Cooperation Lessons from The Titans of Saturn
Posted on Monday, September 4, 2006 by Frank Roche
I just finished reading The Titans of Saturn by Bram Groen and Charles Hampden-Turner. It’s a powerful read about the multinational team that built the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft that reached Titan, one of the moons of Saturn, after a 15-year voyage. On one hand, the book is a science book, and it details how after seven years of space travel, a spacecraft was able to land safely millions of miles away from its launch point at Cape Canaveral. But there’s much more to The Titans of Saturn, and that’s the story of how people from vastly different cultures and far-flung continents were able to work together to accomplish such incredible science.
The title of Chapter Four perfectly encapsulates the essence of how a rocket was launched in 1997, orbited Saturn, and landed a probe on Titan in 2005: Competing to cooperate: how thousands of incomparable indivduals fulfilled their common mission. Quite a powerful thought when we consider diversity, cultural awareness, and teamwork in the HR arena.
