Columbia professor and former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino has faced many challenges in his career, especially during his two stints in space, which went on to partially inspire the character played by George Clooney in the Oscar-winning 2013 movie “Gravity.”
In the face of struggle, Massimino’s colleagues shared with him key pieces of NASA wisdom, rules and sayings. He shares a few of them in his new book “Moonshot: A NASA Astronaut’s Guide to Achieving the Impossible,” discussing what he learned in his 18 years at NASA from 1996 to 2014 and how he has implemented the advice in his career back on earth as a professor, media personality and leadership advisor to a wide range of companies.
Whether up in orbit or down on Earth, Massimino uses these three key pieces of NASA wisdom to make sure that his problem-solving process runs smoothly.
Give yourself 30 seconds to feel bad
It is normal to feel guilty when you make a mistake at work. Beating yourself up about it can send you down an unproductive spiral of self-deprecation, but it can be cathartic to let your emotions out.
When he makes a particularly frustrating mistake, Massimino tells CNBC Make It he employs the 30-second rule, a piece of NASA wisdom that he attributes to pilot Rick “CJ” Sturckow.
Immediately after he makes a mistake, he sets aside 30 seconds to get mad at himself and write down his regrets over the mistake in a journal. Massimino’s average 30-second session sounds like: “I am stupid! How could I have done that! I should have thought more about our plan. If I get out of this one, I’ll be more careful in the future not to make this mistake again.”
But when the 30 seconds are up, he stops wallowing and concentrates on what’s ahead.
It’s crucial to make your 30 seconds of self-deprecation and ranting impactful and productive so you can move on relieved and motivated to resolve the issue. To do so, Massimino calls himself names to really get his resentment out, identifies what his specific regret is to make sure he knows what to change instead of blaming everything, and reminds himself to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Before you act, think about how it can get worse, because it always can
No matter how bad you mess up, you can always make it worse, Massimino says. In NASA, this is called Hoot’s Law, named after NASA legend astronaut Robert “Hoot” Gibson who used to share that advice with his colleagues.
“There are very few things you need to react to immediately,” Massimino says.
When you rush to fix a mistake you made, you often end up making another one because you are not paying enough attention, Massimino says.
“You’ve gone from one problem to two and you’ve got to solve Problem B before you can get back to Problem A,” he says.
When Massimino makes a mistake, after taking his 30 seconds of frustration, he slows down and takes a step back. In this step-back phase, he gets an extra set of eyes on the problem, and asks for help, advice or feedback. Most importantly, he thinks about what actions he could do at that point that could compound the problem and make “a bad situation worse.” Figuring this out helps him act more consciously.
For most problems in life, Massimino says, you can take at least a minute or two to think before responding. “Don’t fire off that email right away. Take a beat” and reflect on how you might accidentally make the situation worse, he says.
Remind yourself what you have in common with your teammates
In the office, every conflict is usually a group conflict, Massimino says, because people tend to work in teams. When emotions are running high, solving an issue might seem impossible if teammates don’t see eye to eye. When Massimino is facing such a conflict, his next course of action is to consult what he calls his “bank of good thoughts.”
“What I found to be the golden rule for leadership and teamwork is to find a way to care for and admire everyone on your team,” Massimino says. You may not share the same backgrounds, areas of expertise or outlook on your work, but it is good to remember that everyone on your team was vetted by the same application process that you went through.
“Maybe you don’t naturally connect with them, but they are there for a reason and you are there for a reason; everyone has something to add to the team,” Massimino says.
Find something that you admire about that person or that you share in common by taking the time to get to know them. Then put that in your mental (or written if you’d like) bank of good thoughts, to go back to when you are facing a conflict and can’t see eye to eye. By remembering what he admires about the person he is talking to, Massimino says he becomes more open to hearing their ideas.
Even if you still disagree, making your colleagues feel cared about and admired will make them more open to your opinions in turn, he says.
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