We recently returned from a well-attended reunion of Army officers formerly working in the Nuclear Weapons Technical Officer career field. This group consisted of less than 290 personnel from inception of the field in 1948, until the Army gave up its nuclear weapons mission in the early 1990s. Two of the original class members were still around and in attendance. I had the privilege of serving as a member of this special group for the last 16 years of my military career from 1967 until 1983.
There was a banquet and a guest speaker who gave an abbreviated history of The Manhattan Project, which was the production of the first nuclear weapon. The subject of the atomic bomb is a political hot potato with many (although not with me). However, this column is not about the bomb. It's about the 'can-do' attitude of the people who worked on the project and in that field.
The Manhattan Project was a massive scientific and engineering endeavor that did its primary work in three years, from the summer of 1942 until the summer of 1945, and officially cost $2 billion ($24 billion in 2007 inflation-adjusted dollars). I think a more accurate figure would be twice that amount, $50 billion in 2007 dollars - still cheap when you think about it.
The project's significant accomplishments are too numerous to list here, but one item can put them in perspective. The program developed the world's first artificial nuclear reactor in December 1942 at the University of Chicago. Sixty-five years later, in 2007, the United States had 104 commercial nuclear generating units producing 17 percent of the nation's total electric energy. If all the U.S. nuclear power plants were gone tomorrow, we'd have to turn off the electricity in the entire nation for 28 hours a week to make up the shortage.
When you review the historical record, one question comes to mind, how did they do all of this in such a short time, with a relatively small budget and without personal computers? The answer I've gleaned from my studies is that the individuals and institutions involved in this critical undertaking were goal oriented. They had clear goals and a sense of urgency for reaching them - even though they could not be certain the goals were possible given the scientific unknowns.
By contrast, most of today's leaders and institutions are process oriented. Every director, manager and supervisor seems to be in meetings all the time as if the mere act of having a meeting will solve a problem. We have communication tools previous generations did not dream of, but we've lost the ability to communicate what we want to do, how we want to do it and when we want it done. Part of the problem is the fear of making a mistake, as this forces too many of our institutions into making the ultimate mistake - doing nothing.
Being process-oriented leads to another serious problem, I call 'the abuse excuse' wherein every outside influence is blamed for failure. Process-oriented thinking tends to promote every tiny obstacle from a speed bump or a molehill into the north wall of the Eiger, unassailable. Our computers are too full and our trash cans are too empty. Goal-oriented thinking would just discard these flea bites for what they are, minor annoyances that should not be allowed to use up any of our valuable time or energy - because we have important things to do.
I just wonder what would happen if we used The Manhattan Project as a blueprint? Just how well might we do in solving many of our local problems such as controlling gangs and crime, improving education and training, and promoting prosperity and the general welfare of the population. I'm sure of one thing, the naysayers are going to tell us how hard it is - someone, somewhere is preventing us from succeeding, and surely it can't be our fault. If that attitude had been prevalent throughout human history, we would still be living in caves waiting on a memo telling us it was OK to go outside.
Marty Richman Got a question or a comment? Send us an email.
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