086: TNG: The Icarus Factor

Welcome! Thanks for joining me today. It is said that great leaders create more leaders. So why is that so many leaders hold people back? And how do you better support developing leaders on your team? Let’s find out as we watch the 14^th episode of the 2^nd season of The Next Generation, The Icarus Factor.

<<Transporter>>

The Enterprise is headed to Starbase Montgomery. There’s some readings coming from Engineering and they need to use their facilities to figure that all out. They’ve also got some personnel transfers that Captain Picard is being a little cryptic about. “I’ve just received some transfer directives.” 0:59 He invites Commander Riker to meet with him when he’s wrapped up.

In a camera shot we don’t see in later seasons of the series, Picard and Riker meet. He says some nice things about Riker’s performance as first officer, and then he shares some surprising news, “The captain of the Aries is retiring and you’ve been selected as his replacement.” 1:50 Turns out Riker was one of those mysterious personnel transfers. It is a deep space exploration vessel that is mapping new parts of the galaxy. At the Starbase, they’ll be picking up a mission expert to brief and prepare Riker to assume command. And, again, Picard is being strangely cryptic about that too. “I think you’ll find the briefing interesting.” 4:46 Riker is looking forward to it as he’ll mostly be basing his decision as to whether or not to accept the assignment on this.

They beam the mission expert over. Riker is more than a little surprised when his “dad” 5:18 materializes. Once he says he’s the advisor, Riker leaves the transporter room and asks the Transporter Attendant to get Kyle to quarters. Turns out they haven’t seen each other for 15 years and, as we’ll see through the episode, Will is still really upset about that.

And because this is the 2^nd season of the series, not only is Wesley Crusher in it, Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher. But they are really leaning into his, uh, youthful energy. “Did you hear about Riker’s promotion? Enough!!” 6:10 Worf goes on his way and Wesley, hurt, watches him go. Worried, he talks with Geordi and Data. He knows this isn’t on-brand for Worf and he wants to help him. He does some research and think’s he’s landed on it. “I figured out Worf’s problem…it’s the 10^th anniversary of Worf’s age of ascension.” 22:20 Worf’s upset he’s going to be missing this important anniversary and ritual. He’s feeling isolated. Data thinks they should use the holodeck so they get to work programming it and all of its intricacies. “That would entail the use of Klingon painsticks.” 25:29 Which, I’ve got to tell you, while that is a ridiculous name, it’s a lot better than from Babylon 5. Yes, I am bringing that here.

Riker is chilling out in ten-forward, visiting with Chief O’Brien when his Dad, Kyle comes in. He starts visiting with some people he knows, including Dr. Pulaski! “This is more than a surprise, it’s a total shock.” 8:19 They used to see each other and almost got married! The share a friendly kiss and hug. Huh, small world. “They know each other. I know here and we don’t do that.” 8:36 We find out Pulaski was married, and divorced, three times and she’s still good friends with all the dudes. Those are some great relationship goals! Riker, fed up with what he’s seeing makes his way to their table. They invite him to join them, “Sit down, son.” 10:40 but Riker shuts him down. “I’m ready for that briefing when you are.” 10:42

Worf comes to Riker’s quarters. He requests to transfer to the Aries with him. He thinks Will will need his expertise on the mission. Riker hears him, but doesn’t commit to anything. He heads to meet with Kyle. Kyle hands him a disk with the mission details and then tries to talk. Like, really talk. He almost tries to have a for real conversation like we talked about in the 85^th episode! “Will. I came to the Enterprise because I may never see you again” 16:24 But Riker just leaves the room. It’s so sad, even the music gets all feel-y. “music” 16:42

This back and forth goes on throughout the episode. Kyle talks to Pulaski, who hands him off to Troi. A little later on, Will talks to Pulaski too. Turns out Kyle is super competitive and is jealous of Will. And he’s pretty ridiculous about it all. “I may have something of a reputation for excellence.” 19:19 Wow. Eventually they meet up in Riker’s quarters. We find out Will’s mom, Kyle’s wife, died when he was young and Kyle left awhile after that. As Kyle prepares to leave, they get right to it. Going back to the one thing that connected them back in the day. “It’s a shame there’s no anbo-jytsu ring nearby. There is. We could clear the air. You’re on.” 30:01 When Kyle talks with Pulaski she calls him this BS. “Haven’t we grown past the need for violence?” 30:38 But, apparently not, because that’s where we’re heading later.

And speaking of physical conflict and pain, Worf shows up for his party! There’s a pathway with risers on either side and Klingons holding painsticks on them. The ritual is pretty straightforward. Worf walks down the pathway, gets hit with the painsticks, “Ahhh” 34:47 and then celebrates his anniversary with his buddies. Well done, Wesley!

And then, the big showdown. Will and Kyle gear up in their American Gladiators outfits and then fight. They’ve got these q-tip looking staffs and a visor blocking their vision. It’s actually not done too badly. Not too well, either, but not that bad. They have it all out. “She was your mother, and my wife. You kept me going.” 39:59 After saying the things they hadn’t said for the past 15 years, they’re good. Or, at least better. They hug it out and Kyle heads back to the Starbase.

On the bridge, Riker takes his seat in the First Officer’s position, with just 3 pips on his uniform. Picard asks why he turned down the promotion. “Motivated self-interest.” 44:03 Whatever that means. So, we end the episode right where we started, but with Riker resolving a big, family rift.

<<Red Alert>>

So, the first two seasons of the Next Generation are interesting. I think it’s popular and generally accepted to just call them bad. I myself am guilty of skipping them on rewatches. But episodes like this highlight the massive potential these seasons had, which really did allow it to flourish into the near-masterpiece of the later seasons, like the 5^th and 6^th seasons. But, if we’re being fair, this is still, very much an early season episode of this show.

Quarks – Ads

There were two stories in this one that really mattered: Worf’s ceremony and Riker’s Dad coming on board. The problem is, for a 44-minute long episode, this only really gave them like 35 minutes of content, so there was some real stretching going on. They had this whole storyline about Engineering readings that was ridiculous and not even worth mentioning. It just gave the episode something to fill time with.

In past episodes I’ve talked about both the genius of Gene Roddenberry as well as how difficult he made it to produce quality television. This is one of those. The director really wanted to focus on the emotions between Will and his Dad; drawing out the anger and the resentment. Which, to me at least, for TV makes total sense. But Roddenberry shut that down. He said that by this time, in the 24^th century, people and families wouldn’t have unresolved anger to deal with. We’d be more ‘emotionally mature,’ or something like that. So the interactions were seriously watered down, which I think hurt it, a lot.

It was still a compelling idea for a story, though. And so was Worf’s big day. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Geordi and Data’s relationship is a real high point in TNG for me. This episode reminded me of how they included Wesley in that, for a time, too. And it honestly worked. It was a warm storyline of a group of people coming together to take care of their friend. It showed cultural humility and real connection. It also had some pretty funny bits to it. “Right. Watch for unusual behavior. Let’s go. You go, we’ll help.” 9:40 which really played on that friendship triangle. And we even got a fun moment of the early days of Data, when they were still kinda figuring out how an android would behave. “You have friends here. With all due respect…” 12:55 Ha. Good stuff.

One cool, little piece of trivia on this one. Do you know who John Tesh is? There was a time, late 80’s-ish into the early 90’s, where he was kind of a big deal. In fact, his Live at Red Rocks album from, I think ’94, was a pretty significant bit of the zeitgeist of the time. Well, apparently he’s a huge Star Trek fan, so he leveraged his influence to get a part in the show. And it’s this episode! He was put into makeup and given a painstick! He was one of the Klingons that shocked Worf. Tesh was hosting Entertainment Tonight at the time so they did a segment on his experience. Kinda cool. Guess all I need to do is host a huge, Hollywood tabloid show, reach world-class musician status and even I can get a bit part in an episode of Star Trek someday. Hm. Sounds easy enough.

The Riker storyline, while emotionally neutered, actually did a lot to develop the characters on the show. Yes, I said the episode ended with us in the same place as we were in the beginning, which is narratively true, but developmentally, this was significant. Obviously, we learned more about Will and his story. We get another in a line of what will be, I think, 3 times he declines a promotion. And we also get a significant moment in his relationship with Deanna Troi. Theirs is a relationship I feel many should aspire to. True love and true support for each other, both as friends and as people. This episode shows how deep their love runs when they say good-bye to each other. It’s really touching, and, in full transparency, I teared up a little when they said, “Are you feeling sad? Yes. So am I.” 29:06 Oh, man that’s powerful stuff! She’s heartbroken and wants to connect with Will. Checking to see that they still have their deep love. Thinking back on it now, I think this was my favorite scene of the entire episode.

And then you know who I am really coming to like and appreciate as I watch these episodes for the podcast? Dr. Pulaski. Man, I did not like her before. I, like so many others, just labeled her a bigot based on my initial take on how she responded to Data, and wrote her off. But episodes like, Elementary, My Dear Data, and this one goes a long way to show the depth of character she had. She is passionate, kind and generous. Married three times, divorced three times and still great friends with all of them. Again, like Riker and Troi, relationship goals. Not the divorce, necessarily, but the relationship where you can remain connected. Plus, she has an awful lot of Dr. McCoy in her, “Sounds nasty. Pulaski’s Chicken Soup.” 17:03 Honestly, it’s kind of a shame we only got her for one season.

So if you’re like me, and you tend to skip these early TNG episodes, go ahead and hit this one. It totally could have been better than it turned out, but in the story of Star Trek, it’s worth watching.

<<Command Codes>>

Why are you a leader? Why would anyone want to be a leader? Ask 100 people and you’ll likely get 100 answers, but Captain Picard describes it beautifully in this episode. We’re going to look at the motivation to be a leader and, specifically, how having a sound and grounded why will help you accomplish one of the core functions of a leader; creating other leaders.

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You’d think this episode could have been a real examination of the offer of leadership. Of leaving what makes you comfortable for something that might not work out. Instead, it focuses on the interpersonal dynamics between the Rikers. That’s ok. That’s where I come in! We’re going to snag some of the pieces that do talk about that examination, and the support it needs, and get more out of this one than the writers likely intended.

The dictionary definition of leadership is: the position or office of a leader. Oh. Well, that’s not helpful at all. Oh, oops. I’ll keep reading. It goes on to say that leadership is the ability to guide and direct a group of people towards a common goal. Ok, that sounds better. So if leadership is the ability, being a leader is doing the thing. Moving a group of people towards a common goal. I’m not gonna lie. That sounds kind of dry and boring. I mean, it’s not wrong, by any means, but how is that going to inspire anyone to step into the, often uncomfortable role of being a leader?

Let’s look at some other descriptions. McKinsey says, Leadership is a set of behaviors used to help people align their collective direction, to execute strategic plans, and to continually renew an organization. Ugh…still so dry. Side question, why are we so driven to use big ‘ol words and make things sound so self-important? It’s honestly exhausting. And one of the reasons I started this podcast. Take the inflated ego stuff out of what we do and just get to the good stuff.

Let’s try this. I’ll start easy. Why am I a leader? Probably because I don’t have any marketable technical skills and I gotta do something! No, just kidding. Honestly, I am a leader because I am driven to help people unlock their true potential and to achieve more than they thought they could. Now, which one of those sounds better? You’ve got to personalize it. I’m curious why you are a leader. What brings you to this world?

Captain Picard, while coaching Riker on his big decision – take the promotion or not – describes it really well. “Being who you are, you’d make it yours.” 26:50 Now that language is very ‘me, me, me’ or ‘my, my, my’ but it still gets to a lot of great stuff. Leadership is about vision. Creating a vision and enrolling people in moving towards it. Back in the 80^th episode of the podcast when we watched Discovery’s Into the Forest I go, I talked extensively about vision and how to do that well as a leader.

Now this becomes important as we look at the decision Riker has to make. In theory, First Officer is a position to prepare someone for command. I compare it to being the Assistant or Deputy General Manager or whatever they call it in your company. You get some of the duties, but you’re still focused on Operations. The development comes in the problem-solving and understanding the thinking behind the GM, or captain’s decisions. Again, in theory, the goal in that position is to be offered your own store, or location or starship. And that’s what happens to Riker here.

But Riker, like most people in that position, doesn’t just blindly accept the offer. He wants to know more about it. He wants to be sure it’s a good fit for him and his career, so he leans on the people around him to help inform his decision, specifically on Captain Picard. And Picard is great. We’ll talk about the awesome things he does here shortly. Before that, I want to talk about a thing I have personally experienced and I’m sure you either have to, or know someone this has happened to.

Jealousy. Petty jealousy. You’re doing well in your role and you’re ready for the next step, but your manager, for whatever reason works to sabotage it. Here’s my story. Back when I was supervising a late shift production shop, I felt I was ready for a role with more responsibility. I cruised job listings, applied to a few and mostly sat around waiting. I was finally invited to interview for this cool looking job. It would have managed some administrative operations in a law enforcement organization. Fascinating and important stuff. I did what you do when preparing for an interview like this. I did a bunch of research so I could show up with an understanding of the organization and the job. I even had a 30-60-90 day plan based on what I knew. And, not to toot my own horn, but I nailed it. When that interview ended I knew I had the job, and, much more importantly, they wanted me for the job.

So they do what you should do when hiring someone, especially into a critical role. They checked references. They called my current supervisor and they should have had nothing but great things to say about me. My performance reviews were good and they hadn’t brought up any performance concerns. But I later found out, because, to share part of the end of that story, I ended up in a position where my team utilized the services that this position I applied to managed, but I found out that my supervisor refused to answer questions about my performance and, instead, said they didn’t feel I was ready for more responsibility. That the job would be beyond my skillset.

Now the end of the story is actually pretty great. Like I said, I ended up managing a program that took advantage of their services which was a cooler job than the one I applied for. And the supervisor that gave the slanted reference? Fired. So, yeah. Know this. In the moment things may seem dire, but, in the long run, things tend to work out.

Reflecting on that, I had to ask why they did that. Why did they knowingly sabotage my advancement? While it’s not exactly the same, a line Troi drops when arguing with Kyle Riker starts to paint the picture. “You should honestly consider why you are so competitive with your son.” 19:39 This obviously wasn’t a father-son thing, but if we change a few words it totally applies. ‘You should honestly consider why you are so competitive with your team.’ Wharton and many others, maybe most notably author Roy T. Bennett say that great leaders create more leaders. The quote from his book, The Light in the Heart reads, ‘Good leaders have vision and inspire others to help them turn vision into reality. Great leaders create more leaders, not followers. Great leaders have vision, share vision, and inspire others to create their own.’ Now, looking back at Picard’s definition of leadership, kinda sounds like he was doing exactly this.

But leaders that let their ego get in the way. That allow their own issues and shortcomings cloud their judgement. That believe they are creating followers and not leaders. They do stuff like that. They use their power differential to kind of compete, or maybe more accurately, hold down the people on their team.

There are a number of ways to combat this. Maybe one of the easier ways is to take a hike. If you’re working for someone like this, quit. Find something else to do or somewhere else to do what you do. But that’s not necessarily an option for everyone. Or, maybe you are working where you want to, just not with the person you want to be. In those cases, self-advocacy becomes a useful strategy. Speak up! In a weird scene that doesn’t make any narrative sense and never comes up again, see my earlier little rant on filling time in this episode, Worf shows so awesome self-advocacy! “Words are not easy for me.” 13:55 Let’s look at what he does here. He first sets the tone for what is to come. As soon as those words are out of his mouth, words are not easy for me, two really important things happen. First, Riker knows something serious is coming. That prompts him to put his active listening hat on. Second, it opens the door for Worf to be clumsy in what he says; he doesn’t have to be articulate or get it just right. He sets the expectation from go. And then, then he asks for what he wants. While it is that simple, I will point out, from personal experience, this takes a significant amount of courage. So don’t overthink it. Just do it.

And now, let’s look at Picard. He maybe takes up like 8 minutes of this entire episode; he’s not in it much at all and for the most part, he’s incredible in every one of those moments. There are a lot of ways to handle a situation like his. One of your trusted and valued team members is offered a promotion, one they’ve been working towards, and could be leaving your team. We’ve already established that leading with your ego and being selfish isn’t the way to go. But there’s another wrong way to go and this one might not be as obvious.

Full disclosure here, I am guilty of this faux pau and I’m confident a lot of you are too. In a relationship like this it is very likely you’ve experienced this before; you were the first officer being offered a command, or the assistant being offered their first store. You remember the excitement of the offer, and then the deliberation. When I was working for the theatre I was offered a substantial promotion, but I would have had to move to Idaho. That’s a big decision to make. So when your teammate asks you for advice, it seems perfectly logical to tell your story and even do the, ‘if I were in your position,’ thing. But here’s the thing. You’re not in their position. And while your experience is valuable, this is their story. Not yours. Picard masterfully avoids this.

As he and Riker talk, he praises the work Riker has done on the Enterprise. He even references the scene in Encounter at Farpoint when he docked the saucer section. He makes sure Riker knows that he values his work and contributions to the ship. And then he drops these little hints about how great the job offer is. There’s the quote I played earlier about being able to influence the culture and live out your vision. But he even gets really specific, “The last time I saw Flaherty…you will find him very useful.” 20:42 highlighting the great team he’d be joining. In doing this, he’s demonstrating the value of both possible outcomes. If you stay on the ship, cool. You’re super good at this job and I’d love to keep you around. If you take the job, cool. Leadership is awesome and there are some good people you’ll be working with. Through the entire episode we never know what Picard’s hope or preference is. And I absolutely love that! What Picard wants does not matter in the least. This is Riker’s story and his decision to make.

And he is really struggling to make the decision. To be fair, the ship he’d take command of, the USS Aries, is kind of a po-dunk, little thing that won’t bring much glory at all. It’s out mapping an uncharted region of space and, so far, nothing too exciting. And while that’s true, I am a huge believer that it’s not the size of the boat that matters, but the motion in the ocean you can create with that boat. The first theatre I was the General Manager was this decrepit, old 4-screen in a mall that was slated to get shut down. My assignment was essentially to stem the flow of blood until they could put it out of its misery. Now, I could have accepted that fate and just moped around the auditoriums that had more roof patch over them than roof. Or I could do what I did. Find those opportunities to capitalize on what I had. I was attached to a mall, so that gave me access to countless people. Over the holiday season, the company would push us to sell gift certificates. We had local, regional and national contests with substantial bonuses tied to them. I decided, when they announced the sales drive and the contest around it, that I was going to win. I had the mall thing going for me, but I also had nearly non-existent attendance. I mean, for real, there were days we would have 12 customers. All day. The contest was split into two categories: total sales, and total sales per customer. Yeah. You are probably doing the math I was doing. The bigger, 11-screen theatre down the road a ways from me would pull in, let’s say 10,000 people in a week while I’d pull in about 1,000, if it was a good week. So their gift certificate sales were divided by 10k while mine, just 1k. And remember the mall thing? Well, maintaining a good relationship with the mall manager went a long way. And really, all I had to do was give her all the free movies she wanted. She let me set up a kiosk smack dab in the middle of the mall. I staffed that thing from open to close and we made bank! Not only did I dominate the per cap contest, but I finished high enough in the total, gross sales contest I got a payout there too. That was a profitable holiday season for me.

So, yes, the Aries is an unremarkable ship, and Picard even acknowledges this, but you can do amazing things even if you’re not working with an amazing set of tools.

Eventually, Riker all but straight up asks Picard what decision he should make. “I’d be a fool to turn this down, wouldn’t I? I don’t know.” 26:01 Picard’s answer is next level awesome! His model, through this episode is a paint-by-numbers approach to supporting someone in this situation.

Keep your opinions to yourself. Provide honest information. Make it safe for them to make whatever decision they want. And keep your ego out of it. If our job as leaders is to help create more leaders, this is what it looks like. You’ve done the coaching. You’ve done the development. And now it’s time for that birdie to fly. Now it’s their turn to go out and create more leaders. And if that’s what you’ve done, you’re doing this right.  

<<Hailing Frequencies>>

I really am very curious. Why did you become a leader? Was it to help move people from point A to point B? Was it to help groups accomplish a goal? Or was it more like Picard’s description? Creating a culture and making your vision a reality. For real, tell me all about it! I’m on Twitter and Mastodon: @ SFLA podcast and instagram, @jefftakin Jeff, t as in Transfer Directives, a k i n.

Computer, what are we going to watch next time….

Oh, dude. I am ridiculously excited for this one! The third episode of the second season of The Animated Series, The Practical Joker. This is the one where Kirk has Kirk is a Jerk written on the back of his shirt! Oh, this is a fun one. This episode is kind of famous as it is the first time a holodeck shows up in Star Trek, though it has a different name. But the one thing I think I’m most looking forward to is when the computer says to Kirk, that’s for me to know and you to find out. I can’t wait!

Until then, Ex Astris Scientia!