(Former President of India APJ Abdul Kalam at Wharton India Economic forum , Philadelphia, March 22,2008)
*Question:* Could you give an example, from your own experience, of
how leaders should manage failure?
*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.* *
A leader should know how to manage failure !!
