The hardest part of leadership is the human behavior piece
/I recently discovered the 90-minute presentation How to Get to the Moon: Success Lessons from Apollo delivered at NASA by journalist and space historian Andrew Chaikin on June 3, 2019. In it, Chaikin explores the crucial role that human behaviors play in both success and failure in group endeavors. He starts:
The lessons Chaikin presents are about human behavior, and not about technical skills or rocket science. Most tie in with how The lessons Chaikin presents are about human behavior, and not about technical skills or rocket science. Most tie in with how attitude, energy, and mindset impact performance and success.impact performance and success.
They illustrate that when you have a negative mindset (protective, defensive, biased, arrogant, overconfident, egocentric, closed-minded, avoiding, distorting, etc.) you under-perform and suffer more, and negatively influence those you lead or associate with.
And that when you have a positive mindset (open, creative, compassionate, directed, supportive, realistic, process-oriented, laser-focused, etc.), you perform at your best and experience more success, and positively inspire those you lead or associate with.
For sure, view the recording when you have time. Meanwhile, here is a summary of the lessons:
People perform better together when aligned to the same goal.
When people disagree with your very big goal, find a bigger, broader goal you can all agree with. Congress and the general American Public did not adequately favor the goal of getting a man to the moon over other priorities. President Kennedy tied the Space Program to winning the Cold War by showing off to the world the strength of our free society.
Go for abundance over scarcity: “shoot for the Moon”
NASA leadership did a bottom-up estimating process resulting in a $10B estimate, then doubled it (with an “administrative discount” 😊) in its funding request to Congress. This resulted, for example, in having sufficient funding for multiple alternative development efforts from which NASA could pick the best one.
People perform better together in a culture of trust across ALL levels of the organization.
Much of NASA’s culture is attributed to the leadership of initial Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center Bob Gilruth, who created NASA’s “success culture” and perpetuated it with Apollo Program leaders Chris Kraft (Mission Control) and George Low (Apollo Spacecraft Program). One example of this trust is making decisions at the lowest organization level possible.
People perform better when interconnected.
NASA employed systems thinking: Paying attention to the details. Avoiding thinking of/paying attention to/being comfortable with staying in your vertical /compartment /“swim lane.” Implementing configuration control. Looking for potential unintended consequences across all domains for any change identified/ made in one domain.
Exploring and understanding any new environment is critical to success.
NASA/JPL sent unmanned Surveyor landers to the moon to investigate the moon’s surface to better understand the challenges facing the Apollo lander. NASA’s Gemini Program explored space suits, docking, space walks, to gain experience with working and living in space.
Outside the box, innovative, and different thinking are key to success.
NASA learned to non-judgmentally, open-mindedly consider and evaluate off-the-wall ideas, observations, and responses before deciding what to do with them. The program looked out for bias against /resistance to ideas outside anyone’s domain; for proprietary or close-to-the-vest thinking; for “Not Invented Here (NIH)” syndrome; for distrust of or aversion to people who are different (negative tribal bias). An example of this is the idea advocated by an aerospace engineer (John Houbolt) to have a very small lunar lander vs. an entire Saturn 5-like lander was originally rejected by others (Wernher von Braun) biased toward larger rockets.
Risk can be significantly reduced by design.
NASA explored, anticipated, planned, and implemented explicitly including what could go wrong. They simplified and created redundancy in design. An example of this is the lunar lander’s rockets’ design to have minimum (i.e. simplified) moving parts and redundant fuel tanks and electrical panels.
Realistic and thorough testing is not a “nice to have”.
Chaikin applauded the Apollo Program’s thorough and resource-intensive testing of the Saturn 5 rockets and attributed the USSR’s losing the lunar landing race to the continued explosions of their N1 rockets because they weren’t sufficiently tested due to lack of resources.
What-if thinking produces better performance.
Instead of saying “we’ll deal with anything unexpected if and when it happens”, NASA explored, brainstormed, and anticipated what might happen other than the expected experience/ outcome at any point in the program, and identified options of what to do. If possible, it simulated/ enacted a run-through of the implementation and update the “what-if” scenarios as appropriate. Some of the extraordinary actions implemented to save the astronauts in the Apollo 13 rescue mission had been anticipated and documented in “mission rules” years before.
Bureaucratic, groupthink, ”cookbook thinking”, insular, judgmental, fixed-mindset cultures don’t succeed.
Apollo Program leadership created and exemplified a culture of open and clear communication up-and-down the organization, with accountability at all levels. They created a culture that expects mistakes, tolerates failures, and learns from and remembers the lessons. An astronaut is quoted as saying, “400,000 people around the country were saying to themselves for the better part of a decade, it won't fail because of me”.
“Reality Distortion Fields” lead to failure.
An RDF is unrealistic and relentless pressure, usually from senior leaders and sponsors, in cost, schedule, and/or politics, that results in a mindset supporting (and general buy-in to) an unrealistic story. One example RDF is the story that pure oxygen was appropriate for Apollo capsule atmosphere, in spite of many attempts to establish that was unrealistic. Pure oxygen was a contributing factor in the tragic Apollo 1 fire.
[Note: Steve Job’s leadership at Apple is often used as an example of creating an RDF.]
Overconfidence leads to failure.
“I can/ am so smart I can handle anything you throw at me” is a red flag. No one can do it all by themself. Checks and balances, peer review, configuration control, and the like are critical. Apollo Spacecraft Program Manager Joe Shea, felt infallible as the main technical guy, until the Apollo 1 fire.
Success requires keeping the lessons fresh.
Chaikin warns that “awareness has a shelf life.” Based on the elapsed time between and since the three major disasters (Apollo 1, Challenger Shuttle, Discovery Shuttle), if we’re not alert, we’re due for another disaster unless we remember the lessons. People have a tendency that increases over time to forget or overlook the lessons that they and others have learned. Lessons must be recorded and made available and reviewed when appropriate. This may involve researching others’ lessons, interviewing those who learned them, and giving the lessons a face – audio or video recordings.
Positive attitude, energy, and mindset are about non-judgment, possibility, reality, curiosity, innovation, laser focus, vision, exploration. Negative attitude, energy, and mindset are about criticism, “me”, distrust, scarcity, arrogance, fear. Do you see how these fit into Chaikin’s lessons?
Positive Intelligence® is an effective mindset practices framework. The key elements of PQ® are (1) identifying, recognizing and weakening the emotions, thoughts, and behaviors of your negative mindset; (2) consciously shifting your mindset in the moment from negative to positive; and (3) then engaging the emotions, thoughts, and behaviors of your positive mindset.*
My approach to leadership coaching is less focused on managerial skills, like setting strategy and direction, defining organization, monitoring and measuring performance, and communicating. I coach Positive Intelligence® and other mindset/ energy practices, especially (but not exclusively) for mid-level high-tech leaders. If you are feeling inspired to build, reestablish, or further develop these and other leadership practices, check out my Energy and Mindset Reboot Program. Click here to find out what it can do for you in a free 30-minute Discovery Session.
“Our flight must be not only to the stars but into the nature of our own beings. Because it is not merely where we go, to Alpha Centauri or Betelgeuse, but what we are as we make our pilgrimage there. Our natures will be going there, too.”
-- Philip K. Dick
* References:
Shirzad Chamine, Positive Intelligence: Why Only 20% of Teams and Individuals Achieve Their True Potential and How You Can Achieve Yours, Geenleaf Book Group Press, Austin, TX, ©2012 https://a.co/d/3NCZUXZ