3Leadership: The Core Issue
If an organization has good leadership, everything else will follow. If an organization has bad leadership, no methodology or set of rules will save you.
Elon Musk's companies have demonstrated not only unprecedented innovation but competitiveness, altering and taking the lead in entire industries. Musk sees innovation as a strategic process to be managed and grown. When Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, asked Musk what it will take to get to Mars, Musk's response was not about rockets or money; his response was about the needed rate of innovation:
“I'm trying to make sure that our rate of innovation increases… this is really essential… if we do not see something close to an exponential improvement in our rate of innovation we will not reach Mars.”1
Zubrin then asked about Musk's methodology. Zubrin said this:
“One thing that is really amazing about SpaceX to those of us who have experience in the aerospace industry is the rate of innovation. Last time you spoke to the Mars Society convention it was 2012. Since then you have made Falcon 9 reusable, introduced Falcon Heavy, Crew Dragon, a satellite constellation, and you're in the middle of developing Starship. What is your methodology that allows you to innovate so swiftly?”
Musk's response was, after a long pause, “I don't really know.”
What makes SpaceX and Musk's other companies so successful and so innovative is not a methodology; it is the leadership that Musk provides.
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