The Weakest Link

When I was little I wanted to be an astronaut. I thought it would be fun to float through space, walk on the moon and eat astronaut ice cream. Part of what makes being a kid great is the that you don't have to consider the practical implications - like the fact that amusement park rides make me queasy and that until recently I was afraid to board an airplane.  It was an interest that was fueled by my dad's interest in flight. He would build remote controlled model airplanes, take us to air shows, and he had me playing "Flight Simulator" on the Commodore 64, before most people even owned a personal computer.  We went to Kennedy Space Center, Goddard Space Flight Center, and the National Air and Space Museum.  Here is a picture of my sister, Gayle and I at Cape Canaveral.

Just so my brother, Brian doesn't feel left out, here is a picture of him with an astronaut.  He looks thrilled - LOL!

My fascination with space travel was fun and interesting until the Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986. I was 10, in fifth grade, and I was home sick from school.  I watched in horror from our living room in Green Bay as they showed the footage of the explosion over and over again. No one had any answers and no one could tell me why we had lost our 7 astronauts including the first civilian, and the Space Shuttle itself. The only thing I kept hearing was that space flight was risky business and the astronauts assumed this risk when they entered the cockpit that morning. The shuttle program was grounded and I moved on. I knew generally that it had been determined that one of the O-rings had failed and that there were lawsuits pending against various manufacturers and subcontractors.  I never really followed the story much beyond that. The disaster made me skeptical of the government, and that skepticism was further confirmed when Columbia disintegrated on February 1, 2003.

Fast forward to February 2, 2012, almost 27 years to the day of the Challenger disaster and almost 9 years to the day we lost Columbia.  I am what is probably considered the complete opposite of an astronaut - in house counsel for an insurance company. I was in Orlando, FL attending the annual Windstorm Insurance Conference. The sponsor, the WIND Network, describes itself as "an educational association dedicated to dealing with insurance windstorm claim issues." The conference is attended by insurance company adjusters and attorneys, defense counsel, and policyholder representatives such as plaintiffs attorneys and public adjusters.  For those of you outside the industry, I am sure this sounds to be a snoozefest, about as exciting as a CPA convention. As with most conferences regardless of industry there were keynote speakers brought in to talk to us about leadership and try to send us back to our lives with a renewed sense of empowerment to make a difference in our respective organizations.  One of those two speakers was Mike Mullane, former astronaut turned professional speaker.

Mike's speech had a few themes but the one that resonated the most with me was what he called “normalization of deviance.”  His prime example was the O-rings involved in the Challenger disaster.   NASA knew as early as 1984 that the O-rings presented a safety risk.  There was at least one memo that predicted the Challenger disaster.  The fire was never supposed to reach or touch the O-rings, the fact that it did was a design flaw.  NASA had made a lot of promises about what the Space Shuttle Program could do and it had an aggressive time schedule in terms of the number of launches in a given period.  To take the shuttles off line and fix the issue would have compromised the budget and the timetable.  Instead, they looked at previous launches and ran tests on the O-rings to see if they would fail when flight and heat conditions were replicated.  When the O-rings remained in tact, the deviation from the best practice became the norm.  After several more missions, the rocket scientists went back to the lab and ran tests with more extreme conditions after they noticed more damage to the O-rings.  Again the O-rings did not fail in the lab, and the new standard became two deviations from the original best practice. In their minds this seemed to be the answer since there had been over twenty missions and the O-rings never failed.  That is, until Challenger disintegrated.  The accident cost NASA its reputation and came with a disrupted flight schedule. Way more money was spent in the investigation than would have been spent if the time and effort to correct the design flaw had been invested in the first place, and more importantly, seven lives would have been saved.

We all do this.  We see something at work or at home that we know needs attention.  It could be something that presents a safety risk or something that could be changed to make things better.  We convince ourselves that what we are observing is somewhat normal, or that we ourselves can’t fix it, and we let it be. Maybe the consequences won’t be as nationally devastating as what has happened at NASA, but it could be just as catastrophic on a personal level if the issue is important to you or involves someone with whom you have a close relationship.

The other guest speaker at the convention was country singer, Keni Thomas, former United States Army Ranger.    Keni was involved in the Battle of Mogadishu, think of the movie, “Black Hawk Down.” Keni’s message was that “you are only as good as your weakest link.”  You don’t get to choose the people you work with and you have the responsibility to help your employees, your colleagues, your family, to become the best they can be.  In Keni’s scenario, the person who was the weakest on the team, ended up in a position during the battle to save many lives, including his. I am planning to download his book, “Get It On!: What It Means to Lead the Way” for the flight home.  It should be an interesting read.

I know (and I suspect we all do), who the weakest links are in my life.  I know that when I think about these individuals and the situations they are involved in, that there are things I could do to help, but I look the other way.  I tell myself I am already too busy, its not my job.  That it is not my fault that they have made the decisions they have made, or continue to function in a certain way.  I have “normalized this deviance,” and with some folks I have been doing it for so long that the deviance is probably hundreds of micro-steps from "normal." These are things I feel subconsciously guilty about.  Being a change agent is not easy when it involves telling people what they do not want to hear, potentially taking a project off track or off budget, and dealing with the ensuing confrontations.  It is easier to be complacent, not to make waves, to just go on with your day. I didn’t need to listen to Keni Thomas or Mike Mullane to tell me that these things exist, just to remind me that not doing anything about it is a choice in and of itself.  I can’t consider myself to be a good leader at work or to be setting a positive example for my kids if I let these things go without making an effort.  I have had people along the way who have kept me on the right path and that wasn’t always easy.  I owe it to the people around me to make similar efforts with the “weakest links.” I recognize that I cannot change everything, but I can speak up and use the tools with which I have been equipped to at least try to make things a little better. 

Who are the weakest links in your life?  What are you going to do about it?

The conference, although exhausting at times, was a great four days that allowed me to reconnect with some of my amazing colleagues.  I am privileged to work with some truly great people.  Though I do love Florida, I can’t wait to get home and hug my boys tomorrow. 

Have a great weekend, everyone!