Thursday, January 30, 2020

“Every takeoff is optional. Every landing is mandatory.”
– Unknown aviator –

This week I had the great privilege of touring the USS Midway Museum during Vistage Worldwide’s Chairworld 2020 and spending time with Jim (a former naval aviator and one of the docents). Jim mentioned that planes launched from the Midway were catapulted to 170mph in 3 seconds – a fact I didn’t really appreciate until I walked to the end of the deck and looked back. The distance is unbelievably short and the coordination, training and teamwork required to launch a plane every 45 seconds is nothing short of astounding. Yet what really struck me is the transparency and immediacy of the scorecard… you either launch the plane successfully within the required time frame or you don’t. Period.

The next time you’re faced with the question of how to measure success ask yourself this: What planes do we launch every 45 seconds and how do we know when we succeed?