Explosive
I have always loved fire and explosions. By the time I was a teenager, I had accidentally set our detached garage on fire three times, learned how to distill wood alcohol, and made my own fireworks (yes, you can make black powder from common ingredients at home). While I was part “mad scientist,” I also like to learn all I could about anything I was interested in.
Black powder was first originally developed by Taoists in China for medicinal purposes and first used for warfare around AD 904. It is a granular mixture of the following: a nitrate, typically potassium nitrate (KNO3), which supplies oxygen for the reaction; charcoal, which provides carbon and other fuel for the reaction; and sulfur (S), which serves as a fuel and lowers the temperature required to ignite the mixture.
These ingredients must be milled to a fine powder to ensure that they are in good contact with each other. Black powder is considered a low explosive, because the shock wave it produces is subsonic. As a fine powder, black powder isn’t very powerful. However, in the 14th century, it was discovered that by densely packing wetted black powder into larger grains (called “corns” because the grains looked like corn kernels), the power could be increased 30% to 300%.
The reason for this is that when lit, the flame moves from grain to grain in larger grains much faster than in powder. The burn rate in powder is linear, whereas the burn rate in grained black powder is much faster and accelerates (nonlinear), leading to much greater expansion which is another word for explosion. It is the space between the grains that makes the difference.
Pretend for a minute the power represented in the black powder mixture is the talents, skills, and capabilities of the people we lead. There are several things a great leader must provide for the full power of a team to be realized.
First, black powder is made of very disparate components. If it were all charcoal (fuel) without a catalyst (oxidizer), it would not burn. If it were all catalyst without any fuel, it would also not be effective. Even the sulfur plays a critical role as an accelerant helping the reaction happen faster.
Leaders must create teams with diversity of experience and personality. Each person on a team plays a critical part without which the work product of the team would be less powerful. It’s easy to gravitate toward people that are like us, but we need people who are as different as charcoal and sulfur.
As in black powder, there must be good contact between the various elements of our team for the individual components to most effectively do their part. We must foster good communication, trust, and connection between our team members. This can be tricky.
When milling black powder, it is critical that no sparks are generated, as that can cause ignition and an unintended explosion. Likewise, when leading our teams to greater connectedness, we must be careful to reduce the “sparks” of contention that could cause the energy of the team to be expended in an internal explosion.
Finally, to get the most power out of black powder, there has to be appropriate space incorporated into the final mix. Without room for the fire to propagate, the reaction never reaches its full potential.
Our teams need space. Space from the leader to work some things out on their own. Space from each other and from the compression of time and energy that can occur in a high performing group. Personal space for self-care and health as well as introspective thought and contemplation. Just like black powder, a team that has good diversity, is managed properly, and has the room to work and grow will produce explosive results. Even better, when everything is in the right proportions and balance, the energy benefits both the community and the individual. Black powder can destroy or create beautiful displays in the night sky. Great leaders foster teams that expend their energy in the Bison Way.