“There’s no magic”

A few weeks ago, on February 18th, my daughter, C.J., and I watched NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover successful landing on Mars. With our eyes locked on to the tablet, we joined the world in watching this historic event.

I experienced strong feelings of awe, optimism, and inspiration as I saw the rover touchdown onto the surface of Mars. I immediately began to think about the remarkable sense of vision, ambitious goals, design-thinking, problem diagnosis, and clear culture required to accomplish a feat of this nature.

The work of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) is a masters class in how to push the frontier of potential, if not redefine it all together.

NASA landed a ten foot, two thousand pound rover 143-million miles away loaded with innovative equipment in pursuit of ancient life. And much of it occurred in the midst of a global pandemic (which is a separate commentary unto itself).

The accomplishment is so remarkable that the flight of an unmanned helicopter in an environment that is 1% of earth’s atmosphere, quite literally a “Wright-brothers” moment, became a side-story covered during the last few minutes of the two-hour coverage.

It began with a crystal clear vision. A pointillist picture composed of precise goals. Reinforced until it’s practically part of the team’s DNA. As astronaut Victor Glover tweeted after Perseverance landed, “There’s no magic. We train, learn, and debrief, consistently, intensely.”

There’s so much to marvel at from an organizational standpoint, but over the course of my reading, watching, and general research, a few items came into sharp focus about the JPL and NASA partnership:

• A clear vision that leaders and team members alike found remarkably purposeful
• Stacks of goals were established, relentlessly pursued, and accomplished largely through failures and deep learning
• The unique talents and experience of each person were matched precisely with their role
• The team formed into one organism of sorts, developing its own collective conscience
• A clear culture of unparalleled standards, constant communication, openness to failure, learning, collaboration, and innovation

NASA and JPL have 70 years of practice with creating this level of clarity in pursuit of visions that bend the arc of humanity. The teams you and I are a part of don’t have that luxury. But we must believe that with intentional focus and commitment it can and must be the standard for which we strive.

When leaders and their teams achieve this standard, they become capable of achieving new levels of potential - no matter risks, rate of change, or constraints.

Standing there with C.J., watching Perseverance literally rocket towards and then float to the surface of Mars, I couldn’t help but marvel at what we were experiencing in those moments. As is always the case, it’s about people. Humans. Leaders. Teams. Pursuing and achieving clarity. Learning. Consistently, intensely.

It might not have felt like it at the time, but we all know “There’s no magic.”