NASA, SpaceX, and Leading with Your Vision for Safety

If you were paying attention to the news over the past several days, you’d realize that more recent space history was written.  SpaceX Falcon 9 successfully completed a food and cargo mission to the International Space Station, and returned a first stage rocket on a drone platform in the Atlantic Ocean. This type of landing was never previously achieved.   If you watched this landing, it was spectacular.  But for me, what was even more remarkable was the excitement of the team that completed this mission – they went crazy!  

Even with this backdrop, what’s quite noteworthy to me is the importance of what SpaceX is doing from an organizational standpoint.  SpaceX’s founder, Elon Musk is also the CEO of Tesla Motors and is passionate about space exploration.  Musk seems to be inspiring early success with a team of people who have a shared vision and mission that they're deeply proud about! 

But let’s take a distant view of NASA and SpaceX and begin to discern what might be making this partnership special and how it can help us achieve greater safety success.    

First, I have to say that I love NASA.  I got my start in safety through NASA’s Fire and Industrial Branch in the early Space Shuttle Era.  However, the NASA-SpaceX collaboration intrigues me and helps to highlight the importance of several critical organizational issues.  And what I have to say below must be prefaced by the fact that I don’t know a great deal about SpaceX or NASA’s current organizational makeup.  I do know that SpaceX and NASA are partners much like past and current aerospace giants; however, the SpaceX alignment may be a bit different.  For one – it helps to have a fresh vision, an unrestrained past, and a clean slate from which to launch and pursue one’s vision.

With SpaceX, the founder seemingly has an unrestricted passion for space and a grand vision not bound by past circumstances, history, or from a scientific background tied exclusively to space.  NASA and its leaders may be bound by their early past and their leaders’ imaginations.  For me, nothing trumps vision! Please read my November 2014 thoughts on Vision – What’s More Important?

SpaceX is Lean.  Both NASA and SpaceX rely heavily on contractors to help build their rockets, supply components, and possibly to launch and return their space vehicles.  However, NASA operates with nearly three times as many employees and likely with employees who have been with the agency for a much longer period of time.  To me, that may bring about complacency, comfort, and a lack of urgency. 

SpaceX is Quick.  Quickness within organizations relies on leaders who allow others to operate with a large degree of autonomy and ambiguity.  This also requires that leaders become comfortable giving away some of their power and decision-making capabilities.  It also requires that leaders and followers develop open communications, transparency, and trust that builds into bigger decisions being made within lower levels of the organization.

SpaceX is Hungry.  Being hungry and thirsty for success requires a certain inexperience, naivety, and clarity of purpose that can’t always be found within those who have greater experience and history within one particular kind of organization or industry.  I believe that’s what you may find in much of NASA and its longer-term partnerships – certainly in various organizational pockets. 

You may argue that SpaceX is breaking barriers and moving through new territory for a variety of other reasons but I’m certain that I’m addressing at least some of the causes for their early success.  I also know of events related to exploded rockets failing at launch and other concerns that may not have made it to the press. 

No doubt, SpaceX will have to work through a broad variety of government work orders and protocol in order to keep moving forward but commercial space travel will quickly become a brave new reality.  Whatever is going on inside of SpaceX may evolve into a model for organizational excellence that brings complex product delivery to the market, quicker, cheaper, better, and safer too. 

As safety professionals, I believe we need to embrace a number of thoughts related to our current space era and keep an eye on SpaceX, NASA, and other organizations involved in this new phase of space travel.  For one, we need to help people become more autonomous through increasingly better learning experiences and by helping to develop better safety leaders and coaches throughout our workforce.  We can become leaner and hungrier with regard to how we better support and serve our newer and younger people as leaders from within their own groups.  And finally, and most importantly, we need to inspire others, especially our formal leaders, to see and grasp a vision for safety excellence that supports our overall mission for sustained success. 

Vision is truly the launching pad for sustainable excellence and breakthrough achievements.  But what’s your personal vision for safety and how are you sharing it? 

Oliver Luck on Safety

Last week I attended the Indiana Safety and Health Conference & Expo in Indianapolis which offered a number of very good sessions.   I also spent time with my former West Virginia University (WVU) teammate and longtime friend, Oliver Luck.  He was Academic All America at WVU.  Oliver is also a former NFL quarterback and well respected sports executive who is now second in charge with the National Collegiate Athletic Association  (NCAA). Most recently, he served as AD at WVU but in reality, AD doesn’t stand for Athletic Director but for Andrew’s Dad. That’s Andrew Luck, star quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts.

Oliver delivered a wonderful closing keynote entitled, Quarterbacking Your Team, and I’ve summarized the major points below. If you weren’t able to attend the conference or keynote, I think you’ll appreciate his thoughts. And of course, you’ve  missed Oliver’s quips, quotes, and extended commentary – nonetheless, his thoughts are noted below.

On planning or scheming, especially in the NFL. It may be difficult to out-scheme another team or organization but you can outwork and out prepare them.

Trust is developed when groups and individuals work together over time. Individuals need to be open and clear about expectations and roles. Often being brutally honest is necessary. And if trust is one side of the shiny coin, accountability is the other.

Accountability can and should be measured. Use BIG DATA to make BIG Decisions. Players in the NFL are held accountable every week and their performance is measured. Create positive forms of competition to get people moving faster, better, and more efficiently. Leaders need to walk the shop-floor to be visibly accountable.

Educate and train continually. Continual education is needed at every level within an organization so people can perform better and at increasingly higher levels. Safety professionals need to continually educate themselves and those around them. Communicate constantly to inform, coach, and facilitate positive change.

Mental Toughness is difficult to improve but incremental gains can first be achieved by allowing others to experience success early on and subsequently setting increasingly higher standards and goals.

In closing, Oliver used the mantra of Bill Belicheck, head coach of the New England Patriots, who has won six Super Bowls as an assistant and head coach – Do Your Job. In some ways – it should be that simple and we need to be reminded to always do our best – always work as hard as we possibly can, and simply do our job!

Contact David Sarkus if you want to hear both Oliver and David speak at greater length on this topic.

Three Ways Walt Disney Got Safety Right

I’ve been on the road for nearly a month with two great stops in Florida.  During my second speaking engagement in the sunshine state, I stayed at Walt Disney’s Grand Floridian, the flagship hotel for Disney World in Orlando.  It’s a great place with fantastic service.  But what resonates the most from my speaking event wasn’t the wonderful audience and standing ovation or grand hotel, but the backstage tour of the Disney facilities.  You see, Walt Disney got safety right!

Vision.  Walt Disney had a brilliant and creative mind with a vision for utopia in the Disney facilities.  As an animator, he was exceptional about helping his world, objects, and animations come to life – he saw those things in his mind’s eye and was able to clearly share his vision in ways that made them believable, perceptible, and life-like.  We need to be able to see, embrace, and communicate a great vision for safety, and the culture for safety, we want to create – in order to make it visible and life-like for others to see.  Walt Disney’s vision not only included safety but safety was a deeply held value that remains as a “non-negotiable” part of the Disney culture.  Nothing great gets started without a vision or some grand picture of the future, especially in terms of our need to create a “safety utopia.”

Courtesy.  Disney also knew that everyone needed to be treated with dignity and respect.  Everyone at his facilities was seen as special and needed to be treated that way too.  People who work at any of the four world-wide facilities are called upon to go out of their way to make visitors feel special – be it in giving someone directions or helping them with suggestions during a visit.  And that “specialness” is meant to not only bring others back for more, but their friends and relatives, too.  Courtesy works well when it comes to how you treat others at work and engage them when it comes to safety.  Courtesy and respect go hand-in-hand – everyone wants to experience them, but few are willing to first express courtesy and respect from their position, on a consistent basis.

Safety.  The Disney facilities make safety come alive – it’s visible and perceptible.  Walt Disney believed that every customer needed to feel and remain safe.  If they didn’t feel safe their experience of his world would not be satisfactory.  He also believed his workers needed to feel safe and remain safe, too.  If his workers didn’t feel safe, he knew their performances would be lacking, and in turn would impact the visitors’ experience in a less than acceptable way.  Safety remains as one of the pillars of the Disney quality standards – the first of the Disney quality-standards that’s always talked about from the very start.  Without great safety as part of the cultural foundation, Walt Disney believed his world would not be all that it should be for his workers and his guests. 

“You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.”  Yes, that's Walt Disney

I believe we can all do a better job in sharing our vision for safety, and we can do better when it comes to engaging people - engaging them in every viable process we create and hope to sustain.  How about you?

North Dakota Safety Council and David Sarkus - The Safety Coach®

Just wanted to let you know where I was last week - Bismarck, North Dakota.  I had a great time and made some new friends and connected with a  number of new colleagues.  Take a look at the video below, please.

What's Your Golden Dog Bone in Safety?

I recently heard a saying that I really like, “the dog with the bone is always in danger.”  Most all of us have a “golden dog-bone” within our organizations – whether it be sales numbers, market share, profit numbers, new product alignment, employee turnover rates, quality, productivity, and yes, safety performance indicators.  But what’s your “golden dog-bone” when it comes to safety and how does it allow complacency to creep into your groups?

Some of us rely too heavily on lagging indicators and get much too comfortable with so-called good to great numbers.  Leaders who lack a robust scorecard and appropriate coaching, especially with regard to leading indicators, pass down their comfort level to managers, supervisors, and the workers – not a good thing.

In contrast, mature leaders know they can’t relax and get comfortable.  Astute leaders know they have to keep engaging and creating more EHS ownership within the workforce.  They keep pushing to get better, continuously.  Great leaders are always asking and looking for ways to improve materials, tools, and equipment, procedures, and people interfaces in order to raise the bar for safety performance.  And they know that some numbers, especially lagging indicators, create a false sense of comfort that is very dangerous – a summit that may signal, it’s time to relax.

Once we feel too secure with our golden dog-bone (whatever it may be) we relax and take a nap of sorts.  And when we do, bad things are bound to eventually occur.  We are always in danger when “that golden dog-bone” becomes the ultimate prize or goal that we chase and embrace. 

So what’s your golden dog-bone in safety?  Is it zero-recordables?  Is it a 35% reduction in TRIRs?  Is it the absence of serious injuries? 

When it comes to creating a culture of continuous improvement in safety, we all have “a golden dog-bone” of sorts, and that bone will put us in danger - if we let it!

The Safety Grind

Three Steps to Evolving Your Culture for Safety