Measuring and Managing the Social Context of Teams

Editor's Notes

• #2: Self-explanatory
• #3: Charlie joined NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in 1967. He received the Center’s highest patent related award for a “Two-axis Fluxgate Magnetometer. The design, published in IEEE Transactions, flew on sounding rockets and missions exploring planets. He earned a PhD in Astrophysics publishing in Solar Physics and the Astrophysical Journal. Catholic University awarded him their Alumni Award for Outstanding Achievement in Science.After the Harvard Business School’s “Program for Management Development,” NASA appointed Charlie Director, Astrophysics. He led this multi-billion dollar program for a decade. Charlie invented the Great Observatories Program garnering over $8B for space astrophysics. NASA awarded him an Outstanding Leadership Medal and the American Astronautical Society gave him their highest award, the Space Flight Award.In 1990, Charlie launched the Hubble Space Telescope with a flawed mirror. He then mounted the space repair mission that fixed the telescope. Hubble is now in its 20th year of operations. NASA awarded him a second Outstanding Leadership Medal, an honor bestowed on less than 50 people (including astronauts) in NASA’s History. For leadership of the Astrophysics Division, and strategic planning, NASA then awarded him the Distinguished Service Medal, given “when the contribution is so extraordinary that other forms of recognition would be inadequate.”In 1993, he joined the University of Colorado’s (CU) Business School as a professor of Leadership. He a course called “21st Century Leadership” to undergraduates, MBAs, and executives. His classes had the highest ratings in the college, consistently “A+.”In 1995, Charlie founded “4-D Systems” with total sales of about $50M over the past decade. His coaches won the International Coach Federation’s 2007 Prism Award for “enhanced excellence and business achievement…with documented return on investment.”His book,How NASA Builds Teams (Wiley, 2009) is published in English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Taiwan and the Mainland), Bulgarian, Russian, and Czech. Charlie’s current focus is supporting the 4-D Network Providers in more than 75 countries in helping people worldwide have better lives and better work experiences. Charlie lives a happy and fulfilling life with his wife, Junko, in Boulder, Colorado with extended occasional stays in Sapporo, Japan. Together they enjoy travelling, history, art and good food.
• #4: I have been fascinated by the effects of “excess energy” on society and institutions. If you average over all time, humans had as much energy in a day as they could capture from the sun. This includes wind energy, water from falling water and photosynthesis. From time-to-time, civilizations find a way to collect energy that has been stored, usually by someone else. This is how the Roman’s built their empire. They figured out how to finance their army with spoils of war, including gold, silver, slaves, land and buildings; and have money (energy) left over. Then they hit the limits when they lost to the German tribes at the eastern boundary and had to construct Hadrian’s to protect the empire from uprisings in northern Britain. Of course, during the period of excess energy, they built the Coliseum, temples, and greatly expanded the government bureaucracy in like manner to all other civilizations, before or since. You can see the incredible effort to extract uranium and a typical coal train that we see in the US, often exceeding 100 coal cars!
• #5: The slide shows failures that we discuss in more detail later. You will see that even the hi-tech activities, where one would expect the technical issues to dominate risk. Interestingly, the difficult parts functioned as planned. Challenger’s risky “main engines,” worked fine. The Korean Airlines crashes had nothing to do with technical problems with the sophisticated aircraft systems. Hubble’s very complex pointing systems worked fine. In other words, difficulties that were completely amenable to enough intellectual attention were solved. Failures also include tasks as simple as placing holding bolts in the bottom of a satellite and making consistent toast. Once you learn to look for social contexts, you will see their effects everywhere. Upcoming examples include some of the most technically (and technologically) challenging endeavors humans have ever attempted.
• #6: I find that many people have real difficulty grasping the notion of social contexts as systems that have to be managed, subsystem by subsystem. This is of course familiar to any manager of complex space systems. This process is of course classical systems engineering. I have tried in public talks to explain this using Hubble as an example. Although this seems straightforward for me, non-technical audiences’ eyes glaze over. So this example might provide a metaphor that is easier to understand. If you wanted a healthy and safe home context, you could start by sheltering your family from the elements and from theft as indicated by the roof. Then I believe the rest is self-explanatory
• #7: This slide follows the same pattern as the previous slide, now with 4-D processes as analogues for each of the processes above.
• #8: his is an enormously important slide. The time spent in a workshop is of limited value if you fail to have some repetition of the material. Fortunately, our on-line Team and Individual Development (Assessments) make this easy to do.
• #9: This is a kind-of-fun slide I made while thinking about the power of repetition:Top-Panel:How did you learn the “times-table?”Similarly, you must reiterate the learning about the eight behaviors being a participant in multiple reassessments.Mid-Panel:In “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell investigated the difference between people who were famously successful and those less so. He assembled an impressive battery of evidence that the differentiator was 10,000 hours of experience. This is an amazing argument for the potency of repetition. Bottom-Panel:How important is the repetitive drum-beat/rhythm in your music.Notice that nearly every song has a repetitive chorus/refrain?Finally, notice what we all remember from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony – dun, dun, dun, and d-u-u-n.
• #10: To cement the learning and manage the context, you must employ repetition on three time scales.
• #11: Nothing teaches more effectively than “learning by doing.” This is called “experiential” learning, meaning learning from experience. (Can you learn to ride a bicycle by listening to lectures?) Explain that you will not give them exercises with “hidden agendas.” Then, tell them that there are two reasons for this exercise. The first reason is to provide an organized and enjoyable workshop experience. The second is to provide a self-scored “keeping agreements” exercise. Facilitation TipsAgain, when you ask the group raise their hand indicating agreement (3 times) each agreement, raise your hand to encourage them to do the same;Have your “Second Chair” record each agreement on a flip chart as you get hand raised agreement. Alternately, you can do this table-by-table with your TAs; andThen, ask participants to come up and “sign their agreements with their name” – they might not move at first – so repeat your request until they begin moving.I like the “surprise” factor of having them sign – showing them early that this is not your conventional workshop. Moreover, I frequently have participants “renegotiate their agreements” when they need to be absent.
• #17: The following is such an important point that I will make it now and again later. The workshop is to combine your content with 4-D processes to: 1) Enhance your Fifth Force, lowering risk and enhancing performance; and 2) Give you a set of tools so you can sustain your Fifth Force yourself. If you lack the discipline and will to do this, do not engage in a 4-D workshop.
• #18: You perform three social context diagnostics that you can only do as a group (team).
• #19: Tell the participants that they will later explore the core of leadership and likely find that attitude is much more important than “skills.” Yet, most leadership training is skills training. The 4-D System analyzes attitude into two manageable components, Story-lines and Emotions.
• #20: This continues the orientation showing the eight behaviors.
• #21: Now we illustrate a really important aspect of our workshops. Participants write the “unpleasant truths” also known as “elephants in the room” anonymously on 3x5 cards. We (usually our “second chair”) organize these and type them up overnight. We then form into small groups about the middle of day three to prioritize them. Then, the larger group selects one or more to process as a group with the Context Shifting Worksheet, “CSW.”
• #22: It you let yourself and others dribble Story-lines that are irrelevant to this method (red circles), you are wasting an important opportunity. We can manage your speaking space – and, we are only with you for a brief period. You doubtless have the same issue back at work, so use this opportunity for you to take Response-ability for your team’s speaking space, so you can continue this when you are back at work.
• #23: What You are Here to DoThis is what the workshop is about – applying 4–D processes to your content so you gain insights and enhance your team’s Social Context (the Green circles). It you let yourself and others dribble Story–lines that are irrelevant to this method(red circles), you are wasting an important opportunity. We can manage your speaking space – and, we are only with you for a brief period. You doubtless have the same issue back at work, so use this opportunity for you to take Response–ability for your team’s speaking space, so you can continue this when you are back at work.
• #27: Up Next – Sharing Something Personal Enhances Your Trustworthiness – We are continuing the workshop “break–in” phase with more exercises and less “lecture.”
• #31: (Note: You will have to animate the slides in order for this narrative to make sense). This slide contrasts the Fundamental Forces, four from Mother Nature, and the “Fifth Force,” (team) social context. Mother Nature’s forces control matter, and are the realm of scientists and engineers who study them, and model their effects. In contrast, the Fifth Force controls human behavior. This force should be of deep concern to team leaders and their team members. In fact, I suspect that more than 99.99% of people have no idea about the Fifth Force, its potency, or how to manage it. I will show you that it’s overwhelmingly more likely to cause failures, large and small, than the forces that technical people spend so many years trying to master.Note the language at the bottom, “Many years in universities, developing individual abilities” in contrast to “Easy ‘4-D Systems’ processes managing collective behaviors.”I struggled with a symbol for the technical side and finally settled on an image of a wrench. The image on the right introduces the colors of the four “Dimensions” and the four core human needs that underlie them.
• #32: The explosion of Space ShuttleChallenger surely rocked the world. January, 24, 1986. The team launched an ice-covered shuttle in below freezing weather. A “Solid Rocket Motor’s “field joint” then failed. Hot gases spewed onto the external tank exploding it, killing the entire crew, including the “teacher in space.”How could this have happened? Were the people who managed the boosters sufficiently technically competent? Did they have adequate management expertise and experience? (I knew many of the Shuttle propulsion managers, as I had worked with them on “Spacelab.” They were first-rate engineers and managers.) Would any additional (conventional) training have helped? Or, was the cause the “Fifth Force?” (My Division had a low-cost small satellite called a “Spartan” payload in Challenger’s cargo bay. My people had worked closely with Shuttle astronauts as they had to deploy and retrieve our small satellite, nicknamed “Spartan,” using the Shuttle’s “arm.”)I was extremely interested in learning what happened, so I watched the Failure Review Board’s proceedings on television. When Board member and renowned physicist, Richard Feynman (one of my personal heroes) showed how the booster’s “O-ring” material stiffened in ice water, I erroneously concluded that the mistake was technical, and lost interest in the incident. This is a common error that we technical people make – we assume that all problems that are apparently technical have technical rather than social root causes.I later read sociologist Diane Vaughan’s (600 page) book about the Challenger explosion, The Challenger Launch Decision, (1996). She was “adopted” by the Roger’s Commission, the official failure review Board. She shifted the inquiry to the proper one, asking “Why did they proceed to launch when all the technical evidence suggested otherwise?”Let’s examine the Fifth Force (Social Context) dynamic. The political pressure to launch, launch, launch was enormous. By National policy, all payloads, military and commercial, would fly on the Shuttle, with all other launch vehicles phased out. Launch delays rippled throughout the system delaying the numerous downstream launches, and increasing the costs of the payloads. This Fifth Force context caused the launch management team to descend gradually and unconsciously into the context she called “Normalization of Deviance.” In this state, behaviors that are deviant in a larger context become accepted and ignored in a local (team) context. (A colleague of mine, Frank Martin calls this “incremental stupidity.”) The Fifth Force altered the team’s perception, the most malleable of human functions. Other examples include the widespread belief in the US that house prices could go up faster than GDP indefinitely or that discrimination because of race or sex is OK. She also wrote, “The revisionist history and sociological explanation presented here are more frightening than the historically accepted interpretation, for the ‘invisible and unacknowledged’ [quotes are mine] tend to remain undiagnosed and elude remedy.” In today’s 4-D language: A flawed Team Social Context put “Good People in a Bad Place.”Here’s where it gets really interesting. Management of the Fifth Force (social context) would have prevented the failure. In those times, nobody had the context management tools that we have today. If they had only understood these concepts they could have changed their Story-lines and created a healthy context which would have prevented the disaster.
• #33: Hubble Space Telescope was difficult technically. As telescopes go, it is rather small with a primary mirror of only 2.4 meters diameter. Hubble gets its advantage over ground-based telescopes by being above the atmosphere which distorts starlight, as the density of the air above us is not uniform. When you see stars twinkling, the stars are not changing. The irregularities in the atmosphere are moving the starlight on and off your eye’s retina. To exploit this benefit, the telescope must be pointed very stably and precisely. (The technical specification is a stability of 0.007 arc seconds for 24 hours at a time. This is the angle a human hair makes at a distance of a mile or a small coin at a distance of a few hundred kilometers.) I think it is obvious why this precision was very difficult to achieve.During my eighth year leading the Hubble team, in April 1990, we launched the telescope and deployed it into orbit from the Space Shuttle. Early on, things looked fine. When testing was complete we began imagining common astronomical images. The image in the green frame is what we hoped we might see when we looked at a nearby spiral galaxy in the Virgo cluster, Messier 100. (The image is from the telescope after the successful space repair.) Instead, the image we saw is in the red frame. Hubble Space Telescope, NASA’s crown jewel, was useless. Needless to say, to find myself accountable for (arguably) the biggest “screw-up” in the history of science was incredibly unpleasant. So, what do you think was the cause of the flaw, in such a large and carefully reviewed program? Do you think that the scientists, engineers, and managers who worked on Hubble were inadequately trained or experienced? (Forgive me; this is a “rhetorical question,” a question asked to make a point, with no answer expected.) Let’s see. NASA made me a member of the Failure Review Board, as the mirror was manufactured in 1977 and I joined the program in 1982. It took months to figure out what happened. Mirrors like Hubble ’s are fabricated with an “indeterminate” process – the surface is measured, then polished to remove the “bumps,” then re-measured for many (~20) cycles. A device called a “null corrector” creates an optical wave front that shows differences from the desired surface. An image of Hubble’s null corrector is on the left. As I recall, the device was several feet high and a foot or so across. Hubble’s null corrector device was thoroughly tested with a 60 inch test mirror. Hubble’s 96 inch flight mirror required a simple re-spacing. The Board discovered that a technician, working alone, violated a procedure and mis-spaced the “null corrector” by 1.3 mm. (FYI – The technician placed a precision bar provided by the National Bureau of Standards in the center of the null corrector to re-space it. The instructions said to spray a metal cap on the bar after spraying it with a non-reflective coating. He could not locate the spray, so he covered the cap with non-reflective tape. He then took his “Xacto” knife and cut a hole in the cap. He did not notice that he chipped off a small piece of the tape. Then, as bad luck would have it, when he tried to center the metering bar, the laser beam hit this spot. Believing that this was the center of the metering bar, he mis-spaced the device by the height of the cap, or 1.3 mm, an enormous error in an optics house with routine sub-micron accuracy.)When the Review Board discovered that this is what happened, my relief was profound. A person working alone made a dumb mistake. It appeared that, for once, bad NASA management did not cause the failure, and with the problem solved, I could go back to my regular job, directing the Astrophysics Division. I felt relieved. Things then took a turn for the worse. General Lew Allen, the Review Board’s Chairman soon found that many, many measurements of the mirror with other devices (i.e. refractive null correctors) were rationalized away. I thought of this a bad luck – the spacing error was large enough to ruin the telescope and small enough to be rationalized away by people who wanted to do so. Failure review chairman General Allen then wondered why NASA’s scientists had not insisted on additional testing of the mirror in view of the suspicious test data. Several of them had worked on ground-based telescopes and understood the perils of this kind of mirror manufacturing error, called “spherical aberration.” He then discovered that the contractor, Perkin-Elmer, had never transmitted the numerous test discrepancies to NASA. (We sued them and settled for $50M, far less than the cost of the flaw.)When the investigation completed, General Lew Allen, Board Chairman told the Congress that, after 15 years and $2 Billion, that a “leadership failure” was the root cause. If the terminology had been available in the lexicon of the day, he surely would have named the cause a “flawed social context” caused by a Fifth Force of relentless criticism.Of course, I was leader of the Hubble team, and had been so for the previous 8 years. It was my good fortune that nobody at NASA paid much attention to the Board’s finding. Everyone focused on the technical mistake, just as I had with Challenger. Moreover, I was so busy managing the aftermath that I had no time to think much about my culpability. So, what happened? Hubble was difficult technically, and we had an ineffective management arrangement, “associate contractors.” The project three times overran at about $400M each time. My NASA perspective was that the contractors were to blame for the cost increases, so we collectively rained criticism on them. This Fifth Force field (social context) of relentless criticism led them to only address technical problems that they believed were real, and there were plenty of these. In their highly stressed condition, they never contemplated that the mirror could have been manufactured incorrectly. (The mirror cost was about 0.5% of the overall program cost.)Moreover, the context motivated the contractor to “rationalize problems away with (sloppy) root cause analysis,” and then not report them to NASA. The remedy to this condition would have been incredibly simple. Habituating the first 4-D behavior, “Expressing Authentic Appreciation,” could have, in my opinion, prevented Hubble’s launch with a flawed mirror. I wish I knew then what I know today!
• #34: In the 90’s Korean Air Lines (KAL) was crashing at 17 times the international norms. Things were so bad that the President of Korea would not fly on KAL. The amazing fact that brought my attention to this was that it continued for four years. Why do you think finding the cause of this intolerable condition took so long? The reason is that nobody understood the power of team social context to override individuals’ abilities. The investigators kept looking for some flaw in each KAL pilot. Of course, it’s easy to test a pilot’s abilities. Just place them in a 747 simulator, take two engines out, and see if they can land on an icy runway with a tailwind. Of course, this is what they did, over and over, finding no serious flaws. After four years of crashes, a subsidiary of Boeing, Alteon, placed observers in KAL’s cockpits to watch the pilots fly. They saw that KAL had imported an inappropriate Fifth Force, Korea’s Confucian social context, into their cockpits. This Fifth Force field prevented the first officer to criticize the captain in any way. (The fact that they also had a rank differential inherited from the military exacerbated the problem.) Therefore, when a KAL captain driving the aircraft began to make mistakes, the first officer would “tune-out” rather than embarrassing him. Sometimes, first officer would read a newspaper or magazine as the plane flew along. It takes two pilots working together to fly a modern jumbo jet. In normal operations, one flies the aircraft and the other operates the radio and aircraft systems. Safe flight requires the full attention of both the captain and first officer, working as a team and crosschecking each other. Each must feel free to say, “Stop” when the action of the other might be unsafe. Alteon, the Boeing subsidiary working with KAL understood that they had a social context problem that would not be easy to fix. They implemented a clever strategy. They convinced KAL to insist that all cockpit conversations must be in English also. The pilots had to become fluent in English or be fired. (Since tower communications worldwide are in English, This helped keep the Korean social context out of the cockpits. They then taught the pilots how to cross-check each other’s’ actions, with a training methodology called “Crew Resource Management,” the airline’s version of the 4-D System. The crash rates went down to the levels of the rest of the industry. As I said, the most interesting thing about this is that the problem persisted for years! The reason is that we are habituated e.g., by our education system, to focus on individuals’ abilities. Investigators kept looking for flaws in KAL’s pilots’ abilities which, of course, were nonexistent.
• #35: The Lockheed Martin technicians preparing a satellite for launch came back after a weekend and tipped it over to work on the top. They did not realize that another team had “borrowed” the holding bolts while they were gone, which was permitted. The procedure required that they confirm the bolts were in place before tipping it over. They ignored the procedure and tipped the satellite over. It fell onto the floor, causing $135M of damage. Our clients like this case. They told me that understanding the details of complex systems was daunting. In contrast, everyone could easily relate to leaving the bolts out.So what was the root cause? Were they technically unable to look and see whether the bolts were in place? (Another rhetorical question, I am sorry.) Of course, a child could perform this task. So, was it the context?The manager of the Denver plant believed that there was a systemic culture of sloppiness and neglect at the Sunnyvale, CA plant and asked me to join their Failure Review Board. I declined as I was already over-committed and was not interested. (This was a decision I would later regret.) I later joined the Board as a consultant, and was asked to concur in their findings that the root cause was cultural. It turned out that there were many similar incidences of sloppiness at the plant. Once more, individual’s technical abilities were irrelevant. Social context was everything! Fifth Force awareness and management would, of course, prevented with idiotic and fully avoidable mishap.
• #36: Stolovitch & Keeps (Training Ain’t Performance, ASTD Press, 2004) argue persuasively that lack of performance in the workplace is far more frequently caused by environmental than individual factors. (I prefer the word “context” instead of “environment.”) The authors report that researchers associate team performance with environment (context) ~80 percent of the time, and with individual’s abilities ~20 percent of the time. Moreover, they claim that training is often necessary, but rarely sufficient to produce long-term performance. Based on these findings, I suggest that once individuals have the essential skills, training them in anything but context management is a waste of money. Therefore, the effective action is to analyze, then manage the context. Training Ain’t Performance illustrates this with a story about “Harry’s Diner.” Excellent toast was central to Harry’s competitive position. Yet, the waiters had difficulty producing consistent, high-quality toast. When fast-food chains appeared nearby, Harry hired “Training Ain’t Performance” consultants to create a training program to train waiters to produce toast more consistently. Instead, they analyzed the situation as follows: - Did the waiters have good performance incentives? Yes, tips were important to the waiters; Did the waiters have the skills and knowledge to make toast? Yes, they all knew how; Did they have the physical / emotional capacity to handle making toast? Yes, waiting is a tough job and Harry was a very demanding boss; and Were they motivated? Yes, the waiters, like most of us, wanted to do the job right.Did the waiters have clear, doable RAAs? (This is our terminology for Roles, Accountability, and Authority. In short, does everybody know their expectations of team members and do they have the resources to succeed?) No, they had many competing tasks including taking orders, cleaning the bathrooms, keeping the salt and pepper shakers full and delivering the food and toast; Did the waiters have sufficient resources, for example toasters? No, only one toaster and the preparation area was inadequate;Items 5 and 6, context shortfalls, were the root causes of poor performance, not poorly trained people. The way to improve toast quality was to address items 5 and 6: 1) Hire “bus-boys” and cleaners to allow the waiters to focus on customer service and toast, and 2) Expand the number of toast preparation stations. Training the waiters would have been a waste of money.
• #37: I think everyone is surely familiar with this disaster. I was fascinated to watch both the media and the Tokyo Electric Power Company ("TEPCO”) spin the story of what happened. At first, they blamed the earthquake. Then, the blame shifted to the tsunami that “nobody predicted.” I knew that the root cause was, however, much more likely to be a flawed social context – I just had to wait for a sufficiently deep investigation. The government assembled a Failure Review Board chaired by Professor Kiyoshi Kurokawa from Tokyo University, by far the most prestigious academic institution in the country. He reported that the accident was not caused by the tsunami, but was man-made and entirely avoidable. He focused on the response of the plant operator to the tsunami, rather than just the wave itself. The pattern continues unabated. It’s not Mother Nature’s forces at root cause, no matter how much it might seem so, but the Fifth Force.
• #38: Tenerife – A flawed “team” social context caused the biggest loss of-life in civil aviation history. In a difficult situation, big-jets were diverted to a small airport at Tenerife Island. The most highly respected captain/trainer for KLM airlines (Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten) was Captain of a 747. When a garbled communication came from the tower, he advanced the throttles for takeoff. The first officer then said, “Captain, I did not hear a takeoff clearance.” Van Zanten scowled at the first officer and retarded the throttles. When a second garbled communication came from the tower, the captain advanced the throttles again. The first officer remained silent, not wanting to embarrass himself and the very senior captain a second time. The KLM jet crashed into a Pan Am 747 that was stationary on the runway shrouded in fog, killing many hundreds of people.Tokyo Train Crash – 4-D Network providers frequently send me examples of the “Fifth Force” causing accidents and mishaps. This was a YouTube video from a Romanian provider who said, “Wow, social context is at cause everywhere.” He continued with examples of exploding mains in Mexico, and on and on.I have spent a lot of time in Japan, and it is an incredibly homogenous society. I went one morning to Ueno Station in Tokyo and just watched the trains come and go on multiple tracks. The frequency was amazing. As it says in the slide, half of Japan’s 120 million people ride on a train each weekday. Most make one or more transfers so the precise timing of the trains is essential. This train was about a minute and half behind schedule coming into the station just past the fateful curve. This was enough that most people would miss their transfer, and likely some would complain to the company. It is interesting that once more, no amount of training would likely change the situation. I also think that the slide is pretty self-explanatory. Asiana Airlines Crash – In the minutes before Asiana Airlines flight 214 crashed at San Francisco International Airport on July 6, one of the three pilots in the cockpit called out three times that the plane was descending too fast. But none of the pilots noticed that they were flying the plane too slowly until shortly before it hit the sea wall at the end of runway 28 Left.Inexperience and Korean culture played a role in the way the pilots handled the landing, according to documents released on Wednesday by the National Transportation Safety Board. The captain who was flying the plane, told investigators that any of the three pilots could have decided to break off the approach, but for “the low-level people”, including himself because he was being supervised by an instructor pilot, “it’s very hard,” he said.He also said that as the plane approached he was momentarily blinded by a bright light on the runway, possibly a reflection of the sun, but that he would not wear sunglasses because among Koreans that would be impolite.No one said the plane was too low until the last 30 seconds of the flight. Three seconds before impact, Lee made a comment indicating an attempt to re-engage the engines and abort the approach. The plane was then at an altitude of less than 10 meters.The 777 hit the sea wall, breaking off the back of the fuselage. Despite a dramatic cartwheel and then a cloud of dust and smoke, only three passengers died. Of 291 passengers, 199 were transported to hospitals as were three of the four pilots on board and 10 of the 12 cabin crew members. Investigators have said they did not find any malfunctions on the plane.
• #39: This was a real disaster for TRW, in that a failure was likely to ricochet through their business, which was mostly sophisticated and expensive “classified” (secret) programs, generally some kind of intelligence-gathering system. They also believed that there were future opportunities in small, low-cost satellites. They also understood that their prime manufacturing facility, “Space Park,” in Los Angeles was too institutionally cautious and complex to build small systems cheaply so they bought a small company in Chantilly, VA. This company had very talented technical personnel who could work efficiently, relying on individuals’ deep expertise, rather than TRW expensive processes. NASA implemented two low-cost missions, called “Lewis” and “Clark,” the names of two early explorers of the western US. TRW bid and won Lewis as a typical “cost-plus” contract. This means that the contractor would get additional funding as costs increased above their bid price, but unless the government approved these as “directed changes” the additional funding would not include profit, which is of course the primary reason for the company’s existence. As the program went along, there were many changes which the government refused to fund. These included changes to the payload and technical scope. TRW would have preferred to just quit the contract, but the program was an invention of NASA Administrator, Dan Goldin, and they feared that angering him would affect their ability to win future, large NASA contracts. Therefore, they continued to build the satellite using their only source of additional funding available, profits. Companies, and their executives are rewarded for profits. So, now Lewis was not generating profit, and much worse, it was consuming profits from other programs. Making matters worse, NASA sent a letter removing previously promised satellite tracking support. The project was managed out of NASA Headquarters by an inexperienced individual, trying to please his management. Normally, NASA field centers like Goddard Space Flight Center managed projects. They would never have gone along with this, as experienced people understand that tracking is essential for a new satellite. This meant that the operations team would only see the satellite occasionally from a ground station in Alaska. This, and the funding problems, led TRW to skimp on operations training and personnel. The design was fundamentally unstable. If you can imagine an American football, you can see that it spins along the long axis. Indeed, it is generally thrown spinning that way. Moreover, if it is initially spinning around another axis, it will naturally change over to spinning about the long axis. This was the nature of the Lewis design. The calculations said that the satellite’s control system could manage the unnatural spin axis. The launch was “nominal” in NASA jargon. The operations team got a brief glimpse at the satellite and all appeared OK. They went to sleep awaiting the next pass. When they reacquired the satellite, they saw nearly dead batteries, and a satellite spinning out of control. The solar panels were only occasionally in sunlight. The tired, skeleton crew figured out a command fix and hit the send key, just after the satellite lost contact. The spacecraft died before contact could be reestablished. I was a member of the TRW Failure Board that reported that the cause was technical. The systems engineer had assumed the nominal “tip-off” rate when the booster separated from the satellite bus. We ran calculations with a higher-than-normal force and the satellite went unstable. It is, of course obvious now that the Fifth Force, was in fact the root cause, not the technical error, as it surely would have been found in a healthier social context.This project’s Fifth Force (context) was very similar to Lewis, described above. After the accident, JPL’s Director, Ed Stone told me that he was limited by a Headquarters directive to limit his workforce overseeing the contractor to 15 FTEs. There was, in this constrained environment, a contentious relationship between the navigators at L-M and JPL with unresolved arguments when the discrepancies surfaced. Interplanetary navigation uses very subtle, small corrections on a path as long as that from Earth to Mars. You can read what happened in the chart. How could seasoned technical professionals make such a mistake? It would only be possible in the bottom-quintile context that NASA management intentionally put these teams into. FYI, my good friend, Noel Hinners was the VP at L-M responsible for these two failures. It took some time, and he now agrees that the Fifth Force caused these failures.This was developed at about the same time as the Mars Climate Orbiter discussed above, and in a very similar Fifth Force (context) field. During the pre-launch testing, they found that a switch on one of the landing legs was wired backward. They fixed the error, and continued with the test, never retesting the opening of the leg. If they had retested the leg (in the vacuum chamber) they would have seen that when the leg snapped open, it vibrated sending an additional signal to the computer. This happened in flight and the computer interpreted the second signal as touchdown on the Martian surface, and shut off the descent engine. With no thrust, the spacecraft plunged downward, crashing at high speed. Was the root cause technical? There certainly was a technical/manufacturing error, wiring the switch in backward. But, absent the broken (bottom-quintile) social context, the procedure would have been followed, and the error detected in test, which is precisely what these very expensive and thorough test programs are designed to do. This was a social-context-driven failure.
• #40: Learning to influence/manage Social Contexts is about changing people’s behaviors by influencing the “field” they experience. Intellectual learning and arguments are inadequate. We now examine each of the 4-D System assets and processes. How NASA Builds Teams is an interesting, educational, and enjoyable read. However, it’s greater importance is as a reference manual as it aligns Chapter-by-Chapter with all the other 4-D materials.The on-line Team and Individual Development (Assessment) tools are very important. They educate, measure behavioral change, provide feedback in the form of comments, generate behavior-enhancing action items, and track progress. Most importantly they are brief enough, requiring only a median of 15 minutes on-line, that they can provide the most important stimulant for adult learning, repetition! The Context Shifting Worksheet (CSW) provides new insights, often solving vexing problems in an hour or so.Workshops are what the name says. Structured events where teams work to enhance performance by changing behaviors, managing their social context. We lecture no more than necessary and lead teams through diagnostics, experiential exercises, and carefully designed Significant Emotional Experiences (SEEs).Coaches work one-on-one and enhance performance and improving coachee’s contribution to their team’s contexts. They use Individual Development (Assessments) to measure (and benchmark) progress.
• #43: Slide is self-explanatory
• #47: Consider the first behavior (upper left), “Expressing Authentic Appreciation.” This behavior sustains a context of mutual respect and enjoyable work. Do you believe that people solve difficult problems more easily when they are enjoying their work? Of course, they do.“Addressing Shared Interests” sustains a context of willful collaboration. This is the core of all international negotiations and the Harvard Negotiation Project, as documented in the book “Getting to Yes.”Next, consider the (yellow) “Including Dimension’s,” Appropriately Including Others. This creates a context where people relate authentically (instead of hiding behind personas) and action is efficient and aligned. People who feel excluded become angry, and disruptive. When people experience a context of appropriate inclusion, they find it easier to appropriately include others.Integrity means that actions match words. Rigorously keeping all agreements sustains a context of trustworthiness.Visioning (blue) Dimension – “Addressing (Unpleasant) Realities” with an optimistic mindset is the key to creativity. “Being 100% Committed,” Psychologists call this the “red convertible syndrome.” As participants if they have had this experience. Have they ever thought about a kind of car they want to buy, and seen them everywhere?When I moved to what we jokingly call “the People’s Republic of Boulder,” because it is so progressive politically my friends told me that the national car is a Subaru. At the time, I owned a BMW that was getting old and needed replacement. When I drove, all I saw on the road was Subaru cars, so I concluded that this is what I must buy. There were no BMWs anywhere. I went and test-drove a Subaru, and that was that. No way was I going to buy such a car. I decided then to buy another BMW. On the way back home, I saw lots of BMWs and no Subaru cars, anywhere.During a trip to Shanghai, my client gave us a car and driver to see some Unesco World Heritage gardens about two hours out of the city. The car was a black Toyota. At 5 PM, the driver was not where he said he would be. I became anxious as I did not know how we were going to get back. Even in Beijing, taxi drivers refused to carry people who did not speak Mandarin. Moreover, finding our way to a bus seemed impossible. As I looked anxiously up and street, I noticed that every car was black, and wondered why Chinese only owned black cars? Then our driver finally arrived and I noticed that cars went back to multiple colors. The cars did not change; only my perception changed. At the peak of the trauma of Hubble’s mirror flaw, I, and the NASA Administrator met with the Congressperson responsible for NASA’s budget. She was very angry with me, poked her finger into my chest, and said, “There will never be a dollar appropriated for a Hubble servicing mission. This is just a bad dream that must go away.” I then realized two things: 1) No one was going to repair Hubble, unless I did it; and 2) I had both the motivation and capacity to do so. So, I covertly (and illegally?) reprogrammed $60M, and began the ultimately successful Hubble servicing mission. When I later told people what I had done, they said, “Charlie, what a great act of courage.” I told them, not so, I was 100% Committed and this action seemed completely natural.Directing (orange) Dimension – One of the ways we lose the capacity to take “responsible” action is by entering the “drama-states” of Blamer or Victim.“Clarifying Roles, Accountability, and Authority,” I like to focus on “Accountability” as it is the most important of the three. Don’t we all need to be clear about what others hold us accountable for doing, and having the resources to succeed? Can you see how much easier realizing this clarity is in a context where everyone else is similarly engaged?
• #48: I have frequently observed strong outbursts of anger both as a consultant and as a workshop presenter when people felt dis-included, or perhaps a better term, excluded. Needless to say, these incidents are difficult to find in films or capture in real-time. Therefore, I was delighted to find this very pure example with these monkeys. There are several feeling excluded effects illustrated in this brief clip:Anger at both the experimenter, and the other monkey who did nothing to create the situation (projection);Refusal to accept their reward (cucumber) in favor of expressing their anger; andWhy it’s so important to administer all awards carefully and thoughtfully – especially group achievement awards.
• #49: Helpful notes
• #50: Consider the first behavior (upper left), “Expressing Authentic Appreciation.” This behavior sustains a context of mutual respect and enjoyable work. Do you believe that people solve difficult problems more easily when they are enjoying their work? Of course, they do.“Addressing Shared Interests” sustains a context of willful collaboration. This is the core of all international negotiations and the Harvard Negotiation Project, as documented in the book “Getting to Yes.”Next, consider the (yellow) “Including Dimension’s,” Appropriately Including Others. This creates a context where people relate authentically (instead of hiding behind personas) and action is efficient and aligned. People who feel excluded become angry, and disruptive. When people experience a context of appropriate inclusion, they find it easier to appropriately include others.Integrity means that actions match words. Rigorously keeping all agreements sustains a context of trustworthiness.Visioning (blue) Dimension – “Addressing (Unpleasant) Realities” with an optimistic mindset is the key to creativity. “Being 100% Committed,” Psychologists call this the “red convertible syndrome.” As participants if they have had this experience. Have they ever thought about a kind of car they want to buy, and seen them everywhere?When I moved to what we jokingly call “the People’s Republic of Boulder,” because it is so progressive politically my friends told me that the national car is a Subaru. At the time, I owned a BMW that was getting old and needed replacement. When I drove, all I saw on the road was Subaru cars, so I concluded that this is what I must buy. There were no BMWs anywhere. I went and test-drove a Subaru, and that was that. No way was I going to buy such a car. I decided then to buy another BMW. On the way back home, I saw lots of BMWs and no Subaru cars, anywhere.During a trip to Shanghai, my client gave us a car and driver to see some Unesco World Heritage gardens about two hours out of the city. The car was a black Toyota. At 5 PM, the driver was not where he said he would be. I became anxious as I did not know how we were going to get back. Even in Beijing, taxi drivers refused to carry people who did not speak Mandarin. Moreover, finding our way to a bus seemed impossible. As I looked anxiously up and street, I noticed that every car was black, and wondered why Chinese only owned black cars? Then our driver finally arrived and I noticed that cars went back to multiple colors. The cars did not change; only my perception changed. At the peak of the trauma of Hubble’s mirror flaw, I, and the NASA Administrator met with the Congressperson responsible for NASA’s budget. She was very angry with me, poked her finger into my chest, and said, “There will never be a dollar appropriated for a Hubble servicing mission. This is just a bad dream that must go away.” I then realized two things: 1) No one was going to repair Hubble, unless I did it; and 2) I had both the motivation and capacity to do so. So, I covertly (and illegally?) reprogrammed $60M, and began the ultimately successful Hubble servicing mission. When I later told people what I had done, they said, “Charlie, what a great act of courage.” I told them, not so, I was 100% Committed and this action seemed completely natural.Directing (orange) Dimension – One of the ways we lose the capacity to take “responsible” action is by entering the “drama-states” of Blamer or Victim.“Clarifying Roles, Accountability, and Authority,” I like to focus on “Accountability” as it is the most important of the three. Don’t we all need to be clear about what others hold us accountable for doing, and having the resources to succeed? Can you see how much easier realizing this clarity is in a context where everyone else is similarly engaged?
• #51: This is one of the most interesting books I have read in recent times. This is a back-up slide Nobel Laureate, Kahneman (Economics) wrote a best-seller that is fascinating. He defines actions driven by “System 1,” fast thinking, and “System 2,” slow thinking. I understand “fast” as intuited information with emotional deciding, and “slow” as sensed data with logical thinking.
• #52: Many ask about the relationship between the 4-D System and the well-known Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). MBTI was developed to place women efficiently in the WW-II workforce -- our work and theirs both come from Carl Jung. They were interested in people’s current functions and emphasize beliefs. We are interested in innate preferences and emphasize processes.
• #53: Up Next – Igniting Creativity – Creating the Future You Want (FYI) I looked for years at how to stimulate creativity, with no success. I even bought (worthless) decks of cards and other gimmicks. Then I read the (otherwise uninteresting) book referenced in the slide and saw what I was seeking. The key is something unexpected and unnatural for humans – fully embrace Unpleasant Realities.
• #54: This is a great story about Andy Grove, longtime Intel CEO. By confronting the unpleasant reality that they could not beat the Japanese on manufacturing cost led them to start the microprocessor business.
• #55: Up Next – Diagnostic 1 – The first of three team–level diagnostics – here are some things you might want in your “back–pocket.”
• #64: We find that the brief personality test is quite (surprisingly) accurate. However, some participants may be unsure about the fit of their personality with who they really are. Invite then to continue their inquiry into this section.
• #72: In an early workshop, my colleague Skip Borst approached me during a break with blazing eyes. “I got it. I got it,” he shouted. Then he told me the following. “Since I first learned about this kind of work, I wanted to know where my foundation was located. Therefore, I took the Meyers-Briggs tests and the result was what 4-D calls a ‘Blue’ Visioning leader. This did not feel right (note the word ‘feel’), so I took the extended Meyers-Briggs. The result was the same.” Skip continued, “Just now, I understand. I was born as a ‘Green’ Cultivating leader. Everything else in my life pushed me across the diagonal toward the ‘Orange’ Directing Dimension. My father was a hyper-German; I went to the Naval Academy, then into nuclear submarines and finally nuclear reactor construction. I adapted into the ‘Blue’ Visioning to survive. Finally, I understand who I am, and why some work environments at GE were so troublesome for me.” I said, “Skip I think you pegged it. Look at what you chose to do the first time you felt free to do whatever you wanted—you became a Master Certified Coach. That’s “Green” Cultivating personality stuff all the way.”
• #73: In my career journey, I noticed that when I was in jobs that rewarded “Orange,” I struggled, and when I was jobs that rewarded “Blue,” I was rapidly promoted. I would not discourage anyone from working in a neighboring Dimension, if they were comfortable doing so.  I often use my experience as a laboratory to investigate concepts. Why am I much more comfortable in the Green than the Orange? Because I am, at the end of the day, more than anything else, an “Intuitor.”
• #79: Up Next – Diagnostic 2 – Diagramming Cultures – I reference the great American physicist and Nobel Laureate, Richard Feynman. His “Red Books” inspired me, and were the key to me passing my PhD comprehensive examination.
• #81: Culture Diagram Inquiries – We now apply 4–D processes that are very similar to the ones we use for individuals’ personalities to teams and groups. First, you find the "lead" for your culture. Note: This is analogous to our process to find individuals’ innate personality foundations. Next, you investigate the four–dimensionality of your team's culture. The image shows a very typical business culture. It is over–done in the “orange” and impoverished in the “green.” The fact that people do not feel valued (appreciated) diminishes performance.  The next image shows the same “orange” with the other three Dimensions sufficiently robust that they support the “lead” culture, producing product with optimal efficiency. Next, we explore a potent way to enhance your competitiveness. When you design your proposal team culture lead to match your customer’s, you dramatically enhance your competitive advantage. If your proposal team’s culture (and strategy) mismatch your customer’s culture, you will lose to any competitor who matches (whether they do it accidentally or not) if they tend a reasonably competitive proposal.  Finally, note the quote from two Harvard professors (John Kotter and Jim Heskett) which I have modified slightly, while preserving the intent. For those of you not familiar with business jargon, “net income” is profit. Notice that they are not talking about growing profit 5 to 10%, faster, but 5 to 10 times faster.
• #82: Diagramming your Team’s Culture – Most of our customers are technical teams. (There have only been two exceptions over the last 15 years with many hundreds of workshops.) Therefore, we shortened and tightened the test instrument to “Blue” and Orange.”  All teams have Team Development (Assessments) “TDAs” prior to workshops. We therefore have a good measurement (and benchmark) for the “Green” and “Yellow” Dimensions.
• #83: Culture Characterization, WB P. 5– This is our (evolving) culture measurement instrument.
• #98: Up Next – Diagnostic 3 – Project Mindsets – This is a short, powerful exercise. I put it this way, “If you get this wrong, customers will name you incompetent no matter what else you do. John Casani, one of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s greatest project managers showed me a presentation on this subject some years ago. (Note: John based his presentation on a NASA study called Science Systems Contract Study by CSP Associates, 1993. I adapted his ideas into the 4–D framework.) Our work emphasizes projects because this is where most organizations, from aerospace to drug companies, create value. Simply put, projects are activities with start and stop dates, that produce products in distinct, usually defined, phases.
• #105: Up Next – What Matters for Leadership Effectiveness? – If we are here to enhance our leadership effectiveness, does the Warren Bennis quote mean that our task is hopeless? Let’s take a deeper look.
• #108: Up Next – Managing Your Words to Manage Behaviors – We begin with our formulations and expressions of our thoughts, our words. We explore “Story–lines,” statements that are true for us, but not necessarily true for others and hence not the truth.
• #123: Up Next – Expressing Emotions to Manage Your Energy, and Your Team’s Energy – We continue our exploration into the core of mindset/attitude.
• #138: Record Your Emotions, WB P. 11 – Most participants have little difficulty in naming and reporting experiencing all five emotions.
• #139: Record Your Emotions, WB P. 11 – Most participants have little difficulty in naming and reporting experiencing all five emotions.
• #140: Record Your Emotions, WB P. 11 – Most participants have little difficulty in naming and reporting experiencing all five emotions.
• #141: Record Your Emotions, WB P. 11 – Most participants have little difficulty in naming and reporting experiencing all five emotions.
• #142: Record Your Emotions, WB P. 11 – Most participants have little difficulty in naming and reporting experiencing all five emotions.
• #143: Record Your Emotions, WB P. 11 – Most participants have little difficulty in naming and reporting experiencing all five emotions.
• #144: This interesting slide illustrates the reinforcing interplay between behavior and the contexts they cause. Moreover, I have transformed teams by habituating this one, supremely important behavior. Communications breakdowns were at root cause in all the tragedies in the images. Imagine how different things would be for so many people if these had been prevented.
• #149: Researchers frequently find that bosses (supervisors) believe that the appreciation that people most want is money. I believe that money is useful when it meets people’s emotional need to feel appreciated. In the end, it’s our emotional need that matter most. Moreover, if not done carefully, money can be counterproductive. For example, what’s it like when you receive a bonus, then discover that someone who you don’t believe is contributing nearly as much received a larger one than yours?
• #160: Why not decide to live your life in the beautiful field of giving and receiving appreciation. This is the standard you should to strive to meet and it is the same as in our assessments. You should get a dashboard and run recurrent Individual Development (Assessments) to cement this wondrous behavior into your life.
• #163: Up Next – The Core of Successful Negotiation – I got onto this while I was at Harvard
• #171: Up Next – Peoples’ Next Deepest Need – Feeling Included (FYI) This is a story about how thoughtless inclusion damages, even at a celebration. Some years ago, I worked with a proposal team managed by a retired executive the company brought back to lead the team. He had little use for the people who had followed the “capture” of the program for several prior years. He only included the new team he had assembled from his old friends in the company.  Dis–inclusion effects people similarly to “withheld truths.” These actions incite “drama.” True to form, this dis–inclusion caused power–struggles to blossom everywhere as the excluded people “acted out” their discomfort. (Note: Acted–out is psychology–speak for expressing your unpleasant emotions in contrast to “acting–in” and internalizing them.) After they submitted the proposal, and before they knew whether they won or lost, I interviewed the participants and prepared a presentation for the responsible management. When the managers saw quotes like “it was like Lord of the Flies,” they were aghast. “You can’t show that to the workforce, it will depress them.” “Where do you think I got it?" I responded. After some discussion, I presented a slightly moderated version to the team. Nobody was surprised.  Incredibly, the proposal won. I can only assume that the competition was very weak. The responsible VP charged the proposal manager to organize a celebration party. The company invited me to attend. When the VP recognized the contributors, she recognized the retiree’s in–group, and totally ignored the capture team members. I watched a capture team member drop his face onto the table with a thud. I walked over to him. He cursed and said, “I will never work on a proposal for this @#$%ing company again.” Ironically, the celebration event had done more harm than good. The damage from thoughtless inclusion omissions can be profound. A 4–D client wanted to award people who had worked on a project spanning more than 6 years. He understood the effect of exclusion even when it is unintentional. He addresses the issue by placing a large photograph in the hall and invited everyone who had contributed to the program to sign it and pick up a t–shirt. To his surprise, scores of people he had never heard of had contributed to the project. They happily signed the photo and received their shirt. Self–inclusion was the only way to go.
• #174: Psychologists believe that we all develop at least two personas (Latin for masks) during childhood, one to garner affection and one to avoid pain. Jung believed that that we all have adult personas which represent a compromise between our true self and the expectations of society. Also, that if we neglect society’s expectations we become asocial whereas if we try too hard to comply with society’s expectations we put our identity and fulfillment at risk.
• #175: Personas – Jung believed that that we all have a persona (Latin for mask) which represents a compromise between our true self and the expectations of society.
• #176: Consciously using temporary personas can be useful protection in frightening or dangerous situations.  We moved constantly during my childhood, and I became fearful of new people, so I “hid” behind my “smart person persona” until I figured out who I could safely befriend.
• #177: Personas – Jung believed that that we all have a persona (Latin for mask) which represents a compromise between our true self and the expectations of society.  (FYI) Jung believed that if we neglect society’s expectations we become asocial whereas if we try too hard to comply with society’s expectations we put our identity and fulfillment at risk. When I first moved to Boulder, I was surprised to see the local newspaper pummeling the university president, Judith Albino, day–after–day. After watching this for a few weeks, I saw her dilemma as a leadership problem. I photocopied the top newspaper stories and passed them out to my undergraduate students. We talked for a few classes about what advice we would give the president. Then my students came to my house on a Saturday afternoon. We used a “post–it” process to write a 1.5 page letter that consolidated 20+ people’s opinions. A few weeks later, one of my students spoke to Dr. Albino at a social function. He identified himself as a member of the leadership class that sent the letter. He then invited her to come to class and speak. My students knew they were empowered to make those kinds of commitments. At the time, I was holding two misconceptions: 1) that a permanent position might be in the cards for me at the B–school; and 2) that the president of the university might have some say about this. I wanted the president to have a good experience, so the student who made the invitation and I met with Dr. Albino. I explained that our class was about leadership, and we were totally committed to confidentiality. I asked that she speak candidly about her current difficulties and experiences. She thanked us, and said she would. She arrived at our classroom a few days later. I introduced her and then sat with my students in our amphitheater–style classroom. Have you ever seen a person speaking as if they inserted a tape into their head and played it? That is exactly what she looked like. I began to worry. I had taught the class the “BS” signal. You place your hands beside your head and wiggle two fingers. It springs from the notion of ants pushing a piece of BS up a hill. Sometimes a piece of BS would escape and began rolling down the hill. They signaled the ants below by wiggling their antennae “look out, here comes the BS.” What would I do if my students gave the president the BS signal? Would this be the end of my teaching career? I was becoming anxious.I stood up, walked over to Dr. Albino and said, “You know, there are some great leaders in this room. People will blast them at some future time. Can you tell the students what this is like for you to open your front door and pick up the paper and see ugly stories about you? It’s safe here.” I returned to my seat. She continued as before. After a few minutes, I noticed students squirming in their seats. Fearing a mass eruption of the BS sign, I walked back over to her. I turned her toward me and said, “Dr. Albino, Please tell the students what it’s like to open your door every morning and look down at the Camera.” I also took the risk of touching her shoulders as I spoke. She looked me in the eyes and I said, “I promise you that it’s safe here” and sat down again. When she began speaking this time, we could actually see her mask drop. She now spoke to the class fully authentically. I had never heard such a persuasive and moving discourse. We were all spellbound. As the class ending time drew near, I reluctantly interrupted her. The mask popped back up and the “tape” resumed. I thanked her and she left. This large undergraduate class ended just before lunch. A large table occupied the front center of the room. I learned early on to center myself behind the table before dismissing the class. If I were in front of either of the side doors, the students would sweep me into the hall. I positioned myself and said, “Class dismissed. See you on Wednesday.” Nobody moved. Not knowing what to do, I sat back down. Still nobody spoke or moved. I went to the front of the room and said, “What do you want to do?” They answered, “We want to talk about what we just saw.” We talked for another hour and stopped only because another class wanted the room. In the end, Dr. Albino transferred to Denver relinquishing her presidency. It is tragic that a fear–driven persona so limited this person.  Effective leaders choose when to wear a persona, and when to bring their authentic selves to situations. Do you think I brought my full authentic self to the Congressional hearings? I did not. I put on my Mr. NASA Director persona. In Star Trek terminology, it was “shields up and phasers armed.”  The film clip illustrates a persona from work that distances and alienates the wearer’s family.
• #178: Personas – Jung believed that that we all have a persona (Latin for mask) which represents a compromise between our true self and the expectations of society.  (FYI) Jung believed that if we neglect society’s expectations we become asocial whereas if we try too hard to comply with society’s expectations we put our identity and fulfillment at risk. When I first moved to Boulder, I was surprised to see the local newspaper pummeling the university president, Judith Albino, day–after–day. After watching this for a few weeks, I saw her dilemma as a leadership problem. I photocopied the top newspaper stories and passed them out to my undergraduate students. We talked for a few classes about what advice we would give the president. Then my students came to my house on a Saturday afternoon. We used a “post–it” process to write a 1.5 page letter that consolidated 20+ people’s opinions. A few weeks later, one of my students spoke to Dr. Albino at a social function. He identified himself as a member of the leadership class that sent the letter. He then invited her to come to class and speak. My students knew they were empowered to make those kinds of commitments. At the time, I was holding two misconceptions: 1) that a permanent position might be in the cards for me at the B–school; and 2) that the president of the university might have some say about this. I wanted the president to have a good experience, so the student who made the invitation and I met with Dr. Albino. I explained that our class was about leadership, and we were totally committed to confidentiality. I asked that she speak candidly about her current difficulties and experiences. She thanked us, and said she would. She arrived at our classroom a few days later. I introduced her and then sat with my students in our amphitheater–style classroom. Have you ever seen a person speaking as if they inserted a tape into their head and played it? That is exactly what she looked like. I began to worry. I had taught the class the “BS” signal. You place your hands beside your head and wiggle two fingers. It springs from the notion of ants pushing a piece of BS up a hill. Sometimes a piece of BS would escape and began rolling down the hill. They signaled the ants below by wiggling their antennae “look out, here comes the BS.” What would I do if my students gave the president the BS signal? Would this be the end of my teaching career? I was becoming anxious.I stood up, walked over to Dr. Albino and said, “You know, there are some great leaders in this room. People will blast them at some future time. Can you tell the students what this is like for you to open your front door and pick up the paper and see ugly stories about you? It’s safe here.” I returned to my seat. She continued as before. After a few minutes, I noticed students squirming in their seats. Fearing a mass eruption of the BS sign, I walked back over to her. I turned her toward me and said, “Dr. Albino, Please tell the students what it’s like to open your door every morning and look down at the Camera.” I also took the risk of touching her shoulders as I spoke. She looked me in the eyes and I said, “I promise you that it’s safe here” and sat down again. When she began speaking this time, we could actually see her mask drop. She now spoke to the class fully authentically. I had never heard such a persuasive and moving discourse. We were all spellbound. As the class ending time drew near, I reluctantly interrupted her. The mask popped back up and the “tape” resumed. I thanked her and she left. This large undergraduate class ended just before lunch. A large table occupied the front center of the room. I learned early on to center myself behind the table before dismissing the class. If I were in front of either of the side doors, the students would sweep me into the hall. I positioned myself and said, “Class dismissed. See you on Wednesday.” Nobody moved. Not knowing what to do, I sat back down. Still nobody spoke or moved. I went to the front of the room and said, “What do you want to do?” They answered, “We want to talk about what we just saw.” We talked for another hour and stopped only because another class wanted the room. In the end, Dr. Albino transferred to Denver relinquishing her presidency. It is tragic that a fear–driven persona so limited this person.  Effective leaders choose when to wear a persona, and when to bring their authentic selves to situations. Do you think I brought my full authentic self to the Congressional hearings? I did not. I put on my Mr. NASA Director persona. In Star Trek terminology, it was “shields up and phasers armed.”  The film clip illustrates a persona from work that distances and alienates the wearer’s family.
• #184: Name meetings as “Information” or “Decision”Prepare and distribute Agendas beforehandInvite only essential people, sending brief minutes/action items to others
• #186: U of Michiganresearch:Companies hold twice as many meetings as necessary. Managers may even use these inept social forums to avoid real work.
• #187: Your Inclusion Inquiry, WB P. 15 – This slide is self–explanatory.
• #189: Up Next – Trustworthy Behavior – The 4–D Systems team experience  (FYI) Our team practices all eight 4–D Systems behaviors. We work very efficiently as people keep all their agreements, going what they said, when they said, and in the way that they said.
• #203: Up Next – Igniting Creativity – Creating the Future You Want (FYI) I looked for years at how to stimulate creativity, with no success. I even bought (worthless) decks of cards and other gimmicks. Then I read the (otherwise uninteresting) book referenced in the slide and saw what I was seeking. The key is something unexpected and unnatural for humans – fully embrace Unpleasant Realities.
• #209: Glad (Soft smiles on people who won the argument); Mad (“FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION” – Note, mad at Situation, not individuals); Sad (general mood, especially early in clip); Scared (“They won’t know what way they are pointing,” “We have never even simulated it before.”);Love (caring for the crew);Uncomfortable Reality (“We have got to turn everything off”).
• #210: Glad (joke about killing with British with lightning bolts…);Mad (they may take our lives, but they can never take our freedom);Sad (general mood, especially early in clip);Scared (Fight against that…);Love (love of country);Uncomfortable Reality (Aye, fight and you may die…)
• #211: Glad (crowd cheering);Mad (not tonight, not this game);Sad (general mood, especially early in clip);Scared (early in meeting, apparent fear in the team members’ expressions);Love (everywhere – crowd, team, captain);Uncomfortable Reality (If we played them 10 times, we would lose nine…)
• #214: Up Next – Directing Your Energy – Your Team Can’t Afford Drama  The drama triangle is a transactional model of human interaction first described by Stephen Karpman in his 1968 article Fairy Tales and Script Drama Analysis. As you animate is, you can see the drama triangle, then how the 4–D System showed a fifth state, the Rationalizer.
• #239: Up Next – Managing Expectations – Clarifying Roles, Accountability, & Authority We were surprised when we first began measuring RAAs with our Team Development Assessments at how often they were inadequate. Frankly, I assumed that this was such essential and straightforward “management 101” that nearly every project would score high. In our view, there is no excuse for putting good people in bad places. Therefore, we continue to measure RAAs as they powerfully influence team context. Moreover, if these are broken, they drive the team social context into the dumpster.  Note I underlined “Accountability.” Over the years, “Accountability” has emerged as the most important of the three factors, by far. Get this right, and you have accomplished a great deal.
• #243: Processes with OwnersEvery team / organization has processes. Otherwise, they could not perform work. Unfortunately, they often do not document or optimize their processes. Top management frequently initiates grand, expensive optimization programs like Deming’s statistical process control, TQM, and more recently, Six-sigma. However, because “people do things for their reasons, not ours” (that is, management’s reasons) the desired efficiencies are seldom realized. There is a better way.When NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory experienced back-to-back Mars mission failures, they developed 44 “flight project practices” for project management. These include systems engineering, risk management, gate products and requirements management. They assigned each process to a process owner with expertise in that area. The owners maintained and updated their assigned processes as part of their regular job. Management imposed the processes across JPL projects. The owners had PowerPoint charts that they used to train others in applying the processes.Our small company, 4-D Systems, has about 40 processes with named owners. These include guidelines for implementing Team Development Assessments, Workshop Roles, and debriefing Team Development Reports. I own many of them and constantly update our processes as we experiment and learn. All our processes and standard briefings are on the staff web site. When our people do work, they download and use the current briefing or process. (FYI) When I worked as a consultant, I watched aerospace companies flush many millions of dollars down the drain trying to improve efficiency with process improvement. In my opinion, their great error was having teams of people, for example, "six Sigma black–belts” who were separate from the working organization provide processes on an ad hoc basis. I strongly prefer a process methodology that I learned from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They manage flight projects with about 44 processes, each with a expert named owner. The owners are experts in the field, teach the processes, and maintain them for maximum efficiency.  I like this methodology so much that we have adapted it for our company, 4–D Systems. We publish processes that we constantly optimize on our website (www.NASAteambuilding.com). The processes cover everything from Team Development Assessments to 4–D Workshops.
• #245: You can “solve” vexing” problems in about an hour!
• #250: This is a kind-of-fun slide I made while thinking about the power of repetition:Top-Panel:How did you learn the “times-table?”Similarly, you must reiterate the learning about the eight behaviors being a participant in multiple reassessments.Mid-Panel:In “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell investigated the difference between people who were famously successful and those less so. He assembled an impressive battery of evidence that the differentiator was 10,000 hours of experience. This is an amazing argument for the potency of repetition. Bottom-Panel:How important is the repetitive drum-beat/rhythm in your music.Notice that nearly every song has a repetitive chorus/refrain?Finally, notice what we all remember from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony – dun, dun, dun, and d-u-u-n.
• #251: To cement the learning and manage the context, you must employ repetition on three time scales.
• #319: Your Team Leader – This the formal return of leadership from us to your team leader.