You wouldn’t think that a rubber company and high-end restaurants would have a symbiotic relationship, but that was exactly the case with Michelin.
In 1900 France, the Michelin brothers sought to encourage people to drive their new automobiles more, thus using more of the Michelin tires. They published a free guide with area restaurants, hotels, gas stations, and points of interest to incentivize people to travel.
In 1926, Michelin started adding stars to their guide, further enticing people to go longer distances to partake in the highest-quality food. The coveted Michelin 3-star rating states that the restaurant is “worth a special journey.”
When you think of potential partners, broaden your scope beyond the closely related organizations. Tires and premium dining may not be an obvious combination, but it’s earned stars for both entities.
A three-dimensional mural caught my attention at the Boston Public Library — adding color and aesthetic to the newly renovated wing.
As I looked more closely, I could see that the art was comprised of books arranged by color.
On further inspection, I learned that the mural depicts the skyline of Boston, including the river. I did not recognize that at first, but once you see it, it’s hard not to.
The Library could have done anything with this wall but they intentionally designed something that is library and Boston-specific. Kudos to them!
It reminded me of walking into the admissions office at my campus interview for an enrollment job. It struck me then that the lobby could have been a doctor’s office in Philadelphia — everything was nice but completely generic. We quickly changed the artwork, reading materials, and color scheme to promote the school’s brand.
Your organization’s space should be such that it can only be your organization’s space. Capitalize on your unique setting and features as the library did to intentionally tell your story as only you can.
A friend and I were reminiscing about home movies and how our parents seemed to drag out the video camera for all the family occasions. It resulted in reels and reels of film — capturing the unedited stuff-of-life moments that can now be re-lived through digitization.
How ironic that today, when our video cameras are built into the device we have with us at all times, I have far fewer videos than of my childhood when it involved lugging a bulky camera, dropping off film to process, paying for it, and requiring a projector and screen to watch them. On my phone with 30,000+ photos, I have less than 200 videos.
It reminded me of a thought by Sheryl Sandberg in her book Option B. She wrote about the unexpected loss of her husband and how she wished she had taken more videos with him — to capture his voice, his essence, and how he interacted with others. This has caused me to be more intentional about hitting that “video” button — not just for vacations or holidays, but to preserve the everyday moments I will miss when they no longer occur.
Consider the difference between the picture of my Emma below and the video of her.
A picture is worth a thousand words, but a moving picture with sound — well, that must be worth thousands more.
I have a fancy washer that offers a dazzling array of settings: 8 options for the type of load, 5 water temperatures, 5 spin settings, 3 soil levels, and 8 “special care” choices. Add in the possible combinations, and it’s staggering.
Even with all these choices, for 95% of the loads, I use “normal” and “semi-warm” water. I hit two buttons and press go.
Not everyone is able to be so quickly blinded, however, and all the buttons momentarily stop others as they seemingly feel like they should understand/use the additional settings. It’s akin to skimming a magazine vs. reading full articles, being comfortable pursuing in a museum without stopping at every placard and sign, or learning the minimum functionality of your computer.
There are times when thoroughness is called for and other situations where an overview is efficient. Certainly, my washer habits reduce the care that could benefit me, and those who skim miss out on important details. The key is to pay attention to your preferred style and align it with the situation at hand.
Imagine sitting in a Congressional hearing room, listening to people who were on the crucial conference call obfuscate the truth about the O-rings (dot #4391). You’re a lowly engineer, just there to address technical issues. You’re sitting in the back of the room. The people speaking have the ability to award a billion-dollar contract to your company. Would you have the courage to speak up against them?
Al McDonald did. Lucky for us, and for all the astronauts who followed.
McDonald, of Morton Thiokol, waved his arm, then stood, then moved to the front of the room in a desperate attempt to gain the floor. Once recognized, he calmly said: “I want to say a point about the meeting,” and went on to describe the initial no-go recommendation and the abrupt change of heart. After hearing this incredible turn of events, the chair called for an immediate recess.
McDonald’s testimony led the investigation in a new direction. The commission ultimately concluded that the explosion was due not just to technical failure, but to “drastic human error” by a failed management process throughout the system.
McDonald continued to work at Morton Thiokol but was ostracized for the rest of his career.
There are moments of truth for all of us, albeit with less stakes than this. Having clarity in advance of your values — above your job, reputation, friendships, and other loyalties, can make the split-second decision process easier but still requires inner strength to act on them. Wishing you the fortitude to do the right thing, even when it’s impossibly difficult.
The crucial O-rings on the Challenger space shuttle required a split-second functioning to seal during the launch. “If the primary ring did not seal within the first six hundred milliseconds after ignition, then it was highly likely that the secondary seal would be destroyed before it had a chance to close the gap between the two halves of the joint.” And then, the gas could escape, ignite the half-million gallons of propellant on the rocket, and result in “loss of vehicle, mission, and crew.”
The engineers at Morton Thiokol who designed the rings knew that if the Challenger launched during the record cold in Florida (29 degrees), the O-rings would be too stiff to function properly in those initial milliseconds. They recommended a “no go” during a special conference call the night before Challenger was scheduled to lift off, stating that launch needed to be at 53 degrees or warmer.
But on that call was another engineer from NASA who pointed out that the O-rings had held in previous flights, that there was redundancy with two rings in place, and that it was the night before the launch — a very inconvenient time to raise this issue (a shuttle had never been scheduled to launch in freezing weather before). Morton Thiokol took a “five-minute caucus” to discuss.
During that time, the managers on the call came face-to-face with the fact that the company was days away from a summit about the renewal of their monopoly on a billion-dollar rocket contract, they were behind schedule in production for other rockets, and NASA had all eyes on it for the Teacher-in-Space flight. They were asking to cancel hours before the flight on a theoretical engineering hypothesis — with so much to lose either way. They “made a management decision” and reconsidered.
It’s easy to think that if we were in their shoes, we would have taken the high ground and stuck with the “no go” recommendation. But when billions of dollars and the fate of the company — “perhaps even the fate of the space program itself” were at stake, it’s easier to capitulate than to stand firm.
Fortunately, not everyone takes the easy road as we’ll see tomorrow…
Source: Challenger by Adam Higginbotham, 2024
The rocket was on the launch pad as the teleconference was happening…
I finished reading Challenger about the space shuttle disaster — a thorough and thought-provoking read. A few reflections for the next couple of dots…
NASA was in its glory days with nearly unlimited funds and huge public support in the 1960s as it sought to fulfill JFK’s challenge to put men on the moon. But once that was accomplished, budgets, prestige, and public interest waned, forcing the agency to make concessions, promise unrealistic deadlines, and take more risks than usual to keep on an impossible schedule designed to appease appropriations committees.
If Challenger accomplishes anything, it’s convincing you that space travel is unbelievably complex. There were hundreds of sub-contractors, working in multiple locations across the country, not just to build custom parts and systems that had never been made before, but to have them meet extreme parameters that were just estimates. No one really knew how hot the heat shield would get, how the rockets would react to temperature changes, how the Earth’s atmosphere would impact the spaceship, or thousands of other variables. And then all this had to happen with inadequate budgets and unachievable deadlines.
To avert as much tragedy as possible, NASA had multiple layers of review processes to identify which elements were “mission critical” (and thus required redundancies) vs. which were “acceptable risk”, and to receive assurances from those closest to the components whether they were “go” for flight. In theory, the system was designed to resolve any issues before a spacecraft was cleared to launch, but in reality, the whole system hinged on one layer reporting the salient information to the next layer — thus it often functioned like a high-stakes game of the telephone game.
Have you noticed the trend of stores locking up health and beauty products such as toothpaste or deodorant? In that particular department, there seem to be as many glass cases as in a jewelry store.
The problem is that those same stores make it difficult to buy something from behind the glass. Unlike jewelry stores where clerks are waiting to serve you, in department stores finding help is elusive. I tried to buy a $1.97 item that was inexplicably behind lock and key. This required locating three different people to find someone who could access the case, and then the precious cargo was taken to the front and locked up again, necessitating yet another clerk interaction before I could purchase it.
Stores complain about their business being diverted online and fail to recognize that their own actions drive customers there. Sure, the case ensured that a 65-year-old woman didn’t risk jail time to steal an item worth less than two dollars, but it also ensured that my next purchase would be via Amazon. Before you add restrictions, consider the unintended consequences of taking freedom away.
There is a neighborhood gas station in Boston that provides full service at the pump. It’s a throwback to the “good old days” when that was standard but today is a niche that sets them apart from the chains.
The station is a place that offers attendants — for gas only. To communicate to its customers that oils and fluids are self-serve, there is a hand-lettered sign on raggedy-edge cardboard taped in the window with duct tape. The incongruence between premium service for gas and chicken scratch for signs was jarring.
Even if you’re a lemonade stand on the corner, you can do better. How you say it says a lot about how you deliver it.
One of the more unique fund-raising ideas I’ve seen is from a community group partnering with a local brewery to host a “Zero K” event. Their promotion says: “The Zero K looks like a race, but there is no race. After check-in, participants immediately cross a finish line and join a post-race style celebration with beer, awards, music, games, and more.” For the $30 fee, entrants receive a T-shirt, race bib, and one free beer. It’s just crazy enough that it might work.
Zero K founder said: “Running is hard, so we’ve cut right to the fun part.”
The Zero K is a creative way to tap into a market of non-runners to reap the rewards traditional races provide. The next time you need to plan a fund-raiser or event, consider two things: 1) those who may be left out of the event the way it is traditionally run, and 2) the positive aspects of other programs you’ve seen and whether you can capture those without all the other components that go with it.
There may be Zero K miles run, but Multiple K dollars raised.
