner. You and your business need the gauges and controls that show you and your leadership team the trajectory of the business and give you the information you need to make course corrections and counter any system failures or unexpected events (good thing we haven’t had any of those lately).
1. Establish your initial scorecard (we do this in five days for clients).
2. Work with the scorecard, populating it manually initially, if necessary.
3. Once you get it populated the leadership team will complain and ask where those numbers came from. This is normal. Revise the scorecard and continue refining.
4. Once the team can agree on the structure of the scorecard, you can automate the population of the scorecard so it isn’t an administrative burden (but this doesn’t happen quickly or easily, so don’t feel rushed).
5. Assess the scorecard annually and in the event that outside factors force a change.
I hope you found something to apply to your business in this MBR. Let me know either way.
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