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Leadership at All Levels
Update: 2024-10-11
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On episode 357, Deputy Center Director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center Steve Koerner reflects on his 32-year-long career at NASA and discusses the values of leadership.
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Transcript
00:00:00
Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center,
00:00:05
Episode 357, leadership at all levels. I'm Leah Cheshire and I'm your host today.
00:00:11
On this podcast, we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers, and astronauts,
00:00:14
all to let you know what's going on in the world of human spaceflight and more.
00:00:18
Throughout life, you've most certainly heard the encouragement to be a leader not a follower,
00:00:23
but I've learned over time that there are opportunities and importance in holding both of those
00:00:27
roles. Even on other episodes of this podcast, many guests have discussed leadership,
00:00:32
followership, and knowing the right time to take on the role required to accomplish goals as a team.
00:00:37
I've had the privilege of hearing our Deputy Center Director, Steve Kerner,
00:00:41
speak about leadership on a couple of occasions and it really changed the way I see myself as
00:00:45
both a leader and a follower. Steve has had the opportunity to lead JSC in multiple different roles
00:00:50
over his 32 plus years of working care, from his time as the Deputy Director of Mission Operations
00:00:55
to Chief Financial Officer, to Director of Flight Operations, and many things in between.
00:01:00
You'll notice this episode isn't full of corporate jargon or inspirational buzzwords because
00:01:05
those don't always go hand in hand with being a good leader. Instead, I hope you hear the practical
00:01:10
ways we can expect excellence of ourselves and those on our teams. Let's get started.
00:01:15
[Music]
00:01:37
Well, Steve, thank you so much for coming on Houston Way of the Podcast today. Glad to be here.
00:01:41
So, let's start with your biography. Tell me what it was like growing up, where you're from,
00:01:45
where you went to school. Just give me a rundown. How did you get to NASA, and was that always on your radar?
00:01:52
Yeah, thanks, Leah. I grew up in Northeast Ohio, a little town called Stowe, outside of Cleveland,
00:01:58
between Cleveland and Akron. I vaguely recall watching the Apollo astronauts walk on the moon,
00:02:06
but I think it was like later in the missions, I don't recall Apollo 11 or the first ones,
00:02:11
but I remember watching it. Shuttle was more my era, just thought that was an awesome space machine,
00:02:19
but growing up, didn't really think of NASA as something obtainable. And I don't know why I thought
00:02:25
that, but it was just kind of something that was done, but didn't really see myself as a part of it.
00:02:29
In fact, in high school, I don't even know if I knew what engineers did. I had lots of people,
00:02:36
fortunately, mentoring me and pointing me in the direction of engineering because I was good at math
00:02:41
and science, but I don't know that I could have explained what an engineer did as I was in high school.
00:02:46
Ended up at the University of Akron, very fortunate that every engineer through University of Akron
00:02:54
had to complete a five-year program that included a one-year, what they called a co-op year.
00:02:59
And so it wasn't optional, and it's a high school student. It was almost,
00:03:03
almost caused me not to go there because I thought why would I want to spend five years when I could
00:03:08
do it in four, but it turned out to be very valuable because at the time, the University of Akron had a
00:03:15
relationship with the Johnson Space Center. Johnson's co-op office was trying to pull individuals from
00:03:21
around the country, not just the local area. And so, to be honest, I don't even know how that
00:03:26
relationship had evolved or how it even started, but the fall of my junior year walked into
00:03:33
the co-op office at the University of Akron, and the co-op director said, "Hey, I just hung up
00:03:36
the phone with Johnson Space Center. Would you like to go there?" And I said, "Sure. No interview,
00:03:43
no nothing. January, I was, January 1990, I was in Root to Houston for my first internship here
00:03:48
at the Johnson Space Center." And so, yeah, some may call it luck. I have another thought of how
00:03:56
that all transpired, but certainly unfortunate to be here at the Johnson Space Center and have not
00:04:01
looked back. Yeah, the door was open for you. That's right. That's right. That's right. I think it's neat too,
00:04:05
because I think a lot of times nowadays, people feel so much pressure to know what they want to do in
00:04:10
high school or immediately after graduation. So, it's refreshing to hear you say, like, you didn't
00:04:14
necessarily maybe know exactly what an engineer did at that time frame. Yeah, and it was at the time,
00:04:20
even from the thought was stressful. Man, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Yeah. But you're right. These days,
00:04:25
it starts way early on. You better know because you're mapping out your kindergarten curriculum with
00:04:30
what you want to do in your career. So, yeah, I get it. Well, since you've been here, you've had a lot
00:04:35
of different roles. I'm not going to run down all of them, but a lot of these leadership roles,
00:04:40
I wanted to run down really quick. So, director of the flight ops directorate, JSC associate director,
00:04:46
JSC chief financial officer, deputy director of flight operations, deputy director of mission
00:04:52
operations, you're currently the deputy center director. So, how have all of those roles built on
00:04:58
each other since you've been here? Yeah, it sounds like I can't hold a job, doesn't it? You know, I would
00:05:03
say at some point, I don't know if there was a definitive time, but over the course of some of that
00:05:08
in the last 20 years, spent some time thinking about about leadership and my career and how that all
00:05:14
plays out. And mostly from a self-reflective self-awareness, what matters to me type of thing. And so,
00:05:22
how did all those evolve? I think I recognized limitations as I got into progressively bigger roles,
00:05:28
but I did that eyes wide open, and with the intent of I wanted to prove to myself I could lead
00:05:35
in an area that I was in an expert. So, I benefited from certainly starting in an area that I was
00:05:41
familiar with, operations where I grew up, but then had to almost forcibly tell myself to step
00:05:49
out of my comfort zone at times to go try some other things. And I benefited from folks that I worked
00:05:55
for, given me the chance to try, while I was optimistic of all the possible outcomes success was
00:06:02
just one of them. So, anyway, I was glad to be able to have the opportunity to have been afforded to
00:06:07
me. And you talked about you started in operations, so you were a flight director, or sorry, you were
00:06:12
a flight controller. Correct. Did you always want to take that step into leadership after that,
00:06:17
were you always a leader in school, the leader of the group project, or was that something that once
00:06:22
you got here and you saw the opportunities you wanted to pursue that? You know, just like I mentioned
00:06:26
a few minutes ago, where I don't know that I could have defined what an engineer did. I don't know
00:06:30
that I thought much about what's a leader in. I love looking into the argument of management versus
00:06:38
leadership and those types of things, but to me it was more of, I mentioned earlier, I was thinking
00:06:44
about my career and what I wanted it to be. I would, I never sat down and mapped out my next job is
00:06:50
going to have this title. But I did come to the realization there were certain attributes I wanted
00:06:56
in any job that I did. And they boiled down to having fun, three things, having fun, learning something,
00:07:03
and providing value. And so, providing value often I needed an advocate or somebody to tell me
00:07:10
that hey, you should go do this because we think you will provide value. There was often areas I
00:07:14
wasn't sure. I could be, I was the right candidate or I was the right individual to step into that.
00:07:18
And so, I was afforded the luxury of consulting others and hearing them say, yeah, we think you,
00:07:23
this is something that you absolutely could do well. And so, from a, from a leadership perspective,
00:07:29
to me, it's not a, not a thing written on a business card. It's, it's something that's a characteristic
00:07:35
of you. So you asked, is this something that you've always done? Probably both positively and negatively,
00:07:42
you know, some of the projects I hated most in school was group projects because I was the
00:07:46
personality that if I wanted it done right, I wanted to do it myself. Me too. And, and so,
00:07:51
hard to answer did that, is that something that all of a sudden I just flipped a switch and was,
00:07:57
was in charge of things. I think I, I tended toward being successful and what does success look like or
00:08:07
how do we win? What's the, what's the goal and how do we best get there? And so that was always
00:08:13
probably my motivator. And so as a result, may have, oh, added some influence, perhaps
00:08:23
positively at times and maybe not as appreciated at other times, but absolutely was, was always focused
00:08:28
on the goal. Well, looking at your resume and all of your different roles, do you think it's important
00:08:36
for a leader to have had a broad spectrum of roles like that? I do. And let me caveat that often
00:08:44
individuals will approach me looking for a recipe or a checklist of, hey, I want to, I want to,
00:08:48
someday do this. And so, you know, how did you do that? And what's the, what's the magic formula?
00:08:54
And there's not one. Again, I mentioned, for me, personally, lots of self-reflection on my
00:09:02
personality, my values, my priorities. And so, I wanted to be able, in order for me to demonstrate
00:09:12
that I could do this well, I needed to do it in an area that I wasn't a technical expert, or that
00:09:17
I didn't have the capability, like I just joked a minute ago to do it myself. I needed to rely on
00:09:23
the team. And so, that was something that I was intentional about. Where can I go that I can't do
00:09:28
the work? I need the team to do it. And I want to be able to knock down hurdles or provide resources
00:09:36
or whatever to make them successful. But I was intentional about looking for areas where I couldn't
00:09:41
just carry the ball by myself, if that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. You grew up here at NASA.
00:09:46
This has been your career. You haven't left the agency. So, do you think that we should look for
00:09:52
leaders within the agency only? Do you think there are times where an outside hire is a good choice?
00:09:57
What do you think about that? Great question. I don't know that you're going to like my answer,
00:10:05
because it's going to go with the depends. And let me explain on why I say it depends. It's a
00:10:10
constant challenge, because we're certainly more familiar with the internal candidates. And people
00:10:17
that we know, we know their strengths and weaknesses, and we know what they bring to the table. And so,
00:10:21
we may be incentivized, biased, not sure what the right term is, to go with who we know
00:10:28
for a particular selection that we're looking for. The challenge is, is it really depends on
00:10:33
what does success look like for that role that you're trying to put this individual into?
00:10:39
And often it could be that an internal candidate is the exact right person thing that it's
00:10:45
running on all eight cylinders, and you need someone who's familiar to keep the train running smoothly
00:10:51
down the track. Or it may be that you know what, the train's off the track, and we need change.
00:10:56
And so, someone from the outside with a fresh perspective may indeed be the right person.
00:11:01
You know, right now, figure out how to say this. So, the Johnson Space Center leads human space flight.
00:11:10
We've done that for 60 years. That hasn't changed. We lead human space flight. But the how has
00:11:16
absolutely changed. And so, what I mean by that is in the 60s, it was, beat the Soviets to the moon.
00:11:25
In the 70s, it was cooperate with the Soviets on a mini-sky lab type thing.
00:11:30
In the 80s, it was fly the space shuttle and glide this thing on to a runway at the end of the mission.
00:11:36
90s and subsequent work with international partners to assemble a space station. And so the
00:11:43
how is constantly evolving, that's my point. Today's how is we want to incentivize industry to be successful.
00:11:50
There's other things in the how, but one of the primary focuses we have is how do we incentivize
00:11:54
us industry to be successful. And so, we've thought about what things can we be doing today to help us be
00:12:02
successful in that effort. And we've looked at industry exchanges. Maybe we send some of the
00:12:08
NASA folks to industry. Maybe we bring some of the industry folks in. Certainly there's there's
00:12:13
ways to do that. But maybe it's hiring folks that have been in industry and bringing them into our
00:12:20
team. And so the reason I mentioned all that is there are absolutely times when an external candidate
00:12:26
may be exactly what you're looking for. And I know personally it was hard for me because
00:12:30
I may be comfortable or I may know the person that's been sitting next to me for years. And so,
00:12:37
I may not know the external candidate as well, but absolutely has to be in the trade space.
00:12:42
What did you think it meant to be a leader before you were one? And how will has your
00:12:47
perspective changed since then? I mean, I'm guessing so. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I used to think that
00:12:52
if I, if you just trickled up the right amount of facts, the person in charge would spew down the
00:12:59
right answer, you know, kind of Moses to Mount Sinai, you walk up the mountain, you come down with
00:13:03
the 10 commandments that somebody wants you to to go implement. Boy, was that a misperception?
00:13:11
How it's changed for me is it's about enabling individuals so that we can accomplish our mission.
00:13:21
Performance matters. But how do we get that performance? It's about taking care of people.
00:13:25
When I was running flight operations, Ray Heinemann was running aviation ops and he had an expression
00:13:32
that I've, I have used multiple times, but it was take care of our people so we can accomplish
00:13:38
the mission. And so that kind of in 30 seconds of thinking about it's kind of the mantra that I've
00:13:44
got about what leaders do. Take care of your people so we can accomplish our mission. You've mentioned
00:13:49
that my entire career has been here at the Johnson Space Center and human space flight. We benefit
00:13:54
greatly from having human space flight as our mission. It doesn't take a lot of effort to convince
00:13:58
people to be motivated to do their job well. And so how do we, how do we provide resources and
00:14:04
knock down hurdles so people can do their job as well? All of those things are how you see a leader,
00:14:10
but earlier you mentioned leadership versus management. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on
00:14:15
the differences between the two. Oh, depending upon the time of day, I could, I could argue lots of
00:14:20
different ways, but I think the easiest way for me to think of it is and someone will probably
00:14:25
quickly argue with me, but I think of it as management as a process that's good. Maybe managing
00:14:32
the status quo and that sounds perhaps bad. That's not, I don't mean it to be bad, but leadership is about
00:14:38
change. We want to move from here to there. We're currently here. We want to get there. How do we get
00:14:43
there? It's about change. And I was just talking to some folks last week, the agency in its executive
00:14:52
leadership qualifications spells out leading change as one of the attributes that it's looking for.
00:14:58
And I often wonder if we've maybe missed that a little bit because we give change this
00:15:03
this identity of this dragon that needs to be slayed is, oh no, it's change. Oh, we're changing.
00:15:08
But that's what we do as leaders. We move from here to there. We're constantly changing. I just
00:15:13
talked about how the how and human spaceflight has evolved. It's all about change and how are we
00:15:18
managing change and moving forward? And so to me, when I think of, you know, what is a leader?
00:15:24
A change agent. Someone who is moving us from where we are to where we need to be effectively.
00:15:31
Well, let's say your processes are all operating as intended. And so you could keep it status quo
00:15:38
like a manager. Let's say that everything that you're doing moving forward in human spaceflight
00:15:43
looks good. Which I would argue we've been very effective in how we've done human spaceflight.
00:15:48
Right. And I agree. I think the way we're doing business currently is a lot of change.
00:15:54
But let's say we get into a routine and it becomes never easy but more manageable.
00:16:01
What are other ways that you continue to improve when it just looks like everything is going smoothly?
00:16:07
Yeah, I think maybe the way to answer that is like with like a sports analogy. You know,
00:16:13
we the Astros won the World Series and they could be content to
00:16:18
continue doing with whatever they did that year to win the World Series.
00:16:22
Right. But the environment's changing around you. And how are you being aware of that? How are you
00:16:27
watching for that? Resources may or may not be more constrained. I think we constantly have to be
00:16:32
looking at how we can do better with the resources we're given. There's always the argument,
00:16:37
oh, we could use more money. But we are given a lot of money. And so how do we constantly assess how
00:16:43
we're doing things from a resource perspective, from a facilities perspective? That is constantly
00:16:52
going to be evolving. And so the thought of the status quo being sufficient is probably a mistake
00:17:00
to thank guys. It's smooth. Let's just coast constantly have to be assessing. In fact, you know,
00:17:08
here at Johnson, we've got this strategic initiative campaign we called their United Explorer. People
00:17:15
may raise their eyebrows and say, yeah, tell me what that is again. And I like to say it simply,
00:17:19
it's just doing things today so that we can do tomorrow's mission well. And so what things should
00:17:25
we be doing today so that we can accomplish tomorrow's mission? Today may be going great. That's no
00:17:30
judgment on how's today going. But who's looking up and looking down the road to determine what
00:17:35
things we need to be doing so that we ensure we're doing things well tomorrow? I don't know about you,
00:17:42
but growing up, we are always taught the value of leadership. We study good leaders. We want to be
00:17:48
like them. We take their traits and try and emulate them. And it's almost a really bad thing to
00:17:53
be a follower. And I've heard through several different guests on this podcast, the importance of
00:17:59
being a good follower. And so I would love to hear your thoughts on what it looks like to be a good
00:18:04
follower. Yeah, I would just like to hear that. Well, so the way I think about that, it's
00:18:11
the scenario really drives how much of your delegated leadership response, how much of your
00:18:18
leadership responsibility can you delegate? And let me elaborate on what I mean by that.
00:18:22
Back up. I feel like NASA, any organization is desperate for good leadership.
00:18:31
And so what are we doing to ensure we have good leadership today and tomorrow? And so
00:18:38
part of that taking care of your people so you can accomplish the mission is how are we taking
00:18:43
care of our people to become the leaders we need them to be? And leadership is not about
00:18:51
self-promotion. It's not about winning the argument. In fact, I mentioned a little bit ago that
00:18:58
I've spent some time thinking about it. And for me, the biggest hindrance to me being
00:19:02
effective as a leader is my own pride. If you've ever been in an argument where in the middle of
00:19:09
your the argument, you realized you were wrong, but you kept arguing just to win, that's your pride.
00:19:15
And so as a leader, if my mindset is as I am trying to help individuals be successful,
00:19:24
but I'm also trying to develop leaders, how am I doing that? Am I given the chance to have ownership
00:19:30
of whatever we've asked them to do or take responsibility and make decisions? Or am I just asking
00:19:36
them to bring me the information and me make the decision? That's not helping them. And so with that
00:19:42
mindset of, hey, part of leadership is developing people, it becomes less about my answer has to be
00:19:47
the right way. And more about what is the right answer? We're not seeking to win the argument. We're
00:19:52
seeking to find what I'll call technical truth. And so absolutely being able to rely on the experts
00:20:00
and know when to back off and let the experts lead, know what questions to ask. And so
00:20:08
I don't know it's so much about relinquishing leadership and becoming a follower. It's enabling others
00:20:16
to lead at times. Maybe an example would be, you know, if I said, if there were a couple of us
00:20:23
in the room, I said, where do we want to go to lunch? And somebody said McDonald's and somebody said
00:20:26
Burger King, do I need to weigh in on that? Or can we practice decifeness and let the least
00:20:35
experienced person choose or something? How do we get people comfortable making decisions?
00:20:39
What's the risk involved? Going to launch very little risk, but that self-confidence, that I don't
00:20:49
need to win the argument to provide value to myself, it's, hey, this individual's on to something.
00:20:55
Let me let them run with it and see that this can't not only can they help us be mission,
00:21:01
provide mission success, but it also boosts their confidence in being able to be decisive and help
00:21:08
us navigate risk. Well, let's say you're in a conversation with somebody and you, you have competing
00:21:13
ideas on what's right and you don't have that moment of realizing that the other person is right
00:21:18
and you are wrong, but you really stand to what you believe. At what point, how do you know
00:21:22
you should continue pressing forward with your idea as the leading thought versus step back and
00:21:30
follow somebody else's path? Yeah, I think that's where certainly the level of expertise that I have
00:21:36
on that particular subject will weigh in on. And again, maybe the risk involved, if the outcome is
00:21:43
worth letting that individual choose the route, then go forward. If the risk is such that no,
00:21:53
the processes need to be short up and ensure what we're doing here. And hear me, I'm not
00:21:59
saying I'm going to delegate the authority or the responsibility that's been given to me.
00:22:04
I will always have someone's back. If they, if I've asked them and they say, hey, it's blue
00:22:09
and it turns out to be red, I'll always have their back and we'll figure out next time how we can do
00:22:14
that better, but it's about trusting the people and giving them, given them ownership of the problem
00:22:22
you've asked them to solve. And so it's easy to sit back and let them take lead on that when that's
00:22:28
the mindset. So I don't know if that makes sense or not, but there are times where you have,
00:22:34
where if we disagree, now I'm not going to, I'm going to need to think about how to say this more
00:22:39
clearly. There are times where the answer that I give will be the answer. And so it's not always
00:22:46
that if I think it's blue and you think it's red and I know it to be blue, I'm not going to let you
00:22:51
convince the team otherwise, but the way to do that can still show support for you through asking
00:22:57
questions through how you handle that situation. And so that's, you know, you mentioned a minute ago
00:23:04
about we've always been taught to observe other leaders. One of the things I've done and I recommend
00:23:11
to others to do is when I'm in forums, this was probably start doing this about, probably after
00:23:19
Columbia watching how we returned to flight after the Columbia accident and how various people
00:23:26
conducted themselves in that effort. And I was fascinated with observing individuals who I thought
00:23:33
were effective in leadership, let's say, running a meeting, making decisions, managing risk,
00:23:39
and what caused me to think they were effective. Or people that I thought weren't effective. What
00:23:44
caused me to draw the conclusion that that wasn't very effective? And then of those things that I
00:23:49
observed, what could I apply to myself? Decisiveness was a big one. Respect for other people
00:23:56
was a big one. Getting the team through a difficult technical decision when the team was a very
00:24:06
so diverse that most people didn't have the technical expertise on any given subject. And so the
00:24:12
questions that were asked, the way in which team members were shown value. Anyway, just certain
00:24:23
attributes that I observed in people, I thought, man, how can I do that or how can I not do that
00:24:30
based on my personality? Because I learned a long time ago, I'm not changing my personality. And so
00:24:34
what's effective for me? And it may not be for everyone. And so maybe the key point is, are you
00:24:39
self-aware about what works for you and are your values and priorities aligned such that you can
00:24:45
then be most effective as a leader? That's great. And I think that's something that everyone can
00:24:49
practice. It doesn't have to be in an accident review board or something like that. But in a general
00:24:55
meeting, we all sit in tons of meetings a day and what makes some of them beneficial versus the
00:25:00
others. So that's something that I'm going to take forward to. Good. Let's talk a little bit about
00:25:06
something that I struggle with. And I'm not I'm not the deputy center director. I am just a team
00:25:12
lead. But how do you deal with it when people don't necessarily like you as a leader? How do you get
00:25:19
over that feeling? Because I'm the kind of person that I have to feel like everybody likes me.
00:25:24
Yeah, that's certainly you're not alone. Most people want to be liked. Me included. But what was
00:25:32
helpful for me is I'll go back to that mission success is the goal. And so I've actually
00:25:38
I've watched someone I mentioned observing people and their their styles and their behaviors who
00:25:45
I think verbally stated that one of their main goals was to try and make everyone in their office happy.
00:25:51
Okay, they wanted to be liked. And we all know if we's paused and thought about it, that's not
00:25:59
possible on any given moment, any to sit back to the McDonald's Burger King soon as you pick one
00:26:04
over the other someone's not going to like your decision and therefore apparently not like you.
00:26:09
And so for me, it was a recognition of yeah, I certainly am not out to be disliked. But that is not
00:26:19
my priority to come in here and be liked. And maybe being a parent was helpful. I could get my
00:26:25
kids to like me by serving ice cream for dinner every night, but that wouldn't accomplish the mission
00:26:30
success that we were after. And so it was an intentional mindset of not trying to be disliked,
00:26:39
but my goal is not to be liked by everyone. And it was also helpful for me to think about
00:26:51
back to this is me personally thinking about where I find value. And I think I can state
00:26:59
accurately. Maybe I have to caveat this a little bit that you know, I don't find my value and
00:27:04
whether people like me or not. Again, I want to be liked, but that's not the primary goal. And so
00:27:11
this job is not who I am, it's what I do. And so with that, if people don't like what I do,
00:27:20
it doesn't, it's no skin off my back because it's not who I am if that makes sense. And that's easy
00:27:28
to state. And so I get that. And so modeling that behavior or demonstrating that behavior, the
00:27:35
proof will be in what others see around me. But that's my intent is to not have it as a priority
00:27:44
to just try to be liked. Now, one other thing I'll add is I have seen where maybe I'll change the
00:27:51
word from like to being nice. The desire to be nice often will conflict with mission success or
00:27:59
performance or whatever. And this is one that I wrestle with because I'm trying to think of a good
00:28:09
example. We absolutely want to hear from everyone their ideas. Speak up. If you have an idea,
00:28:16
we want to hear from you. We've got tools and spots you can drop stickies and we want to hear people's
00:28:22
ideas. But out of the desire to be nice, we have a hard time down selecting those ideas. And so
00:28:29
many of you maybe have heard me use this example and I can't take ownership of it. I think I heard
00:28:35
it from a guy named Patrick Lencione who wrote five dysfunctions of a team. I've been to a few places
00:28:42
where I've heard him speak. But he talked about when a bad idea comes in, how do you deal with it
00:28:50
and still quote be nice? I don't think that was necessarily the word he used. But so if you were to
00:28:56
suggest, "Hey Steve, I have an idea." Sure, I want to hear everybody's ideas. Let's blow up some
00:29:03
balloons and go walk around the duck ponds by building one. Would someone say, "Lia, help us understand
00:29:10
why that's a good idea because no, we're not doing that." Or out of being nice, would you find yourself
00:29:15
walking around the duck pond, holding a balloon, having no idea why you're doing it, but you just
00:29:20
didn't want to follow up on an idea and come across as not being nice and squelching someone's idea.
00:29:26
And so this is a fun one to wrestle with because we do absolutely want to hear from everyone,
00:29:32
but how do we then take the good ideas and use those effectively without coming across as not nice
00:29:40
by just not taking someone else's idea that was out there. Maybe it goes back to your question
00:29:45
earlier about when you're in a discussion with someone and they're really wanting to do something
00:29:50
is, "Can you agree to priorities on what you're attempting to accomplish?" And do it again,
00:29:57
do it in a way that shows value to the individual. I think we wrestle with that because it instantly
00:30:01
comes kind of the crab in the bucket kind of thing. The way to get out of the bucket if you're in
00:30:06
with a bunch of other crabs is pull the other crabs down around you. That's what we're not trying to do
00:30:10
that. How do we promote individuals and get them to speak up the next time while trying to be
00:30:17
decisive and make a decision at the current time? I think something you touched on is your identity
00:30:25
being outside of your job, which I think is really important. And I'd like to hear your perspective.
00:30:30
And if you think that's important for all leaders because we spend so much time in our jobs at minimum,
00:30:36
we're nine hours a day. And that doesn't include long days or nights or weekends or holidays or
00:30:42
anything else that we commit to. And so a lot of your identity can get wrapped up in your job. And it's
00:30:46
great to be proud of what you do and to love it. But do you think that people make more objective
00:30:52
and better decisions when they have a separate identity from just who they are at work?
00:30:59
Yeah, that's a tough one because I can't speak for others too well on that one. I get that this job's
00:31:04
awesome and there's people that want to pour themselves into it and may say that their identity is
00:31:09
found here. And so I got no problem with that. That may be the exact thing that works for them.
00:31:14
For me personally, that was a challenge. And maybe it came across early on because
00:31:21
you know as an engineer when I got my first, I think I was a group lead. I was trying to figure out
00:31:30
how do I determine was my day valuable. And so I was creating, oh, I got through X number of emails
00:31:36
today or I sent out 14 texts today and I was creating metrics that had absolutely nothing to do with
00:31:44
anything of importance. But in my mind, I was able to say, I spent 10 hours at work today.
00:31:49
So I was using hours and things as metrics because I was the engineer desperately looking for metrics
00:31:57
to determine was my day valuable or not. And at some point, I don't know how I stumbled across this
00:32:02
or how the realization hit me was number of emails, number of texts, number of hours,
00:32:07
actually have nothing to do with the amount of value you're providing. Now the job is difficult
00:32:14
and does require hours. So hear me, I'm not suggesting that, but it's not a metric that I use to
00:32:20
determine value. Does that help other leaders? I have spent a lot of time thinking about what would
00:32:30
help others. And I'm very careful not to sound authoritative or maybe it sounds like I get on a
00:32:39
soap box and preach, that's not my intent, but I'm trying to characterize things that I found valuable
00:32:46
or find valuable and maybe others can benefit from that. And so it's just sharing my experience and
00:32:53
maybe others can take advantage of that, not have to go through some of the hurdles that I've gone
00:32:58
through. Often we say we want to be problem solvers, well maybe the problem's already been solved and
00:33:03
we need to seek the solution that's out there. And so enjoy meeting with individuals or talking
00:33:11
to people about my experiences so that folks that I'm talking to maybe can walk away with the
00:33:18
nugget or two that helps them. Well here's another one that I struggle with and we've talked about
00:33:23
this just a moment ago when we're now past the part of we don't have to be liked as leaders.
00:33:28
So once you're okay with not being liked all the time. Before we leave that, so one of the thought that
00:33:33
hit me that I want to make sure we address is and maybe this is where you're heading. It's conflict
00:33:37
management. Yeah. I feel like the personally the agency culturally we do not do a good job
00:33:49
of managing conflict. And so I'm intentional about how we can do that better. And so thought about
00:33:56
you know how if we're talking about being liked I think part of conflict management is well I don't
00:34:03
want to I'd rather avoid the conflict and just not stir the waters and that way maybe everyone
00:34:09
will like me. Man that's that that's a huge hurdle. Human space fight we need conflict. As director
00:34:19
of flight operations I got to go with the crews as they were getting ready to launch. Not all the way
00:34:27
to strap them in but as they're heading to the to the launch pad or even as flight ops are in my
00:34:32
current job I'm often with the families as we're launching the crew members. And think about that
00:34:39
being in bichen or with for a Soyuz launch with family members of a crew. And if I were to say that
00:34:48
them hey it's okay in all our meetings I was liked is that give a sense of confidence about what we're
00:34:54
about to do here. And so I have to remind myself the human space flight's hard it's not about being
00:34:59
liked. And so it requires conflict to get to the best answer. I could avoid conflict by everybody
00:35:07
saying hey what's the the mixture ratio for the rocket engine between fuel and oxidizer everybody
00:35:12
write down what number they think that ratio needs to be and will average them and that's what we'll use.
00:35:18
Do you think Reed and Victor and Jeremy and Christina want to get on the rocket that we by consensus
00:35:25
came to the no and yet how do we get to the answer it's arm wrestling it's debating it's bantering
00:35:34
in a way that's professional and productive and promoting people but we absolutely need to
00:35:40
manage conflict and why I'm kind of harping on that is I think management of the conflict starts
00:35:44
at the head of the table. And so how that's done can be done super effectively if the head of the table
00:35:50
allows it to be and maybe it's just celebrate it. Do you stop in a meeting and say hey did you hear that?
00:35:57
Joe just thought it was 10 and Mary just thought it was 15 we got some conflict here let's sort this
00:36:02
out people and call it out address it you know I'm making up a silly example I get that it's not
00:36:08
that simple but we absolutely need to be intentional about managing conflict and not avoiding it our
00:36:14
mission success demands it. And yeah I kind of wanted to touch on that with how do you deliver
00:36:21
not good news to people I mean it's hard when you hear critical feedback of someone or you notice
00:36:27
something in performance that needs to be addressed how do you how do you bring that up? Yeah I've
00:36:34
benefited I mentioned a few minutes ago I was group lead in an organization and fortunately early
00:36:38
on in this in my group lead experience I had to do that and I really it turned out to be very favorable
00:36:46
and I get that it's not always the case but let me explain and then I'll extrapolate on how that's
00:36:52
been valuable for me but I got to an organization that I didn't know all the people that well but it
00:36:59
quickly became apparent one individual was struggling completing completing a particular task that
00:37:04
she'd been given it was apparent everyone else in the group knew it was in hindered it was hindering
00:37:11
our being able to accomplish something we needed to get done and I don't remember how long but I
00:37:19
wrestled with boy I need to address this and here I am the new guy and I'm about to tell someone
00:37:23
they're not doing something well and I was roleplaying all the potentials of who are you to tell me
00:37:28
and so it was probably a week maybe week and a half it wrestled with I need to do this and a colleague
00:37:37
of mine used the expression hey it's it's not a fine wine that's going to get better with age
00:37:41
and so I called this individual and and I pointed out that I felt I said hey I feel like
00:37:47
you're wrestling and you're struggling with this this project and she said yes I know and she broke
00:37:55
down in tears and she said but I've been too embarrassed to tell anybody that I needed help and I didn't
00:38:01
know and I was struggling I'm like well that's what we're here for to help you out I mean and so she
00:38:06
was actually appreciative that I brought it up and she this may have evolved in my recollection
00:38:13
over the years so there may be some revisionist history here but was almost thanking me that now we
00:38:19
could talk about it and the team could talk about it and it was something that we moved forward with
00:38:23
and so that was huge for me that not only you know performance matters and so if someone's
00:38:31
struggling with performance is it the process are they equipped is it resources or is it skills
00:38:38
and if it's skills can we train it and so absolutely have to deliver the not-nights news
00:38:43
because mission success matters back to my pseudo joking about telling the astronauts that hey
00:38:52
yeah we're good I didn't deal with any of the issues but that's like should be them the number one
00:39:01
priority for somebody applying for the job or you're going to be able to deliver tough news
00:39:04
in a way that's effective you know you don't it's not helpful to come in and start off well you know
00:39:10
your socks don't match and no if your goal is take care of your people how are you doing that
00:39:17
effectively so that they're willing to hear from you when you need to point out things that need
00:39:20
to be addressed I was just joking with someone this morning that if I had wanted to be a neurosurgeon
00:39:30
I hope someone would have tapped me on the shoulder and said you know it's indeed that's probably not
00:39:34
for you let's let's point you in a direction where you can be valuable and so someone would have had
00:39:37
to deliver not good news to me but that isn't that is an awesome trait to be able to do well and
00:39:44
and how do we practice that and so I think that's something we can do better at equipping our
00:39:53
our folks that are in those roles to give feedback to that that's something that's extremely important
00:39:59
yeah so when it when you look at it from the perspective of not only you help in the mission success
00:40:07
you may actually be helping the individual then man it's our job to figure out how to do that well
00:40:13
how about building up your team members how do you develop confidence in them how do you help
00:40:19
them develop confidence in their abilities or help them take full responsibility of their work
00:40:24
a little while ago we talked about that I came here in 1990 as a as a co-op student and have been
00:40:33
here one of my first supervisors early 90s in like my first day or early on in one of my first meetings
00:40:42
and then every time after it performance appraisal time had a one-pager of their expectations for me
00:40:47
I thought it was awesome I don't necessarily remember them all but just kind of things to keep in
00:40:53
mind he just he just call it is he had a certain name for it I forget but just a one-pager of
00:40:58
expectations I thought every supervisor at NASA did that and since that day that hasn't happened
00:41:03
now what I do is it's I have created my own and whether it's a supervisor or with someone I'm
00:41:11
mentoring I have five expectations and I'll get to answering your question in a minute by
00:41:17
five expectations that I communicate whether it's someone that's I'm a supervisor of or someone
00:41:24
that I'm just given them some informal thought to think about and let me walk you through those
00:41:30
which will attempt to answer your question so the first expectation is excellence
00:41:36
what everybody known performance matters the Houston Astros could build a great team if they
00:41:41
required one excuse me could build a team really quickly if they only required one hit a year
00:41:46
probably payroll could probably be ten bucks and they wouldn't win any games but they'd get their
00:41:52
team built quickly so no they demand excellence you need you need to what can we do to ensure
00:41:59
excellence but excellence is an expectation and so and everything we're doing what if that is our
00:42:07
goal we want to be excellent I may not be able to tell given individuals what they specifically
00:42:12
need to be doing to do excellent work but hopefully they know and so if not pause right now and
00:42:17
think about what excellent work looks like and where you where your job is so first is excellent
00:42:24
second is use three words responsibility accountability ownership I think we struggle with this one
00:42:31
collectively across the agency in general but we've we've asked people to do a job go do you do not
00:42:38
have to come ask me mother may I I want you feeling ownership of your job I want you feeling responsible
00:42:43
for it not passing the blame when it doesn't go well and not accepting the glory when it does go
00:42:49
well as an individual but ownership of the job what do we need to make you successful in that job
00:42:56
we spend a lot of time Dana Wygo can correct me on this so we can fact check her but she was having
00:43:06
to give a briefing relatively recently at a various level of headquarters and I think she had
00:43:11
to give thirteen pre-briefs to people before she ever got to the intended audience just so everyone
00:43:17
could have an insight into what she was saying before they got to her boss that's horrific are we
00:43:22
do people take ownership and responsibility and and delegate to the folks to go do what they
00:43:29
need to do I said a minute ago we'll always have your back easy for me to state that and so that
00:43:35
you can line your bird cage with that piece of paper that you write that on if you'd like
00:43:40
the proof will be in is is the observation true that that's entailed so expect excellence expect
00:43:46
people to feel ownership of their job thirdly communicate if you're gonna if I've just said hey
00:43:52
you don't need to ask mother may I if you're gonna do something that Vanessa is not gonna be happy
00:43:58
with please give me a heads up if before she comes and and barks at me and I say that jokingly Vanessa
00:44:04
would never bark at me but I think you get the point of my expectation is if I'm asking you to go do
00:44:11
communicate at the level you think's appropriate around how that had played out so excellence
00:44:18
ownership communication positive attitude is the fourth one human space flights hard there's days
00:44:24
that are great there's days that aren't not saying make the days that aren't seem great by
00:44:29
by phoniness but are you permeated by a positive attitude I can't remember if I heard him talk or if
00:44:36
I read it in a book but Colin Powell was talking about when he was joint chiefs of staff he was in a
00:44:45
essentially a boardroom um during one of the golf wars where there was a particular battle that
00:44:52
wasn't going well I can't remember the exact characteristics but it was a dire situation to hear him
00:44:57
categorize it and he feels like the positive attitude of one person in the boardroom permeated the
00:45:03
boardroom permeated the command structure permeated the battle all because one person had a positive
00:45:09
attitude the opposite is true for negative attitude and so will not permit folks on my team that
00:45:18
have negative attitudes and so how is how do you approach a job with a positive attitude knowing
00:45:24
that's an expectation and so excellence ownership communication positive attitude the last one is
00:45:30
success um back to my baseball analogy no starting picture everyone out expecting to lose no manager
00:45:39
ever sent out starting picture expecting him to lose we're expecting people to be successful
00:45:43
so if success is not looking like an outcome lots of things to question about that are our processes
00:45:48
set up have we trained have resources available um but want everybody knowing that that's the
00:45:55
expectation you have form is is to be successful and so if they're not being successful or the team's
00:46:01
not being successful we'll figure out how to how to navigate that um a good example that came to
00:46:07
mind for me recently we do this federal employee viewpoint survey and this was from last years but
00:46:12
again this year one of the highest I'll say negative inputs was on workload and people feeling burned
00:46:20
out but one of the organizations that had what I'll say the best score in that area was uh was NA
00:46:28
our safety and mission assurance directorate and asked will he lie also you know why is that do you
00:46:32
think and it wasn't that he reduced the workload there but he was telling our management team and
00:46:39
hopefully I'm um we're calling this accurately will he can correct us but he had a conversation with
00:46:45
his team where he said yeah we've got a lot of work on our table and I'm gonna roll up my sleeves and
00:46:50
we're gonna get after it together and there was this sense of we're in this together and and my
00:46:55
manager my leaders here to support me and so will he just simply take in the time to say let's roll
00:47:00
up our sleeves I'm right here with you let's go do um they got a little higher score in that area
00:47:05
now was that attributable to his comments no idea but um again he he was out there positive attitude
00:47:17
talking about success was the goal and we just lots about how he handled that I thought were relevant
00:47:22
I think we have time for one more question and so a lot of people listen to this are probably not
00:47:28
managers or in a leadership position so what are ways that you can be a leader in your current
00:47:35
position without actually having that in your title yeah for me it was a recognition of somebody
00:47:41
somewhere was modeling their behavior because of something I was doing and I've already used
00:47:47
the parenting analogy so I'll use another one um I like watching sporting events on TV and sometimes
00:47:55
I'll get a little animated talking to the television um and one day my two-year-old son didn't even
00:48:01
know I was in the room and there he was yelling at the TV just like his dad did I didn't have
00:48:08
intent that wasn't intended and so my reason for mentioning all that is whether it's in our title
00:48:14
or not someone is looking at you and doing something the way they do it because they've seen it in you
00:48:20
and so you can be intentional about influencing that or as I was with my son not intentional
00:48:26
and realizing I was perhaps not passing along something I wanted to um but recognize that um
00:48:36
you are leading someone in something and so are you intentional about improving as a leader
00:48:42
you know there's no pinnacle you never ascend to the top of the mountain and declare that you've got
00:48:47
there you constantly have to work at it we talked earlier about the environments changing things
00:48:52
are changing um and so be intentional about getting better as a leader um everybody wins when
00:48:59
leaders get better um and so how what are ways to do that seek feedback um we have a performance
00:49:07
appraisal system that is adequate I would say I'm not trying to throw judgment at it but if you
00:49:13
simply rely on that that's not what I'm talking about be intentional about hey uh boss did you
00:49:19
notice that yesterday I changed how I normally did this thinking it might improve did you even see
00:49:24
that or you know seek feedback and welcome the negative feedback um some of the best opportunities
00:49:31
I've got to improve is when someone pointed out something I wasn't doing well um now let's say not
00:49:36
to that's not to dwell on them but man look at him as gifts when someone says you can do that as well
00:49:42
okay thank you resist the urge to defend whatever you did just say thanks and figure out how to move
00:49:47
on it but then maybe the the biggest point is focus on your strengths um and get continue to get
00:49:55
better at them don't rest on those um trying to think of an example Lebron James is not out working
00:50:02
on his curveball I have no idea how he pitches he may be the world's worst pitcher but he doesn't care
00:50:09
he's out there working on his shot you know he's and um and so what are your strengths are you getting
00:50:14
better at your strengths yeah we've all got weaknesses you determine whether those are hindering you
00:50:19
from being successful in the job we've asked you to do but but be intentional about developing as a
00:50:24
leader um it's different for that they're the our HR department will do a great job trying to
00:50:31
lay out certain things you can do but take ownership of that yourself um some of that may work for
00:50:38
you some not but you know best and so be intentional about getting better as a leader would be my my
00:50:44
closing advice well I think it's a great point to close on and I really appreciate you coming here
00:50:49
and sharing all of your thoughts and your experiences and the encouragement for everyone to lean
00:50:54
into developing themselves as a leader so thank you Steve hey glad to be here earlier thanks for the
00:50:59
invite thanks for sticking around and I hope you learned something new today if you want to know
00:51:22
what else is up with NASA visit us online at nasa.gov for the latest you can also continue your audio
00:51:28
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00:51:34
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00:51:39
make sure to mention it's for Houston we have a podcast this episode was recorded September 3rd
00:51:44
2024 thanks to will flado dain turner abbey graph jaden jennings gary jordan ashley white jasmine
00:51:51
nihilla and scott collins and of course thanks again to steve kerner for taking the time to come
00:51:56
on the show give us a rating and feedback on whatever platform you're listening to us on and tell
00:52:00
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