“Houston, we’ve had a problem.” A sentence that marked one of the most famous “failed successes” in the world. Apollo 13 was launched on April 11, 1970, with the goal of becoming the third mission to land humans on the Moon. Two days later, an explosion in the service module shut down critical systems, and in a single moment, it became clear: “We just lost the Moon.” It was the breaking point, the moment when the original plan irreversibly collapsed. Plan A - “Landing on the Moon,” became Plan B - “Saving lives.” In mission control, Gene Kranz said the words that would later become a symbol of determination: “Failure is not an option.”
That night, no one at NASA was just doing their job. They were working for someone’s life. Fear and uncertainty spread far beyond mission control, the whole world was watching the Moon, and there was only one goal: bring them home alive. NASA engineers did something remarkable. They created a solution using only what the astronauts had on board. Innovation didn’t come from new tools, but from a new way of looking at the existing ones. It became one of the most famous engineering rescues in history. On April 17, 1970, the crew re-entered Earth’s atmosphere and safely landed in the Pacific Ocean. Everyone survived.
In business, as in space, plans explode without warning. The real question is not why the plan failed, but whether we have people who can build a solution from what remains. In those moments, constraints often drive the most innovative outcomes. Every organization has its own “Houston, we’ve had a problem” moment. The difference lies in who sits at the table, and how quickly the team accepts that Plan A is dead.
What if Plan B doesn’t exist?
Personally, I never have a Plan B. I’m closer to Hernán Cortés, who arrived in Mexico in 1519 and burned his ships. Literally. So his men would have nowhere to go - only victory or defeat. No return. No Plan B. Of course, I don’t agree with everything Cortés did, but that decision, to burn the ships, I understand. I don’t burn ships or bridges, nor do I have a safety net to catch me like an acrobat if I fall. My Plan A stretches me beyond every limit, even the ones I didn’t know existed. Of course, this cannot be compared to Apollo 13; lives were at stake, and if Plan B had failed, they would have moved to Plan C, Plan D - whatever it took to bring them home.
But in business? Sometimes that safety net is exactly what keeps you from jumping with full force. Apollo 13’s Plan B is my Plan A. For some people, Plan B creates freedom to take risks. For me, the absence of Plan B is what keeps me from giving up. I remember when I stepped into a leadership role and one of my colleagues said, ‘That’s it, there’s nowhere else to go, you can only go down from here.’ I looked at him and said, ‘How so? For me, there’s always a next level. If there’s a ceiling, I break through it in my own way. I always choose growth, even if it means I have to break it myself.’
Apollo 13 didn’t teach us that we always need a backup plan. It taught us that when everything goes wrong, all that remains are the people around you, and the decision not to quit. Regardless of whether you have a Plan B or not.
*I wrote this on April 11, 2025 - the day Apollo 13 launched 55 years earlier.
A coincidence? Maybe.
But sometimes, stories choose their own moment.
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