INTRODUCTION
“Failure is not an option,” said the actor playing Gene Kranz, flight director for Mission Control in Apollo 13, the 1995 movie dramatizing the near-disaster of the third Apollo mission to the Moon. But he was wrong. It was an option, which is why he said it. Kranz was employing classic alpha-male posturing to implore his team to lose their fear of failure.
He knew that failure was staring them in the face but, given the consequences of failure, any other option was not only preferable but imperative. Had he said “failure is almost certain, but let’s have a go anyway” his team would have remained focused on their personal fears, as well as the potential humiliation of suggesting a daft idea. Yet daft ideas were the only thing ...
