“I was in Richardson Texas watching on a Black and White TV.”
… Christmas Eve, 1968. Apollo 8 had gone into orbit around the Moon that day, and that evening the crew went on live television from lunar orbit. Frank Borman closed the broadcast by wishing a Merry Christmas to “all of you on the good Earth.” Just before we would move to Florida the following year to be there to watch the Moon Landing which I have a picture of…
…too close to see the whole team…
You see your team every day, which is the problem. You know who is late, who is quiet, and who sent the sharp email on Tuesday. You are too close to see what they look like from the outside. The details crowd out the shape.
Every tech leader has a version of this. You can tell me the state of every ticket and not tell me which of your people is ready for more, or which one is about to leave. The view from the desk is sharp and small. Some weeks the work is to put enough Space between you and the day that the whole team fits in the window.
…the quiet guitarist who studied the stars…
Jonny Buckland is where Coldplay began. He met Chris Martin in their first week at University College London, in September 1996, 30 years ago this fall. He plays lead guitar, and he studied mathematics and astronomy, finishing with a 2:1. Will Champion tells a story from their hall of residence: “the bloke who turned out to be the best guitarist out of all of us was the bloke who had his guitar hidden in his cupboard.” The quiet one, observing from the corner, had been the best player in the building the whole time, and the rest of them had to look twice to see it.
The best player in the building may be the one with the guitar in the cupboard. Step back far enough to observe who it is.
…to observe is to find the right distance…
To observe is to see what is actually there, not what you expect to see. It takes distance. Up close you see tasks. From far enough away you see people, the patterns between them, and the Space where someone is about to grow or about to go.
The roadblock is that distance feels like neglect. Leaders who step back worry that they look absent. But on that same Christmas Eve, Bill Anders looked out of Apollo 8 and took the photograph we now call Earthrise: the whole planet, small and blue, coming up over the Moon. You cannot take that picture from the ground. To observe your team, you have to get far enough away to see all of it at once.
…a song about every phase…
Moon Music opens the album of the same name, released on October 4, 2024, the second volume of the Music of the Spheres project. Coldplay wrote it with Jon Hopkins. Chris Martin said the title “has to do with accepting all the different phases” of life. The album went to No. 1 in the UK and on the Billboard 200.
The cover is a moonbow, a rainbow made by moonlight, photographed in Argentina. You only see one if you are in the right place, at the right distance, and looking up at the right time.
…the picture I have observed for 57 years…
On July 20, 1969, at 4:17 in the afternoon, Eastern time, Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. My sister and I were 9 and 11… and we were PISSED that we had to come inside to watch this damn little TV. Yep – I was underwhelmed with the fact that science was real, it was happening live, and all I wanted to do was play outside. It is not lost on me that the Space program gave me some of the most fun and most intense leadership experiences…
Your “Simple… Not Easy” move: Step outside after dark tonight, find the Moon, and give 3 minutes to looking at your team from that far away.
If what you observe from up there surprises you, let’s talk about what to do with it. Schedule time with me here.
Look up tonight, and let your team come into focus under the… Moon Music
