Ground Control to Chris Hadfield - HR Lessons from Space

Chris Hadfield, retired Canadian astronaut and former Commander of the International Space Station, became well known through his Twitter account for sharing photos of Earth from space, for his YouTube videos about life in space, and especially for his cover of David Bowie’s Space Oddity, which had more than 22 million views on YouTube before the license expired. Since his retirement from the Canadian Space Agency in 2013, he has been a featured speaker around the world, including speaking at the 2014 TED conference in Vancouver, and he released his autobiography, An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth.

Having recently completed reading Chris Hadfield’s book during a summer break, we thought we would share some of the HR lessons from Canada’s most famous astronaut and how they can be applied here on Earth.

Have an Attitude
In NASA terminology, your “attitude” is your orientation, your spacecraft’s position as it relates to the sun, the Earth, the International Space Station and other points of reference. Losing your attitude is highly dangerous, because you could lose your trajectory, get off-course or end up drifting, lost and alone in outer space (think Sandra Bullock in Gravity).

Chris Hadfield compares attitude control to goal setting – you need to stay on the right path to achieve your goals. He believes it is far worse to lose your attitude and drift from your path, than not to reach your ultimate destination.

Here on Earth, a leader’s job is to set the vision for the organization or team, make the team and individual goals clear, and help keep everyone on track to achieving these goals. By setting expectations, providing feedback and course correction, a leader can ensure that their team has the correct “attitude”.

The Power of Negative Thinking
You’ve likely heard of the power of positive thinking. There are many famous authors/speakers who have made fortunes from encouraging us to visualize success and blocking out the nay-sayers. So why would Hadfield dwell on the negative?

His approach is to ask: “What’s the next thing that could kill me?”. As an astronaut, space is a very dangerous place, and so they simulate and train for as many possible scenarios as they can come up with. Planning for the worst ends up being energizing and confidence boosting, as the astronauts have prepared contingencies for multiple scenarios. Being temporarily blinded while on a space walk suddenly doesn’t seem quite so fear inducing if you’ve already practiced lots of different possibilities in training.

In the International Space Station, with only 3-6 people on board at once, it is critical to be cross-trained so you can perform a variety of tasks – everything from basic surgeries to fixing a space toilet and anything in between. In your organization, this translates very well to succession planning. Is your team cross-trained so they can continue to function if there was a key departure and someone “fell of the face of the Earth”? Do you know what to do in the event of a major disaster? Does your organization have checklists and protocols that capture the team’s knowledge and lessons from mistakes? Knowing you’re ready to act if things go wrong, means that you can relax and focus on your daily job.

Aim for Zero
According to Hadfield, as a team member, you’re either a ‘plus-one’, a ‘zero’ or a ‘minus-one’. If you’re a plus-one, you’re a high performer and adding value to the team. If you’re a zero, you’re generally competent and don’t get in the way. If you’re a minus-one, then you’re a liability and can cause significant problems. If you believe you are a plus-one and you enter a situation trying to prove how exceptional you are, you can easily go from a plus-one to a minus-one – you might come off as arrogant, which can irritate and prove detrimental to the team dynamic.

So what does Hadfield recommend when faced with a new situation? Aim for zero. Listen to and observe others, and then quietly go about your business. If you know what you’re doing, you won’t need to tell people you’re a plus-one, as they’ll know it. This may seem counter-intuitive to ask a team made up of over-achievers to aim to be a zero, but being quietly competent and using consensus-building creates much better results than the use of brute force and intimidation.

Chris Hadfield’s book offers many interesting insights into the preparation for take off and life in space, but it also offers many interesting HR lessons that can be applied in your organization here on Earth.