A management lesson

India Knowledge@Wharton: Could you give an example, from your own experience, of how leaders should manage failure?

Abdul Kalam: Let me tell you about my experience. In 1973 I became the project director of India's satellite launch vehicle program, commonly called the SLV-3. Our goal was to put India's "Rohini" satellite into orbit by 1980. I was given funds and human resources -- but was told clearly that by 1980 we had to launch the satellite into space. Thousands of people worked together in scientific and technical teams towards that goal.

By 1979 -- I think the month was August -- we thought we were ready. As the project director, I went to the control center for the launch. At four minutes before the satellite launch, the computer began to go through the checklist of items that needed to be checked. One minute later, the computer program put the launch on hold; the display showed that some control components were not in order. My experts -- I had four or five of them with me -- told me not to worry; they had done their calculations and there was enough reserve fuel. So I bypassed the computer, switched to manual mode, and launched the rocket. In the first stage, everything worked fine. In the second stage, a problem developed. Instead of the satellite going into orbit, the whole rocket system plunged into the Bay of Bengal. It was a big failure.

That day, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, Prof. Satish Dhawan, had called a press conference. The launch was at 7:00 am, and the press conference -- where journalists from around the world were present -- was at 7:45 am at ISRO's satellite launch range in Sriharikota [in Andhra Pradesh in southern India]. Prof. Dhawan, the leader of the organization, conducted the press conference himself. He took responsibility for the failure -- he said that the team had worked very hard, but that it needed more technological support. He assured the media that in another year, the team would definitely succeed. Now, I was the project director, and it was my failure, but instead, he took responsibility for the failure as chairman of the organization.

The next year, in July 1980, we tried again to launch the satellite -- and this time we succeeded. The whole nation was jubilant. Again, there was a press conference. Prof. Dhawan called me aside and told me, "You conduct the press conference today."

I learned a very important lesson that day. When failure occurred, the leader of the organization owned that failure. When success came, he gave it to his team. The best management lesson I have learned did not come to me from reading a book; it came from that experience.

Source: A forward

Monty Hall Problem

Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?

The player has an equal chance of initially selecting the car, Goat A, or Goat B. Switching results in a win 2/3 of the time because 2/3 of the time, the player's initial pick was a goat.

Read on...

They still have our records!!

As most know, many buildings in India especially the ones which are now judicial buildings like High Court, etc were constructed by the British. But something that most are not aware of is that the Brit are still tracking those records!

A judicial building in Guwahati recently received a letter from the British stating that the building is 100 years old and needs to be renovated!

Of course, people ignored the advice.

Source: My friend Mithu's father works in one such Guwahati judicial building.

Social Entrepreneur: Harish Hande

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Sample this. The flower pickers near Ahmedabad would usually get up in the middle of the night, get hold of a kerosene lamp in one hand, and hurry to the fields to pick flowers between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m.
Their target: to bring the flowers to market by 6 a.m., in time for the dawn crowds and before the flowers start wilting. Or take the case of silk farmers of Karnataka, who would typically use candles or kerosene lamp for lighting at the time of feeding worms in the dark (harsh light hampers the growth of silk worms). But a drop of spilled kerosene would destroy the entire basket of worms.
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Harish Hande was born and raised in Orissa, India. After completing his basic schooling in Orissa, he went to IIT Kharagpur for his undergraduate studies in Energy Engineering. He then went to the U.S. to do his Master’s and later PhD. in Energy Engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.
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