Tag: crisis management
“Unsinkable” — The Titanic and the Psychology of Ignored Risk
1. The Birth of Overconfidence In 1909, when the Titanic’s keel was laid in Belfast, the world was entering a new industrial age. The ship was a symbol of invincibility — 882 feet long, 46,000 tons of steel, and equipped with cutting-edge safety features. But that belief in perfection was its undoing.Overconfidence is not a…
🕊️ When Silence Could Kill – Communication Lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis
1. The Thirteen Days That Defined Communication In October 1962, intelligence analysts discovered Soviet nuclear missiles being secretly installed in Cuba. The U.S. faced an existential threat. Within hours, the White House formed the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (ExComm) — a group of senior advisors, generals, diplomats, and intelligence officers tasked with…
🚀 Apollo 13 – The Anatomy of Risk and Redemption
1. The Mission That Didn’t Go as Planned By April 1970, NASA had already achieved the impossible — humans had walked on the Moon. Apollo 13 was meant to be just another chapter in a now-routine story of success. But as any project manager knows, complacency is the quietest risk of all. Just two days…
The Invisible Risks: Why Traditional Risk Management Creates the Disasters It Tries to Prevent
The phone rang at 4:17 AM on what should have been the celebration morning after SpaceX’s most successful quarter. Instead of champagne, Elon Musk was staring at reports of a rocket explosion that hadn’t been caused by any of the 10,000+ risks in their comprehensive risk management system. The culprit? A helium loading system behaving…
