When Great Cultures Make Dangerous Decisions

NASA is packed with brilliant people, high standards, and deep purpose and yet the Columbia disaster revealed something every leader needs to face: a culture can feel positive and still produce dangerous decisions. We sit down with Philip Mead, a 31-year NASA veteran who led cultural transformation work after Columbia, to unpack how high employee engagement can coexist with normalized risk, missed signals, and the quiet pressure to stay silent when you cannot “prove it with data.”

We get practical about what’s happening under the surface: cognitive biases triggered by identity threats, credibility fears, and the human need for belonging and competence. Philip explains why psychological safety is not just about avoiding yelling or conflict, but about whether people believe it is safe and worth it to raise concerns, challenge assumptions, or share difficult truths. You’ll hear concrete culture change strategies NASA used, including normalizing dissent, building independent communication paths for safety issues, and teaching leaders to spot bias language and call timeouts before decisions drift.

We also connect culture to strategy execution through a simple model: start with the few critical behaviors your strategy requires, clarify the beliefs behind those behaviors, then design shared experiences that reinforce them. We close with a direct leadership challenge that applies whether you lead five people or five thousand: what behaviors are you unintentionally rewarding or discouraging right now?

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Connect with Phillip: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philliptmeade/

Book a coaching call with Cyndi: https://www.intentionaleaders.com/

Ambitious leaders know that real leadership goes far beyond titles—it’s about developing the clarity and mindset to guide others with confidence. In this podcast, you’ll explore what today’s leaders truly need, from navigating everyday problem solving to handling tough moments of workplace conflict with steadiness and respect. Episodes dive into setting healthy workplace boundaries, strengthening workplace collaboration, and building the emotional intelligence and emotional agility that make leadership sustainable. Whether you’re managing a growing team or refining your voice as a decision-maker, you’ll find insights that help you cultivate a resilient growth mindset and elevate your impact.

Transcript

Welcome And The Big Stakes

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Intentional Leaders Podcast, the podcast where we share tips, stories, tools, and practices to help you lead with purpose and intention. In this episode, I sit down with Philip Mead. Philip is a 31-year NASA veteran who led the cultural transformation efforts following the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster. And whether you lead a team of five or five thousand, this conversation gives us powerful lessons about how to shape organizational culture. Three key reasons you will not want to miss this episode is because he really uncovered, uh, with a lot of assistance, of course, and discovered why even the best organizations can make catastrophic decisions in a level of culture where there was high employee engagement. And NASA was ranked as one of the best places to work while simultaneously experiencing one of its greatest tragedies. You're going to also learn how cognitive biases silently shape our leadership decisions from identity threats to psychological safety, the ways that we uninternal unintentionally discourage dissent. And then three, walk away with some actionable strategies to build culture that supports your strategy. So if you have ever wondered why good people sometimes make poor decisions or how to create a culture where people challenge assumptions and they speak up and make better decisions together, then this episode is for you.

Philip Mead’s Six NASA Careers

SPEAKER_01 1:35

All right. I would like to officially welcome Philip Mead to our podcast today. Thanks for taking the time out of your very busy schedule to join us, Philip. Appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

You're welcome. I'm happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

So we got a chance to meet earlier, and I just mentioned to you before we recorded that I was ridiculously excited to talk to you again. I think you've got an amazing uh background and you're bringing all of that knowledge, insight, wisdom into your business today. Um but you spent 31 years at NASA, and when we first talked you said you had six careers within NASA. So um tell the audience a little bit about that before we dig into the questions for today.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Yeah, I was very fortunate. NASA was a great organization, and they gave me lots of opportunities to move around within and do a variety of different things. And uh a piece of that was I was able to kind of redefine myself instead of just narrowly thinking of myself as a particular type of engineer and think of myself more as a problem solver. And I I started out early on as being a payloads engineer, really testing and integrating the different types of experiments and satellites and payloads and things that went into the shuttle bay to make sure that they worked before they got up on orbit. Um, and then we moved into more working on the International Space Station, so I helped with assembly and test of that before it went up into orbit. And um after we got it up in orbit, I became more of a process improvement manager to make sure that we were processing the elements for you know that were going up repeatedly as efficiently as possible. Um and then one of the big turning points in my life was after the Space Shuttle Columbia accident, I was asked to um lead the the culture change uh that was required for return to flight because the accident investigation board found that the culture at NASA had as much to do with the accident as the piece of foam that hit the wing. And so that was a major turning point in my career where I got out of the more technical work and began doing more organizational and system type of work. And after I did that for um and got NASA to the point to where we were able to return to flight, um, the center director actually asked me to go and work in HR and create an organization development unit so that we could continue to focus on the culture that we had had now created. And um that took a lot of trust for me. And um, but it worked out, and so I went and I spent a couple of years creating that and figuring out how do we run organizational development across the the center. Um and then the next big challenge that we were facing, honestly, was the retirement of the space shuttle, and there was a massive workforce challenge because we weren't gonna need nearly the workforce that we had. And so I wanted to go over and try and help solve that problem. So I went over and I led the um strategic workforce planning for the center um to try and solve the the workforce issue that we were facing. Yeah, and when we got through that, um the next big challenge was then you needed a nap. I needed a nap. Took a nap. So I did a pit stop because I had to prove that I was still an engineer because I'd been in HR for a little while. So I I helped to design the the launch control system for the current Artemis missions. Um I worked on that for a little while. And then um I spent the really the last 10 years of my career uh helping to transform Kennedy Space Center into a multi-user spaceport, really leading what was required to allow us to do operations as a multi-user spaceport because there's a lot that goes into operating as a combined government commercial entity with lots of large exploding rockets moving all over the place.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

All right. So I think the the irony is not lost on me of an engineer going into HR and like that that whole piece is a fascinating little twist to your career that probably not a lot of engineers um experience, but um, for good reason, right? Though to think about the organizational development that was required and and what you had discovered. What a fascinating career. And and now you start your own business, you're working with organizations and leaders uh to help them work with their challenges, right? And yes, I think what's so cool is you know, when when most people hear NASA, and I think with Artemis mission too, I mean, so many people got so invested in that and so excited about it. And it um it it just sparked, I think, enthusiasm and um and understanding of NASA in a way that uh that hasn't you know been, I guess, as accessible to people in in our lifetime.

The Shocking Truth About NASA Culture

SPEAKER_01 6:50

But when people hear NASA, they think brilliant people, high standards, you know, incredible discipline. So when you were asked to lead that cultural, you know, transformation after Columbia, what surprised you the most when you started exploring that and and what you perceived to have gone wrong?

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Yeah, um that's a great question. And and you're right. I mean, people aren't wrong when when they think that it's it's a a bunch of of brilliant people out there that are are really dedicated and and love working out there. Um and the thing that that really surprised me and and honestly scared me the most about being asked to lead the culture change was I thought that the culture was awesome. I loved working at Kennedy Space Center. I loved NASA. I mean, it's like Disneyland for engineers. Yeah, you know, most of the people that I knew out there, myself included, it was uh it was a childhood dream. I mean, my mom loves telling the story about how she took me to Kennedy Space Center when I was uh a child, and I told the guard on the way in, I'm gonna work at Kennedy Space Center someday. I'm gonna work for NASA.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

You know, she loves telling that story, you know.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

And I and I'm not an an anomaly, I'm not one of the only ones. Like there were the the place was filled with people like that. And so, you know, it was a it wasn't what a lot of people think of when you think, oh, there was a a bad culture, like it wasn't overbearing or people weren't afraid to speak up. Um and to to confirm this, right after the accident, a report was released that named NASA as the best place to work in the federal government and said that NASA's employees were the most engaged and most committed in the entire federal government. And so what this led me to discover was that organizational culture goes a lot deeper and is a lot more complex than what a lot of people give it credit for.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Because absolutely loving where you work and being engaged is a piece of organizational culture and what it produces. But it goes beyond that because the behaviors that it produces need to also be a part of what the organization exists for, a part of what drives your mission if you're a government organization, or your strategy if you're, you know, a private organization. And so that's really where we had lost the focus and we weren't really paying attention to how are maybe some of these behaviors that we're accidentally creating with our culture working counter to what we really want for a mission-driven organization where safety is at the core and we have to launch astronauts and return them safely to Earth.

Culture As A Complex System

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Because things can combine in ways with organizational culture that on the face of it, it seems like they are very good things, but when they combine together in certain ways in certain environments, it actually produces behaviors that are counter to what you want. And so, you know, being the nerd that I am, this is because an organization's actually a complex adaptive system and it has this property called emergence. And so emergence happens when you have properties of an of a of a system that interact and produce something that can't be determined by just looking at the pieces themselves. And so, to give you an analogy to make it easier to understand, if I were to tell you the taste of sugar is an emergent property, right? You can't touch the taste of sugar, you can't move the taste of sugar, it's not something that you can act operate directly on. It's created by the combination of carbon and hydrogen and oxygen.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

And if I were to give you carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen separately and said, here, lick these things.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

You couldn't tell me what sugar tastes like.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

And the crazy thing is, I can take carbon and hydrogen and oxygen, and I can combine them differently, and it'll taste like vinegar.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

It's the relationships between them, how they're combined, that determines uh what emerges.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

And so you see it sometimes in organizations where uh an employee, for example, will get labeled as being uh a bad employee. I like to use the finger quotes because I don't like the terms good and bad a lot of times when it comes to organizational things. I don't think good culture, I think I hate that term because it it's really more about being effective for what you need. It's good or bad doesn't play out and very well when you're trying to to talk about these things. But they'll get labeled as a bad employee. But if you have a good leader, sometimes that leader will be able to take that employee and move them to a different area or a different group, and suddenly they'll become a star employee.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

It's the same employee. What changed? Well, you shifted the environment, you shifted who they were working with or or how they were working. Like you just changed the ingredients. And we we see this happen in a lot of different times in a lot of different ways. So this is some of what was happening with NASA. Some of what was making us great was actually combining with some of the other things that were going on, and some of what makes us human, and it was producing behaviors that were counter to what we really needed.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Oh, interesting. So, what's an example of that? What are some things that you discovered that um that were emerge emerging from

Identity Threats And Silent Bias

SPEAKER_01 12:45

the experience? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

So even if you're an engineer, believe it or not, you're still human. And that's that's one of the surprising discoveries that came out of all of this. Is that engineers are actually humans, and because of that, we you know, engineers actually behave in similar ways to everyone else. And so at our core, at the core of every human being, there's a desire to protect ourselves.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

And we have this brain that is divided into a conscious portion and a subconscious portion. And that subconscious portion, that autonomic nervous system, its entire purpose is to keep us alive. If you think about all the different things that your autonomic nervous system does, it's controlling your heartbeat, it's controlling your breathing, it's controlling, you know, the diameter of your blood vessels to make sure that blood's getting everywhere it needs to go. All of these things are trying to keep you alive. It's also doing other things to keep you alive, behaviors that you're not even aware of that it thinks are going to help you to survive. And some of these behaviors are protectionist behaviors like how you show up or what you choose to share or what you don't share with others, because it's going to make you either a part of the tribe or not a part of the tribe, because being included in the tribe either gives you safety, or being excluded from the tribe is going to cause you to die. Um it drives you to do behaviors that make you feel competent because being competent means that you're going to survive, being incompetent means that you're going to die. It's doing things to manage these feelings all the time because it's it's really about survival. And so it wants you to feel like you know who you are, you have an identity that you you align with and that you are safe. And when those things become violated and violated in ways that we're not aware of and um we're insecure about, our subconscious takes over and it begins driving us to do behaviors to manage those feelings without letting our conscious mind know.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

When that happens, we begin actually acting most often, if not always, in ways that are counterproductive to what we really want or need in the big picture. Because we're focused on that very narrow scope of I need to solve this internal issue.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

And so, as an example, you take these highly engaged employees that love their job and their identity is NASA, and they're, you know, first and foremost the shuttle engineer, and they work in a place where data is is the foremost thing, and we have signs hanging up that says, In God we trust, all others bring data. Like all of that sounds like good stuff, right? Yeah, that's what you want from an engineer. And but you put them in an environment where there's constant threats of program cancellation, so people are constantly threatening to kill their baby, and there's constant threats, you know, schedule pressure and budget pressure. You've got a countdown clock as a screensaver to core complete for ISS.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

And you know, you have an accident where there's video that's inconclusive, so you're operating off of 20 years of intuition that tells you there's a problem, but you don't have data to prove it.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

And now you're supposed to stand up in front of a mission management team and publicly declare that you believe that there is a hole in the shuttle, but you can't prove it. And if you you're wrong, your fear, your subconscious fear is that you could become the boy who cried wolf and carry that mark with you for the rest of your career that you care so much about, and your credibility, which is kind of your calling card within the agency, is now damaged for the rest of your career. And so this level of psychological safety is really what was missing, and it wasn't because anybody was going to yell at them, and it wasn't because there was going to be a chair thrown, and it wasn't an overt in-your-face thing. And it was largely a function of a lot of really, really positive attributes about the workplace. Sure. It was just how it was combining and how we hadn't thought through okay, what are all the things going on? And and if we think about the specific scenarios that could happen, are people going to stand up and behave in the ways that we want to in the most extreme circumstances?

SPEAKER_02 17:34

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

And we hadn't thought through that, and the answer would unfortunately was no.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Yeah. Wow, you that that was an incredibly well um described um situation about how our unconscious, you know, and automatic nervousness, all the things um affect us in a way that we don't realize. We it it isn't a part of our intentional uh actions, behaviors, all those good things. And I think incredibly smart people don't realize all of the effects of those things going on. And as you said, it is about survival and survival of you know our identity, our credibility, all the things. Um, I think that's really it was very well articulated. Um, and and you you said to me previously, too, that the culture, you know, lives in in the hearts and minds of people. And so what were a couple of those hidden beliefs or identity threats? I mean, you kind of talked about it in the bigger picture, credibility, but how do you think that affected the disaster? What did you discover is really going on there?

SPEAKER_00 18:44

I do believe that the the identity of being a shuttle engineer and that being so critical and and that being threatened was a piece of it. I think that it being threatened both from what happens if I stand up and I'm wrong, you know, what is that going to mean about me and and my future here? Um, I think that was a piece of it. I think the identity of being a shuttle engineer and the threat that the program could get canceled, I think that that created a cognitive bias because now you're weighing decisions of risk against program cancellation, which overly weights the the decision on the one side and makes it harder. Um I think that you know the whole over-emphasis on data, you know, the in God we trust, all others bring data, I think that that was a problem. Um I think that even some of the Gene Kranz failure is not an option, it comes back to bite us a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 19:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

With uh you know our desire to always have an answer, always be positive to solve and do the impossible. Um so when failure is not an option and you're put into an unwinnable situation, then how does your psyche respond? As a leader, you know, as a mission manager, when you are faced with the possibility of having a hole in a shuttle and that's already in orbit and you have no way to fix that, what are you going to do? You know, it's it's very possible that your psyche will choose not to look at it because it's easier to ignore the problem than to have to face that there's an unwinnable situation that you're in.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Yeah. Yeah. So you discovered these things. But any one of those, much less all of them, when you said it's identity, you know, our own credibility, it's the fear of cancellation, it's the data that I don't really have, it's the problem solving, it's the do the impossible and positivity. So how in the world do you overcome those behaviors in a culture where everyone, again, the culture is positive in so many ways, but how how did you approach that in terms of like how it how does that get solved?

Designing Safety For Dissent

SPEAKER_00 21:01

You know, so much of it is just awareness. Yeah, you know, I mean, a a big part of the work that that I do is about awareness, self-awareness, and just awareness in general. And so many a lot of things become self-correcting once you're aware of them. And so, you know, I I taught leaders that when when they heard the phrase save the program in a meeting, that they needed to call a timeout and have a conversation about what that meant and the cognitive bias that was being introduced into in the moment. Like that's not what we're doing here. We can't make a decision from that standpoint. Um, we started normalizing dissenting opinions and making decisions, you know, with always with at least one dissenting opinion, so that it wasn't like uh an oh my gosh moment if somebody you know dissented or or spoke against something so that it it felt more you know normal and more. useful use used to it. You know, we um we just started trying to figure out where are these things happening, how do we introduce either processes or systems that that make it easier for people to do these things. We we changed the the physical structure of the organization to where people felt like they had you know safe independent pathways of communication directly up to through safety and engineering organizations that went all the way up to the administrator that bypassed the program manager because we put too much honestly too much into one position and it was too much for one human being to balance you know the technical the schedule the safety the budget all of that in one one position and subconsciously engineers at lower levels didn't feel like they necessarily had an advocate all the way up if they had a concern they felt like at some point it all merged together which it did um and so we fixed that yeah wow those are a lot of a lot of different actions with regard to to disciplines and processes and practices and when you when you think about that and as you were tasked to bring that into HR and organizational development um how long did did it take and and I know it's not like a check we're done um but how you know what did that journey look like in terms of time frame I'm just curious because it sounds like a it's a really significant cultural change and when did you feel that shifting or when do you think people noticed that shift?

How Long Culture Change Takes

SPEAKER_00 23:49

It shifted pretty quickly at at Kennedy Space Center um and you know the reason was because of the accident itself it was a it was a very significant emotional event that was widely shared by the entire workforce. Yeah and because of that the culture was very malleable in the aftermath people were very willing to listen people were very willing to get on board and change and shift everybody was looking for what do we shift what do we change you know I wasn't you know I wasn't the super genius on high that was coming up with all of this you know these ideas and what needs to be done. Like we were collecting input from the entire workforce you know I got I believe it was over 2500 you know suggestions from from people on on things that we could do to improve that I had you know I culled through and was trying to look at what are the themes what are the areas that we can you know try to solve this what are where are people feeling like they don't have as much freedom to speak up or they're seeing challenges or issues and um so everybody was involved everybody felt like they had a a piece of of of it um you know everybody felt personally responsible for it um I uh I do a talk um frequently about about it and tell the story and and I honestly like I tear up most of the time when I give the talk and I wasn't I wasn't directly working that mission but I I feel so um accountable for it yeah that it it you know I'm I'm starting to tear up now like when I think about it I feel so emotionally connected to it yeah the whole workforce I believe did at the same time like it was a significant emotional event and those are rare most companies that we that I work with I don't think any company I've worked with has had a similar event yeah so it usually takes longer because people aren't as ready to jump on and like I will do anything. So it took us about a year to get to the point to where NASA to where Congress was satisfied with what we had done. I'd say it was probably two or three years before we got to where I was satisfied with what we had done. And and part of that was was after I'd gone and and created the organization development group and we were embedding ourselves down into each organization so that you know with it froze up oops you froze up for a minute okay you said we were embedded and then you got embedded in the video so you said you you got embedded into the different organizations that helped you to feel like you were making progress correct yeah we got embedded in the organization so we were able to do specifically what each organization needed.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Yeah that's awesome well and it's uh you know isn't there it's kind of ironic in a way that you say you know we are we're wired to survive right the survival of ourselves individually and collectively is what creates a lot of the choices we make that we're not even aware of and when someone else not surviving you know as an emotional as you said in an emotional moment creates that level of vulnerability to people to look at themselves and look at the culture and say we can't do it that way anymore. You know that amount of you know emotional psychological readiness um seems just huge right and and and as you said for organizations that don't have that significant moment where everyone can be that vulnerable and everybody can be that open and honest and not thinking about all those other things you know how how do you how do you help organizations to realize that right culturally because essentially the work that you're doing now is helping organizations strengthen their culture their operating systems and so what how do you get that point across to them so it is equally compelling and they can be equally honest and vulnerable so I I think there's two parts to this

Making Openness Safe And Worth It

SPEAKER_01 28:29

question.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

I I think helping people to be honest and vulnerable is about creating an environment where where that is okay where it's safe to do so where they feel like it's worth it to do so. If they don't feel like it's safe they're not it's it's very hard to do it. And if they don't feel like it's worth it then why bother? You know you want to have both of those in in place. And then a piece of it is is helping people learn how to do that what that looks like. You know I've I've heard a variety of different terms used for it. One I heard recently that I liked was like s was called strategic openness or strategic authenticity. You know and I I'm not even sure if I like that one completely because it can be mis misinterpreted when I say say it I don't mean to like you're not being open to manipulate you're being open to be honest but you're being open in a way that is is is honest and helpful useful yeah because when we teach this we we'll spend several hours teaching openness and what is openness and how do you be open and what does it really look like and what's the difference between you know being open and not useful. Yeah does it mean that I just share way too much about myself does you know no that's not helpful. Does it mean I say you know does it do I have to tell people like these embarrassing things about me no it it doesn't mean that you know but you know it it means that you're contributing things to to your co-workers that help them understand you better in ways that allows you to work better together.

A Practical Story Of Useful Honesty

SPEAKER_00 30:18

And even within that there are ways to be you know more effective and less effective one of the stories I tell is that um when I was working at NASA um I was um there were these contractors and I was overseeing their contract and I was having a a meeting with with the uh um the senior managers of that contractor and I was getting ready to walk into the the room and so as you know as the NASA person you know they were their eyes were going to be on me and and to some extent it was important what I would say or or how I would react. And just before I walked into that room I got a phone call from my wife and she was pregnant and she said I've just been in an accident. Oh car accident. She said I'm okay you know but I I've got to get the car towed you know everything's okay but it was just that immediate like I've been in an accident like it just it just caused me to have like that emotional like spike like oh my gosh and so but she was okay so I walked in there but I knew that like emotionally I was like a little bit charged. Yeah so I had a choice in that moment right yeah I can withhold that and I can gut through I didn't have to tell them anything.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

Right? Or I can be open and say hey I just got a call and I and now now this is where I have the choice about how open to be. Yeah right yes and I had a good relationship with all the contractors I worked with so I was completely open. I was like hey I just got a call from my wife she's in an accident she's okay you know but if you notice me like not not being my normal self like that's what's going on everything's fine because I knew that there was going to be you know we stuff we call it leaking there's gonna be stuff leaking out and they're they're looking at me for body language and facial expressions and stuff as they're presenting you know and they could have easily walked out of there if I'd have said nothing and thinking oh my gosh he's upset or you know there's a problem with with what we're doing and you know it was just an opportunity to to demonstrate openness in a way that's useful. I didn't have to and that was a personal thing but it made it made the interaction more effective. Yeah and so learning how to do it and how to do it effective is is a very very important part of it. And so you want to you want to do that and you want to be authentic and I think that there it really helps make workplaces more more effective and and you know it's a it's a key part of of how you get things done.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

Yeah a hundred percent and um and and that's a great example of a story and thinking about the emotional regulation of something important to you or relationships that's important to you and how to acknowledge the effect of that. Because as you said the unintended the unintended um consequence could have been people are noting your body language because of course you're still processing all that your body's processing on all that and how that could be misinterpreted or misconstrued. And I think that level of you know you you talked earlier about self-awareness I think is so significant. And I and I don't know that people think about that right in that way that you're thinking I need to re-regulate myself in a way and I need in order to do that it's healthy to talk about it so other people don't um misconstrue body language, facial expressions, all of those things.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

Yeah I mean I I I think about people that are going through rough times at at home whether they're caring for a an aging parent or they're going through a divorce or a variety of things and I mean you don't have to disclose details right you know it can be as simple as hey I'm going through something at home right now. Yeah but sharing this is happening for me outside of work or this is what I'm going through so that people know that it's because the crazy thing is the way that we're wired the second I see something in the absence of a story I make up one. Of course and the story I'm always going to make up is going to be about me because of course I am the center point of my own story. Of course right I am the focal point of my own story. So everything is about me all the time. Yes so if you have a funny look on your face that funny look has to be about me.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Of course it does of course it does and it means something bad for me too probably yeah yeah yeah because that again that keeps me safe it keeps me alive.

SPEAKER_00 35:00

Yes it's better for you have to interpret those threats yeah it's better for me to assume that it means something bad than it means something good because if I'm wrong about it being bad then I still keep myself safe if I'm wrong about it being good then I die.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

Yeah so there we have it it's but I think if you know what's what's so interesting about this to me too I mean most of the people listening are aren't they're not launching spacecraft they're not doing brain surgery you know we're we're working in organizations and companies and um and all that good stuff. So there is so much change there is so much growth there is so much uncertainty and if for the people listening what would be some of the subtle signs that if people start thinking about the culture around them that may be unintentionally encouraging the kind of silence that you're talking about because you're you're saying be more open be more strategically open so what do you think are some of those signs of silence or risk avoidance that people could be more aware of in their own culture or in their own behaviors too.

Signs Your Team Is Withholding

SPEAKER_00 36:11

Yeah I mean so if if we're talking about for leaders I think it's it's pausing and noticing are people speaking up are they talking back? Yeah and then also noticing what am I doing when when they do yeah um am I am I acting on it am I thanking them for it am I encouraging it? Am I you know it can be hard it can be challenging to be a leader. And and some of the reasons it can be challenging is because one of the things that that that I I can want to do is is I can want to answer your question really fast. And so when you're telling me something I can feel like oh I'm helping you out you know and we we call it levels of openness and you know some of the lower levels of openness is you know the lowest level is no you're wrong. Well this is actually levels of listening right so levels of listening go along with levels of openness but a lower level of listening is no you're wrong. And then I get up a little bit higher and I'm like okay so you know let me tell you how it is. And so it's like I can put those two together and say oh no no you're wrong. Let me tell you how it is. And and I can mean that from the very best place possible. Like you know it's benevolent. I I want to help you out. Oh you have this wrong misunderstanding I can accidentally be shutting you down though because you haven't finished like getting to to tell me what you feel or what's on your mind.

SPEAKER_02 37:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

And so you know as a leader a lot of times I want to just jump to that point. It feels efficient like I I know where you're going with this like you know let me give you the right answer.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

Right. You know I d I do a um a session on the dopamine of being right uh and how good that feels for leaders right of course we want to be right of course we have all this experience we're supposed to be credible we have a certain you know identity wrap our own identity and brand wrapped up in it and then um but yeah how does that unintentionally shut people down um and I think there's there's also a difference between me um being open in a constructive helpful way and me being open in a nasty argumentative way. You know when you think about openness so I can basically destructively challenge you or I can constructively challenge you. And I think that's a lot I think leaders sometimes associate like well they didn't say that very nicely to me you know they they're they're being destructive but how do you help someone be constructive in their disagreement too so they can do that in a healthy helpful way but I think a lot of the the destructive comments come from frustration of not being heard. Yeah so that whole dynamic I think is super important. Okay so you said kind of thinking about um you said speaking up what do people speak up and then what do I do when people speak up anything else that you see that is that leaders are inadvertently contributing to that silence um let me think about that contributing to the silence I mean there's some there's some very simple and obvious things like not asking not asking for feedback in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

There's the what do you do with it in the moment that I spoke to but then there's also what do you do with it in general because I s as I said before it's a combination of you know is it safe and is it worth it? And so is it worth it? A piece of that is is anybody going to do anything about it? And so if as a leader I never do anything with any of the feedback that I get from people then at some point it's gonna stop feeling worth it. So even if I am a great listener and in the moment I'm very gracious but I never do anything about anything that anybody tells me they're gonna stop telling me stuff as well because you know it's not gonna it's gonna stop feeling worth it.

SPEAKER_01 40:38

Right. Like what's the effect? Is it was it even valuable and worth my time and energy. Yeah. So you talk um when we when you and I talked you talked about the connection of you know behavior and culture and strategy and you you know you reference kind of the human operating system.

Culture That Actually Executes Strategy

SPEAKER_01 40:56

And when you go into organizations, when you work with leaders how do you help them understand what that means?

SPEAKER_00 41:08

When you think about your strategy your strategy is boiled down to the simplest level is how are we going to be successful? Yeah it's which is and and a how is what are we going to do? And doing is really the behaviors of your people. What are your people going to do? Those are behaviors. And so when we're talking about culture culture is the common shared behaviors and beliefs of the of the people in your organization and so that's the reason that culture is so critically important for strategy. It's the reason that Drucker said that culture eats strategy for breakfast. If your behaviors are the things that you need to do for your strategy then it's it's naturally going to drive your strategy. If that's what your culture is then it's driving your strategy. If your culture is something that is not even if it doesn't directly oppose it but if it's not aligned with what you need to happen for your strategy then that means that you're going to have to put energy into the system to get people to do those behaviors that are required for your strategy. Any additional energy you have to introduce into the system is costs you something. Yeah and it's going to take more work more effort more energy and most organizations don't have extra energy extra to spend it's gonna take whatever you've got just to execute that that strategy in the first place. So you want your culture to be as directly aligned with your strategy as possible so that the way that people naturally behave because that's just the way that things are done around here it aligns with that strategy so that people are doing the things and behaving in the ways that you want them to behave because that's what we need to do for our strategy. And so when we think about that and we get really clear about what so what is our strategy what are those behaviors what are the most what are truly the critical behaviors for our strategy and that's really where some of the art comes in is trying to boil it down to those critical behaviors you know not just everything but what's truly those those few critical behaviors that's that are the key differentiators for making the strategy either succeed or not. If these are absent then that's where we're going to fall down. And then we work backwards from those and say okay so what do they what do we want people to believe because we behave based on our beliefs. So what are the beliefs that drive those behaviors and then it goes back to similar to what we were talking about with the the Columbia accident what are the experiences that produce those beliefs because that's what we're that's where we get to operate. Because I it would be great if we could just tell people what to believe.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

Yeah but it doesn't work. Great. Darn it.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

So we get to design we get to design experiences that drive those that create those beliefs. And you know, this is again where we go back to thinking about, okay, so there's different types of experiences, you know, and there's two dimensions that you can measure them on that I I talked about earlier. How widely shared is it, and how big of an impact does it have?

SPEAKER_01 44:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:27

Right. And so, you know, it can it's great if you can have experiences that are have a large impact and are widely shared. Usually those are expensive. And so you'll have a few of them, but you can't do them every day and you can't do a lot of them, you know. But we can have some of them. Let's figure out strategically where do we plan those in. You know. Sometimes you can have them that are widely shared but low impact. They're easy to do. Let's put the core values on the wall.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

Everybody walks by them, it's widely shared impact.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 45:01

You know. But you know, it doesn't hurt to do it.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

You know, some things have a high impact, but they're not widely shared. You know, when I give you one-on-one feedback, you know, that has a high impact on you personally. Um, doesn't necessarily isn't broadly shared. Now it becomes broadly shared when I teach all of the managers in the organization how to do that, and it becomes something that we're all doing as an organization.

SPEAKER_01 45:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Right?

SPEAKER_01 45:29

Yeah. So I love that description. I I love the description. So we're we're going, we're defining the culture through the key behaviors. The key behaviors are connected to the fundamental beliefs. The beliefs are created through the shared experiences, and then you look at the impact and the the shared sharedness of that. I think that's really cool. What a great, what a fun job. It is, you know, to be able to do this. It's like, oh my gosh. So um let's say I'm a I'm a leader listening today and I'm I'm in my own organization. I'm like, this sounds so cool, you know, and I and and you've experienced it as at such a phenomenal level, you know. But you look at me like, okay, what what can I possibly do differently starting today to strengthen my own human operating system within my organization? What would you advise?

Start With The Leader’s Self-Awareness

SPEAKER_00 46:28

I I hope it I hope it doesn't sound too cliche, but the reality is is start with yourself. It it all starts, it all starts from within, it all starts with the self, and it all starts with you as the leader. And so raising your own self-awareness, focusing on how am I showing up, what do I see, what am I not noticing, um, how am I contributing to the way that this organization feels and the way that people feel about themselves in this organization and the culture and the environment here. You know, as the as the leader, you have a hugely disproportionate impact on the culture. CEO, you get to drive that. Um, and so just noticing that for yourself, and the more that you can increase your own self-awareness and your awareness of the things that you're doing and driving through the organization, um, the better. And that's that's really where it all starts. Yeah, like I said, once once you start noticing, then then a lot of it becomes self-correcting.

SPEAKER_01 47:35

Yeah, yeah, or living with the cognitive dissonance that you're doing things that aren't that aren't really working very well, having to admit that, which is also very difficult for people.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

Yeah, I I it's kind of sad that I have to say this, but there are some CEOs that don't realize that they are a part of the system.

SPEAKER_02 47:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:56

You know, you're as a CEO, you're not you're not here and the system is here. Like you, you are you are the system, you're in the system. Yeah, and so when we say, Oh, we we want to fix the system or we want to work on the system, you can't work on the system without working on yourself. It's impossible.

SPEAKER_01 48:15

Yeah, and I I fundamentally believe that strongly at my core. I I share it. Um there was research done, um, and now I'm I'm can't think of if it was Gartner group. But it was it was the fact that self-awareness is a more important predictor of leadership success than intelligence or previous experience. Um and I fundamentally believe that as well. I think the people that I've worked with over time, that I've done a lot of leadership coaching with, the people that are disconnected from themselves, understanding themselves, understanding their reactions, their triggers, um, the impact they're having, are not as successful, right? Most people don't come to me for leadership coaching because they don't have good business acumen or technical knowledge. They already have that, but how are they using it? And and what is the experience that other people have with them? Yeah, I think that's really important. Um I think I could spend like I I think I could travel around with you and just absorb your wisdom and knowledge and be a better human being, which I would love.

SPEAKER_02 49:18

Um but sound like fun, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 49:21

I'm sure you need another assistant. I'd be a good one. Um, so I want to uh circle back to one more thing that you said um as we wrap up here, because a lot of organizations are thinking about employee engagement, and you said, you know, employee engagement at NASA is very high.

Engagement Versus Effective Culture

SPEAKER_01 49:40

People loved working there, wanted to work there, aspired to work there. And if you kind of think about that level of employee engagement and a really healthy culture, how would someone assess, again, kind of looking inside their organization? Um how would I look at the difference between those two things?

SPEAKER_00 50:03

But between employee engagement and what?

SPEAKER_01 50:05

And a healthy culture. Because most people assume engagement, our culture is good, but you're suggesting that no, we are all part of the culture, and those beliefs and behaviors are the disconnect. So I just wanted to get that straight in my head and others.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

Okay, I got it. Yeah, I I like I love the term you're using, healthy. I appreciate you not using good. Um I uh I I typically use the word uh effective uh in describing it. Um and I I like to use that um term because it you know it's it's it varies by organization, because what is effective for your organization is not necessarily what's effective for another person's organization. And I think there's three pillars that define effectiveness for um a culture within an organization. And the first one is employee engagement. If your culture, you know, your culture should be driving employee engagement within your organization. And you know, you you probably know as well or better than I do what the studies out there say about employee engagement and what what the returns are from that. So you you absolutely want to get that.

SPEAKER_02 51:23

Yes, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 51:24

The second one that I I personally believe very strongly in is that your organizational culture should contribute um to making your people's lives better. Um and I think that that's people inside your organization and outside your organization.

SPEAKER_02 51:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:40

And again, I can point you to study after study that talks about how people's health and longevity and lots of other things are impacted by their work life and how they feel at work. Um, I can point you to studies about how you know organizations have the ability to improve people's lives inside their organization, outside the organization. I I think that effective organizations are are doing positive things for people. Yeah, um, and then the third thing is is it really truly driving your strategy? Is it contributing to market success for you? Um and so it's those, you know, I like I like the power of three, you know, it's those three legs of a stool.

SPEAKER_02 52:27

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 52:28

I I think if you kind of give that litmus test and you imagine and you can think of probably companies that have two, any two of the three, but not the third one, um I would argue that that's not a company I would want to be or work for.

SPEAKER_01 52:43

So yeah, that's a great way to to think about it. And I think it it's a great way to, you know, the employee engagement. I'm connected to the purpose, and our purpose is meaningful and significant, you know, we're making a positive contribution to the universe, and we're getting results from it. I mean, uh, those three things collectively. I mean, it makes intuitive sense, but I think people don't always think of it that way, right? Like they don't think of like what is that culture piece to it. So yeah, yeah, brilliantly done. All right. I love this. I have, I have just again, I I can't say enough about how much I appreciate the time that you've spent with me, both, you know, before this podcast interview, just sharing your story, sharing um the things that you've gone through and and your career as it has, um, you know, as you've navigated through it so far, has been amazing. And I'm sure the work that you're doing with organizations beyond NASA today are just phenomenal. So it's you're an inspiration to me.

SPEAKER_00 53:43

Well, it's been a pleasure. I've really enjoyed the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 53:46

Yeah, I can and I I mentioned to you my brother and sister, both engineers, and uh I can hardly wait to tell them like who I got to meet Philippine and he was. I hope they enjoyed the episode. Right, and listen to this episode, and he did organizational development and super cool. So um, you're inspiring me, but I know you're gonna inspire my audience and my family as well. So thank you for all of that, Philip. I really appreciate your time today.

SPEAKER_00 54:13

Well, thank you.

Reflection Question And Closing CTA

SPEAKER_01 54:15

Before we wrap up for today, I'd like to leave you with one question to reflect on. What behaviors might you or your culture be unintentionally rewarding or discouraging? As Philip reminded us, culture isn't about what we say we value, it's the behaviors, our systems, our structures, and also how our leaders consistently reinforce behaviors and beliefs. And if people don't feel safe raising those concerns or challenging assumptions or sharing difficult truths, even the most wonderful teams can drift towards poor decisions. If this conversation resonated with you, I would encourage you to share it with another leader or maybe some of your team. And some of the best leadership conversation, remember they begin with what are we missing here? So thank you to Philip for sharing not only his remarkable career with NASA, but the lessons that every leader needs to know to build a better, healthier, more effective team and organization. And if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with others. It helps us to reach more leaders who are committed to leading with greater intention and purpose. Until next time, remember leadership isn't accidental, it's intentional.