It’s 1986, on the eve of the NASA launch of Challenger. Imagine that we are witness to the frantic last-minute meetings going on, of assembled teams of NASA engineers and NASA decision-makers. The issue: whether or not it’s safe to launch the space shuttle in cold weather. 

We all know too well what happened. This great tragedy should not have happened. Professor Amy Edmonson used the drama of these events to trigger learning in all of us: Teams have lots of complex barriers to good outcomes…and we must learn how to overcome them.

Professor Edmonson forces a look at team dynamics. In doing so, she shows us that many attitudes of team members are hard-wired, part of existing hierarchies, power struggles, and all kinds of attitudes that make successful problem-solving impossible.

Amy spent two days with us at our 2010 Delegate Conference. Her two workshops on Saturday, March 13, were standing room only.

I have had the opportunity to be part of classes at the Kaiser Permanente Executive Leadership Program at the Harvard Business School. Professor Edmondson leads the program, and I have participated in a number of her classes over the years. She is a remarkable teacher whose research, writing, and teaching focus on perhaps the deepest consideration anywhere in the world of what makes great teams. We are really privileged that she accepted our invitation to teach at our conference.

She has emphasized that teams must have a true learning and problem-solving environment to be successful. The foremost foundational team dynamic is what she calls “psychological safety.”

In her workshops, she shared a film re-enactment of the frantic teleconferences held the night before the launch of Challenger. We observed how power relationships and hierarchy overshadowed real inquiry and dialogue. Engineers from the supplier of the infamous o-rings, who were very concerned about the capability of these components of the space shuttle to perform properly in cold weather, had forced a meeting of NASA officials to consider scrubbing the launch.

We saw how data to make determinations was not complete; how questions about the existing data did not lead to further inquiry. But most important, the doubting engineers’ concern was really based on intuitive indicators, not just hard data alone. The engineer in doubt of the capability of the o-ring couldn’t prove conclusively to NASA that he was right; he relied on educated hunches since there had been so few launches below 53 degrees. The temperature at launch time was projected to be 19 degrees. 

He was overruled.

What we saw from Amy’s teaching was that the power dynamics, attitudes of participants, tone of voice, and unspoken and other types of veiled threats all contributed to a kind of shutting down of inquiry.

The research also shows us that the attitudes that prevent a problem-solving environment get hard-wired into people’s behaviors and psyche; in other words, it takes a lot to get people over these barriers.

Amy’s recommendations to solve these organizational barriers are based on the need for great leadership to help people change these dynamics. That leadership must frame the questions so that everyone involved is able to unify around the problem to be solved and thereby feel safe to make inquiries that will solve the problem as opposed to fearing any consequences to advancing the need for legitimate inquiry.

Amy’s teaching was extremely well-received. Workshop participants were emotionally moved by the complexity presented. After all, our unit-based teams are being asked to empower everyone equally, a dynamic that is hard to achieve in the hierarchical world of health care.

That’s why we lead with the Value Compass. It helps cut through the complex dynamics to frame unity of purpose: to keep the patient/member in the center of everything we do.

Amy helped us look deeply at ourselves. It was a great experience that contributed to a great 2010 Delegate Conference.