Movie to management Ananya Chattopadhyay XIME Apollo 13
Lovell teaches us a level of hard work that takes practice to such a degree that we can almost anticipate our team member's next move. • RESOURCE UTILIZATION. Kranz, In-Charge of Flight Operations for the mission, drives the Design team to 'put a square peg in a round hole' using very limited resources, as this was the only way to stop a Carbon dioxide filter problem that was filling up the spaceship with Carbondioxide and making the air toxic for the astronauts. Limited budget and human resources, downsizing, these are realities in any organisation and proper utilisation of resources is essential to avoid wastage in terms of money, time and causation of environmental hazards.
Movies as a learning platform is useful because audiovisuals have the power to reinforce learning by etching concepts in the mind of the viewer. To think of management learning from any movie, 'APOLLO 13 ' released in 1995 seems like a gold mine. Though a bit old, this movie directed by Ron Howard that is based on the 1970 Apollo 13 lunar mission by NASA, was nominated for nine Academy awards and won over critics. The main characters include 1. Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon) and Fred Haise(Bill Paxton) aboard Apollo 13 for America's third Moon landing mission and 2. Gene Kranz (Ed Harris) as the In-charge of Flight operations. The movie shows us the following management skills through its 140 minute of drama/documentary portrayal. • ABILITY TO SEIZE OPPURTUNITIES OUT OF CONSTRAINTS Apollo 13 Commander Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) is informed that he and his crew will fly the Apollo 13 mission instead of Apollo 14.This time constraint in preparation and training did not daunt or discourage Lovell and he planned on fully utilising the available time. Sometimes, if we are flexible enough and think positively, take time constraints as challenges and have the passion with the right attitude, we can see seize oppurtunities effectively. • PREPARATION BEFORE A PROJECT Practice makes one perfect- Lovell is seen to 'live' this adage with his sworn dedicaion to practice to perfection in the spacecraft simulator with the other two astronauts.
iNM - Magazine Vol. 4
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