The Performance Factor

On July 19, 1989, United Airlines Flight 232, a DC-10 traveling from Denver to Chicago, suffered what the airline industry calls a "catastrophic engine failure." At 37,000 feet, one hour and seven minutes out of Denver, The No. 2 engine, located high in the tail of the aircraft, literally broke apart. Over 70 pieces of shrapnel ripped through the skin of the plane at high velocity severing, by random chance, the three completely separate, redundant hydraulic lines used to fly the plane, rendering the heavy aircraft virtually unflyable.

The engine failure is so unique that there is no standard operating procedure for this type of event (the odds of having all three hydraulic lines suffer damage are over a billion to one). During the next 41 minutes, Captain Al Haynes led an extraordinary effort that proved to be unique in the annals of aircraft emergencies. The cockpit crew and ultimately an entire network of other teams formed a larger "232 organization," working together to achieve unprecedented results, and figure out how to fly an unflyable plane.

Like Captain Haynes, the crew, and the passengers of United Flight 232, many organizations find themselves in a dangerous predicament where there is no standard operating procedure to handle the high velocity change they are faced with every day. The evolving marketplace calls for new strategies and structures, and investing more effort and resources behind old strategies wastes valuable time.

Organizational survival and success rests on the organization's ability to develop and deploy two essential elements: exceptional leadership and high performance teamwork. Either one alone will not provide enough organizational muscle to compete in a world of formidable global competitors. Most team theories call this phenomenon synergy, but for most organizations, synergy remains only a theory, a pipe dream that is beyond the realities of day-to-day experience. The principles and practices in The Performance Factor will help you turn theory into an every day reality.