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Case Study

Manhattan project: Leading genius

By Andrew C. Boynton and William A. Fischer

12 pages

December 2005

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Reference: IMD-3-1350

A fascinating example of a great team can be found in the Manhattan Project, which brought some of the most brilliant scientific talent of the 20th century into an isolated campus to design a workable atomic bomb, all under enormous time pressure. Under the shared leadership of Leslie Groves and J. Robert Oppenheimer, an unprecedented number of Nobel Laureates and superstar physicists coalesced into a unified and coherent team, working tirelessly and with no single person claiming credit or ownership of the ideas that went into it. How did Groves and Oppenheimer organize it? How did they handle the bitter controversies that erupted between exceptional, yet extremely stubborn, men? How did they keep ideas flowing and alternative options alive? What lessons can managers learn from their management techniques and experience?

Keywords

Atomic Bomb, Technology, Defense

Settings

United States of America
1940s

Type

Published Sources

Available Languages

English

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