The Book: HNBT
How NASA Builds Teams: Mission Critical Soft Skills for Scientists, Engineers, and Project Teams
Author: Charles J. Pellerin
Wiley, July 2009 | 288 pages | ISBN: 978-0-470-45648-4
Every successful organization needs high-performance teams to compete and succeed. Yet, technical people are often resistant to traditional "touchy-feely" teambuilding. To improve communication, performance, and morale among NASA’s technical teams, former NASA Astrophysicist Dr. Charlie Pellerin developed the teambuilding process described in "How NASA Builds Teams"―an approach that is proven, quantitative, and requires only a fraction of the time and resources of traditional training methods. This "4-D" process has boosted team performance in hundreds of NASA project teams, engineering teams, and management teams, including the people responsible for NASA’s most complex systems ― the Space Shuttle, space telescopes, robots on Mars, and the mission back to the moon. How NASA Builds Teams explains how the 4-D teambuilding process can be applied in any organization.
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Outline of the book “How NASA Builds Teams”
Introduction
The Vision—Moving Your Team’s Performance into the Top 20 Percent
How This All Began
NASA’s Bottom-Quintile Teams Improve
Teambuilding for Technical Teams
A Broader Perspective on Teambuilding
An Application Summary for this Introduction
PART I - UNDERSTANDING AND ANALYZING CONTEXT
CHAPTER 1 - Think You Can Ignore Context? Hubble’s Flawed Mirror Might Wake You Up
Hubble Space Telescope—April 23, 1990
However, Would the Telescope Work?
Hubble Looks Good, So Off to Japan
“Conscious Expectation of the Unexpected”—An Early Hubble Motto
The Failure Review Board Found the Problem
A Leadership Failure Caused the Flaw
An Application Summary for Hubble Trouble
CHAPTER 2 - Managing Social Context Manages Technical Performance
The Power of Context
The “AMBR” Process—How the Brain Works
Unseen and Unmanaged Social Contexts
Context Examples from Everyday Life
Context Trumps Character
A Brief Detour into the Concept of Story-Lines
An Attribution Error
An Application Summary for Context
CHAPTER 3 - The 4-D System: A Simple Tool to Analyze Team and Individual Performance
Coordinate Systems Simplify
Organizing Teams and Leaders
4-D Organization of Leadership
Let’s Pause and Review
Validation—The 4-D System with Research
A Limitation of Conventional Methods
An Application Summary for 4-D Analysis
PART II - USING 4-D ASSESSMENTS AND REPRESENTATIVE RESULTS FROM NASA
CHAPTER 4 - The 4-D Assessment Process
Potency of Team Assessments to Drive Behavioral Change
Launching and Managing Your Team Development Assessment
An Overview of the Eight Assessed Behaviors
Assessment Reports—What They Look Like
Debriefing Your Team
What Progress Do Teams Experience?
Individual Development Assessments
What Progress Do Individuals Experience?
Differences in Team and Individual Benchmarking Scales
An Application Summary for Social Context
CHAPTER 5 - NASA’s 4-D Teambuilding Results
They Voted with Their Feet . . .
... Because They Realized Results
Systemic Change in First Team Assessments
Estimating a Systemic NASA ROI
Do 4-D Behavior Assessments Measure Performance?
Do NASA’s Teambuilding Processes Always Work?
A Few Testimonials
An Application Summary for NASA Results
A Summary of the Role of Each 4-D Process
PART III - 4-D DIAGNOSTICS HOW TO COLOR CODE YOUR TEAM’S CONTEXT
Quit the BS and Pick Up the Chalk
CHAPTER 6 - Using the 4-D System to Color Your Personalities
Carl Jung and Innate Personality
Two Ways to Decide
About Your Personality Exploration
Where Is Your Foundation?
“Who’s on the Bus?”
Application—The Project That Could Not Complete
Never Use This Information to Limit
The Green, Cultivating Personality’s Innate AMBR
The Highly Effective (4-D) Pattern
Gandhi Demonstrates 4-D Leadership
The Effective Cultivating Leader
The Yellow, Including Personality’s Innate AMBR
The Blue, Visioning Personality’s Innate AMBR
The Orange, Directing Personality’s Innate AMBR
Innate Personalities Alter Our Perception
Are You a Competent or Incompetent Manager?
How to Join the Ranks of the Competent 30 Percent
4-D Employee Recruitment
An Application Summary for Innate Personality
Will You Stand Up?
CHAPTER 7 - Using the 4-D System to Analyze Cultures
Asch’s Experiment—Context Alters Perception
The “Culture as a Field” Metaphor
The Four Cultures
The Blue Project Team That Could Not Complete
Some Culture Inquiries
Blue or Orange Culture Foundation
Drawing Your Team’s Culture Diagram
Green, Cultivating Cultures: Accommodate Members’ Values
Yellow, Including Cultures: Accommodate Group Relational Needs
Blue, Visioning Cultures: Accommodate Individual Experts’ Needs
Orange, Directive Cultures: Accommodate Management’s Needs
Give the Directing Culture What It Craves
Building Orange from the Bottom Up
Supporting Vital Subcultures
4-D Organization of Proposals
Matching Proposal Team Culture to Customer
Cultures Must Change as Projects Mature
How Hubble Launched with a Flawed Mirror
An Application Summary for Cultures
CHAPTER 8 - Incoherent Project Mindset Colors? Update Your Resume
Basic Project Management
Project Mindsets Drive Project Structure
The Blue Performance Mindset
The Orange Cost/Schedule Mindset
Consequences of a Confused/Wrong Mindset
Incoherent Mindsets Risk a Large Space Program
Incoherency Incites Drama
An Application Summary for Project Mindsets
PART IV - SHIFTING THE CONTEXT
CHAPTER 9 - The Context Shifting Worksheet (CSW)
CSW—A Proposal Team Prepares for Orals
Recovering $3 Million of Denied Fee
Applying the CSW to Your Situations
CHAPTER 10 - Red Story-Lines Limit Team Performance
What Matters for Leadership Effectiveness
He Just Could Not Delegate
4-D Organization of Mindset
How Powerful are Words?
Story-Lines and Truth
Managing Your Story-Lines with AMBR
Story-Lines Can Drive Industries to Success or Ruin
Choosing Story-Lines
Troublesome Story-Lines in Technical Teams
A Team/Organization Story-Line Exercise
Story-Line Shifting Saves the Project
Animals Run Story-Lines, Too
Avoid Argument with the Indisputable Truth
The Difficult Workshop Participant
An Application Summary for Story-Lines
A Team Activity
CHAPTER 11 - Manage Your Emotions to Manage Your Team’s Energy
Emotional Intelligence Is More Important
Naming Emotions So You Can Manage Them
Manage Your Team’s Emotional State
Time and Our Culture
Expand Your Experience of Time
Costs of Using Busyness to Avoid Feelings
Practice Experiencing Your Emotions
An Application Summary for Expressing Emotions
Closing the “Attitude is Thoughts and Emotions” Segment
CHAPTER 12 - People Need to Feel Appreciated by You
What Is Most Important to People?
Attention: What Do People Most Want at Work?
How about Money?
Whose Needs Are You Meeting?
Gratitude’s Mindset Provides Authenticity
Living in Gratitude
Habitual Appreciation Enhances Longevity
Mastery through “HAPPS” Appreciation
Exercising Appreciation Muscles
Learn from 9/11—Do It Now!
Story-Line and Emotion Synergy
Excess Criticism Tips Teams into Death Spirals
Appreciation Tips Teams Back to High Performance
When is Replacing the Leadership the Only Option?
Abundance Mindset
An Application Summary for Expressing Appreciation
CHAPTER 13 - Mine the Gold in Your Shared Interests
Using Shared Values to Defuse Power Struggles
Shared Interests with Japanese Scientists
Shared Interests and the Hubble Hire
An Application Summary for Shared Interests
CHAPTER 14 - People Need to Feel Included by You
Personas and Authenticity
A Troubled University President
The Great Santini
Interviewing Your Mask (Persona)
What’s Next-Most Important to People
The Inclusion Mindset
First, Do No Harm
Listen Deeply
Be Sensitive to Inclusion Manners
Include Others by Sharing Something Personal
Make It Easy for Others to Include You
Recovering a Troubled Project
Over-Inclusion—Too Many E-Mails?
A Possible Team Meetings Agreement
The Project Manager’s “Truth Translation Table”
An Application Summary for Including Others
CHAPTER 15 - Building Trustworthy Contexts
Your Agreements Management Habits
Costs of a Late-to-Meetings-Is-Okay Mindset
Processing Broken Agreements
An Application Summary for Building Trustworthy Contexts
CHAPTER 16 - Creating the Future You Want
Visioning What You Want
Reality-Based Optimism (Hope)
Reality and Truth as Platforms for Creativity
Using the Truth to Raise Hope
The Great Observatories: Problem Solving versus Creativity
Project Overruns: Problem Solving versus Creativity
Creating the Project You Want
Outcome Commitment
Outcome Commitment and the Hubble Servicing Mission
Outcome Commitment and My Wife
Which Outcomes Are You Committed to Achieving?
The Commitment Scale
My (Charlie’s) Commitments
What Are Your Commitments?
The Mindset of a Purposeful Life
You May Have Less Time Than You Think
Carpe Diem
Marketing, Selling, and President Reagan
An Application Summary for Creating What You Want
CHAPTER 17 - Your Team Can’t Afford Drama
Mounting the Stage—Performing Your Melodrama
Ineffective Emotional Management ➔ Drama States
Let’s Complain
Who Is Responsible for the Complaints?
Turning Complaints into 4-D Requests
The Victim Mindset
Escaping the Victim Mindset
Discovering and Exiting Victim
The Blamer—Victim/Rescuer Dance
The Blamer-Victim/Rescuer Dance in the Workplace
Self-detection of Drama States
The Life-habituated Victim
Is This the Hill You Want to Die On
The Blamer Mindset
Escaping the Blamer Mindset
The Find-Your-Role Two-Step
The Hero/Rescuer Mindset
Escaping the Hero/Rescuer Mindset
The Rationalizer Mindset
A Rationalizer Example
Truth-Withholding Incites Melodrama
Truth-Withholding Story-Lines
Dakota Tribal Wisdom
An Application Summary for Drama Your Team Cannot Afford
CHAPTER 18 - Don’t Put Good People in Bad Places
RAAs in 4-D Assessments
Accountability
RAAs—Basic Requirements
Processes with Owners
Do Not Put Good People in Bad Places
The Seven Deadly Sins of Teams
An Application Summary for Don’t Put Good People in Bad Places
Epilogue
References
Index