The Sky is Not the Limit

Breakthrough Leadership

Robert Barthelemy

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781138409781
• eBook ISBN: 9781000153552
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

What exactly is "breakthrough leadership"? Quite simply, it's an approach to performance aimed at transcending limitations and maximizing team potential. As the author points out, the process of innovation and high performance is not random or haphazard. The limitations and barriers that commonly get in the way of success can be overcome-if we use the right leadership techniques. And that's just what Dr. Bart Barthelemy, one of the nation's leaders in the fields of aeronautics and astronautics, discusses in The Sky Is Not the Limit-leadership techniques that work, and work consistently. Barthelemy has used his years of management experience to come up with a practical, results-driven guide to leadership based on the ideas of competitive collaboration and structured flexibility. Whether you're a manager, supervisor, team leader or consultant, The Sky Is Not the Limit can help you achieve significant breakthroughs in performance and productivity. You can use its proven tips and techniques to lead your teams to new heights of excellence. Remember, the sky is not the limit-not for airplanes, not for this planet, not for our organizations and not for any of us!

CHAPTER 1

Breakthroughs

BREAKTHROUGHS

Up we go into the wild blue yonder

Flying high into the sun

Here they come, zooming to meet our thunder

At’em boys, give her the gun,

Down we dive, shooting our flames from under

Off with one hell of a roar,

We live in fame or go down in flame,

Hey. nothing can stop the U.S. Air Force.

—The Air Force Fight Song

Mach 25

Less than a century ago, two inventors from Dayton, Ohio, began playing with the idea of powered flight. They studied the works of earlier balloon and glider flyers and then conceived experiments that they carried out in their bicycle shop to understand how such a concept might work. They challenged each other and, with the help of their sister, accumulated enough information and resources to build the first airplane. Because of the favorable winds and geography, the first powered flight of their aircraft took place in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, several hundred miles from Dayton. At great risk and far away from home, Orville Wright, with the help of his brother Wilbur, flew the first airplane for a distance of 120 feet on December 17, 1903. On that day, the airplane was born, and a major breakthrough occurred that would have an enormous impact on mankind and his movement on this planet. Many claim that the airplane is the greatest breakthrough of the 21st century since it has affected, more than any other invention, how our civilization has evolved over the past 100 years.

The 1903 flight of the Wright brothers’ airplane achieved a speed of only a few miles per hour. It took the two inventors six years to improve on their aircraft so that it could fly at speeds approaching sixty miles per hour, slightly less than the speed that we now limit automobiles to for highway driving. Once the Wrights paved the way, many other people started working with airplanes, and within ten years of the first flight, an entire community had been created. That community would lead to an industry spurred on by the unique capabilities that the airplane offered the military during World War I.

After the war, great progress was made in aerodynamics and in the development of lightweight materials, reciprocating engines, and flight controls. A wide variety of aircraft, for both commercial and military purposes, were built and flown in the 20s and 30s. World War II forced a major expansion of the airplane industry and also brought another breakthrough which would change airplanes forever—the turbojet engine. Discovered almost simultaneously in England by Sir Frank Whittle and in Germany by Hans J.P. von O’Hain, it would later prove crucial in allowing the airplane to maintain supersonic speeds. Forty-four years after the airplane was invented, using a Reaction Motors rocket engine to power the aircraft, Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 and achieved what aeronautical engineers refer to as Mach 1, the speed of sound. Once that barrier had been broken, the world entered the supersonic age. Mach 2 (two times the speed of sound) airplanes were built and flown in less than a decade, and the feasibility of useful military and commercial supersonic aircraft was established. During the sixties, three aircraft were investigated which opened up some new regimes in high-speed flight. The Lockheed Skunk Works designed, fabricated, and flew a Mach 3 aircraft in less than 27 months, the SR-71 Blackbird, which saw service in the Air Force until 1990. The Supersonic Transport (SST) program began with the goal of achieving a commercial supersonic airliner that would fly at least twice the speed of sound. Although the U.S. effort on the SST was later cancelled, the program provided the incentive for the Anglo-French joint venture that led to the supersonic Concorde, which is still flying. And in 1965, Scott Crossfield and several other test pilots flew a rocketpowered aircraft called the X-15 to a speed of Mach 6.8. That flight opened up the hypersonic era and, coupled with the advances being made in missile and rocket technology, paved the way for manned space flight and concepts like the Space Shuttle.

By 1983, only eight decades after the Wrights’ first flight, airplanes had come a long way. The military routinely flew supersonic fighters and bombers, commercial jet flights typically hovered just under the speed of sound, and hypersonic flight had been demonstrated. Nevertheless, it looked like the end of the line; the sky seemed to have a limit. Flying in the atmosphere at speeds much greater than Mach 3 proved to be extremely challenging. At higher speeds, airplanes had to be fabricated with materials that could take the high temperatures of hypersonic flight and still be light enough for aircraft structural considerations. Fuels had to be much more efficient than the usual kerosene, and the engines required for hypersonic flight were well beyond the state-of-the-art turbojet engines. In order to get to space, the rocket launchers, like Saturn and Atlas, which powered Apollo and Mercury, got out of the atmosphere as soon as possible. Even the Space Shuttle only used the atmosphere on its return to earth. Airplanes seemed to have reached the limits of their materials and propulsion capabilities, and it looked like very high speed flight was not in the cards. Breakthrough after breakthrough had given us ever-increasing speeds, taken us from first flight to Mach 1 in forty years, and routinely allowed Mach 2 flight during the next forty years. But flight above Mach 3 didn’t seem feasible. Well, the scientists and engineers who predicted that limitation were wrong.

In 1983, the genesis for a very high speed hypersonic vehicle occurred, once again, in Dayton, Ohio. Military planners at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base’s Aeronautical Systems Division began designing a trans-atmospheric vehicle, an airplane that would fly in the air and achieve speeds that would allow it to transfer out of the atmosphere. Within a year, several government agencies joined forces to examine the feasibility of a Mach 25 vehicle, and the concept of an aerospace plane, an airplane that would go from the ground through the atmosphere and then into space, was born. This vehicle, because of its high speeds, required major breakthroughs in materials, jet engines, aerodynamics, fuels, and flight controls. Although extremely challenging, it appeared as if these advances might be possible, and the National Aero-Space Plane program was launched in 1985. The program, and its Mach 25 airplane, was a breakthrough in itself. If such a vehicle could be built, its impact on the future could be as great as the impact that the airplane had on the world in 1903. Hypersonic flight in the atmosphere, speeds of 5,000 to 15,000 miles per hour in an airplane, and an aircraft that could take off and land on conventional runways and routinely fly to space would open up many new possibilities. The technology for this aircraft is now being developed, and the feasibility of such an aircraft now seems very real. How that is happening and its relationship to breakthrough leadership is described later in this book.

In 1903, a vision of giant airports filled with hundreds of airplanes that reliably, safely, and affordably take ordinary people across the continent would have been laughable. Today, Mach 25 allows another vision, of giant airports filled with a variety of aircaft that reliably, safely, and affordably take ordinary people around the world or into space. At Mach 25, the sky is not the limit. Mach 25 is breakthrough thinking, and breakthroughs occur when we realize that the sky is not the limit.

Breakthroughs

An aerospace plane, like so many other visions, seems impossible in the beginning. We place so many limits on ourselves that most of us believe tomorrow will be pretty much like today or even yesterday. But it isn’t, as we can see if we look back over the past year, decade, or century. Change occurs all the time, and these changes affect our lives and the world in very significant ways. There are many people and organizations that don’t believe that today should be like yesterday, and they go about seeking to change the world for the better. These people believe that breakthroughs can occur, that the sky is not necessarily the limit. And they routinely prove that it isn’t.

Over the past several decades, we’ve all lived in a high-tech world. Although certainly not the only place where breakthroughs occur, technological breakthroughs have had an enormous impact on our civilization. Almost everything that affects us today has been significantly altered by a technical breakthrough that occurred not centuries ago but within the past several decades. Look at a day in your life: instant breakfasts; microwave ovens; frozen foods; electric toothbrushes; home air conditioning; garage door openers; high-performance automobiles; reliable, affordable commercial aircraft (supersonic, if you can afford it); personal computers; television; video recorders and players; home exercise machines; fast-food firanchises; hot tubs; and, finally, waterbeds. In the past thirty years, there have been thousands of significant breakthroughs in the technical world and many more in the worlds of economics, marketing, law, medicine, etc. Each one represents a major shift in direction and forced a significant change in the world. Although chance, luck, and divine inspiration may have been involved in some aspects of a few of these breakthroughs, they were mostly the result of hard work, human creativity, and a strong drive to achieve the breakthrough. In every case, a barrier, or several of them, was broken in order to attain the end result. Often, this process is referred to as innovation, and it is linked to a creative leap in thinking. There’s no question that creativity and innovation are part of the breakthrough process. But, contrary to popular thinking, innovation is the end of the process, the reward or outcome of all the activity that precedes the breakthrough. Because innovation represents a leap into the unknown, it’s the one part of the process that we can’t control very well. The innovative breakthrough seems almost mystical if viewed alone, a spark of genius, which after it is achieved becomes the norm to use for the future. The breakthrough itself cannot be controlled, but much of what’s necessary to achieve it can be influenced, stimulated, inspired, encouraged, developed, and fostered. Breakthroughs don’t happen by chance; they are the result of organized activity. And because of that, they can be managed. Yes, managed. It seems like a contradiction in terms; managed breakthroughs—almost an oxymoron. But that’s precisely how they happen.

In order to prove this, we could investigate the history of any famous breakthrough, say the television or the personal computer. To do that, we would have to become very familiar with the real details of the activity which led to the innovation. Unfortunately, no one except the individuals who were directly involved in the activity would be able to give us the real facts behind the event. And even if we could find these people or some recorded history of the breakthrough activity, I’m not sure we would get the true story. Having written and read hundreds of technical papers and dissertations over the past thirty years, I’m convinced that many events, and, amazingly, some of the most important events in any process, never get recorded. We usually neglect to record the seemingly unimportant failures and mistakes that occur along the way, and some of those misfortunes are often the reason that we went in a particular direction that eventually allowed us to reach our goal. Invariably, the emotions, feelings, and human interactions that are involved in the process are not recorded and rarely recalled or reflected even in conversation. A written translation of the breakthrough event is usually flawed and may really lead us in the wrong direction in terms of understanding the event.

Fortunately, there is a way of understanding the real story behind these kinds of processes, and it has little to do with other people; we can examine our own breakthrough situations and see what was at work during those events. O.K., so none of us have discovered relativity or invented the video recorder or flown super-sonically for the first time. Those were major league, world-class breakthroughs, and most of us don’t get to play at that level. But we all play, even if it’s in the minors, at the intramural level, or in little leagues. I’m convinced that each of us has been involved in breakthroughs, some of which may have been very significant. But even if they weren’t that big, we have all been involved in a project that resulted in a new way of doing something, or that showed a way to do something differently, or that produced something different for the very first time. These breakthrough events happen to all of us, not all of the time, but occasionally. Usually, they are the best times of our lives, at least of our professional, if not our personal, lives. These are the times that we are at our best, and they invariably result in some sort of breakthrough.

Examine what happened during these times. Recall a time in your life when you were involved in a project that resulted in something that made you very proud. Another approach might be to search for a time in your life when you were making a difference or performing at your best. It doesn’t matter if this was a personal or professional experience or when in your life it occurred. Some people have many of these experiences while others have several, but everyone seems to have at least one that they can recall. Focus for a moment on the end result of the activity. Did it involve a change or improvement? Was it significant enough to be noticed by others not involved in the project? Did it set a new standard or approach for what came after the project? Did it make a difference? If you can answer yes to any of these questions, you were involved in a breakthrough. Some barrier was broken, and you ended up making a contribution that influenced the way things were.

The Elements of Breakthroughs

Continue with your personal breakthrough experience for a while longer and examine how it happened. As you recall your experience, focus on the situation, the purpose, the strategy, the results, and the character of the experience, and try to answer the following questions:

The Situation

• Where did this take place?

• When did this take place?

• Who was involved?

• What was your personal role?

The Purpose

• Why was the activity done?

• Who motivated the activity?

• What outcome was desired?

• What was the primary goal?

The Strategy

• How was the objective achieved?

• What techniques were used?

• What structures were implemented?

• What actions were taken?

The Results

• What were the actual results?

• What were the measurable outcomes?

• What were the qualitative results?

• What recognition was received?

The Character

• How did you feel during the activity?

• What was the quality of the experience?

• What made the difference?

• How did the team relate?

Now that the details of the experience are fresh in your mind, try to summarize the characteristics or conditions of the experience using a few key words or short phrases. Usually ten or so characteristics are sufficient for most people to capture the essence of the experience, a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• About the Author
• 1 Breakthroughs
• 2 Captivating Challenges—The Target
• 3 Open Focus—The Flight
• 4 Competitive Collaboration—The Vehicle
• 5 Structured Flexibility—The Environment
• 6 Personal Commitment—The Force
• 7 Organized Adventure—The Journey
• 8 Breakthrough Leadership—Six IDE As
• Appendix
• Suggested Reading