672: Set the Tone for Speaking Up, with Mike Massimino

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:00]:
Almost every leader and organization invites people to speak up and make their voices heard. As we all know, that doesn’t mean it happens in practice. In this episode, how leaders can set the tone for what’s said and what’s not. This is Coaching for Leaders episode 672. Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:24]:
Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is Coaching for Leaders, and I’m your host, Dave Stachowiak. Leaders aren’t born, they’re made. And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations. A conversation that needs to happen in almost every workplace is a conversation where people speak up when they see something that is not working. It means that we need to speak up in our capacity as leaders. It means we also need to set the tone and the environment where others can speak up well too. Today, I’m so glad to welcome someone who has had so much experience doing this, learning this lesson, modeling this and of course doing that at the highest levels of performance. I’m so pleased to introduce Mike Massimino to you. He is a former NASA astronaut and a professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University. He’s also the senior adviser for space programs at the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum.

Dave Stachowiak [00:01:29]:
He was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 1996 and is the veteran of 2 space flights, the 4th and 5th Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions in 2002 and 2009. Mike has a team record for the number of hours spacewalking in a single space shuttle mission and was also the first person to tweet from space. Mike has made numerous television appearances, including a 6 time recurring role as himself on the CBS hit comedy, the Big Bang Theory. He has also hosted science channels, the planets, and its special great American eclipse. He’s featured in National Geographic Channel series, One Strange Rock, and is the host for science channel series, the planets and beyond. He’s a frequent guest on television news and talk show programs, including the Today Show, Good Morning America, and CNN. Mike is the author of the New York Times best selling book, Spaceman, and now his newest book, Moonshot: A NASA Astronaut’s Guide to Achieving the Impossible. Mike, what a pleasure to have you on.

Mike Massimino [00:02:29]:
Pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me, Dave.

Dave Stachowiak [00:02:31]:
You have had so many wonderful accomplishments in your career as so many astronauts have, and we’re gonna get into some of that. But I’d love to begin with a story from way back early in your career with NASA, where you took a flight with Jim Kelly in a T38. And for those who don’t know, the T38 is the training aircraft that astronauts use to keep their skill sharp, but all astronauts, whether they’re pilots or not, use the aircraft for training. You had a flight with Jim Kelly, and I was wondering if you could take us back to that day and what happened.

Mike Massimino [00:03:04]:
Sure, Dave. Yeah. So I was new to all this, the culture and the way that we would operate at NASA. Because I I mean, even though I had experience working at the Space Center and working with NASA, I was not part of the astronaut office, and I wasn’t a military person. So the astronaut office was kind of a mix of military and civilian people, and and the culture was kind of, I think, the best things from the civilian world and the best things from the, military world. And so operating in the airplane, though, when you’re at in a high risk environment, just like we’re operating in space, was more, I would say, the the culture of flying in the military. It was kind of the culture of being part of a of a squadron, a fighter squadron, let’s say. Which is where most of my colleagues who were, like you mentioned, Jim Kelly’s nickname is Vegas, where Vegas came from.

Mike Massimino [00:03:55]:
He was an air force pilot, for example, and had a lot of experience. And when we flew in these airplanes, we were briefed about the importance of checking everything, communicating, making sure everything is clear. And if you have a question, don’t be afraid to ask. If you see something, it’s your job to to vocalize that. And these were things that were told to us. But the flight you’re referring to kind of showed me how important it was to actually do those things and not just say, yeah. That’s the way we’re gonna do it, but actually do it that way. And what happened was it was an early training flight in my career.

Mike Massimino [00:04:31]:
I probably had about 2 hours of flight time. Maybe this was maybe my 3rd time going in the in the jet. And it was gonna be a night flight with my friend Vegas. And, we were flying over to San Antonio. And we were gonna land during the day just before the sun was going down. We’re gonna wait a little while until it got dark out and then come home because Vegas wanted to get some nighttime. And so we flew out there, and Vegas is a great guy, a really good friend of mine now, even to, you know, to this day. And then we hit it off right away as we were, in the same astronaut class getting trained up.

Mike Massimino [00:05:02]:
But he had like 8000 hours of experience in the jet, flying all kinds of aircraft, combat experience. He was a test pilot. So he was really, really experienced, one of the best pilots in the country. And I had very little time. I had a private pilot’s license, but I had very little time in a high performance jet flying in that completely new environment. And, we went out there and we were talking, he was telling me stories and I was learning stuff from him. And it was a really good flight on the way out. And on the way back now it’s dark.

Mike Massimino [00:05:29]:
And I think, you know, when it gets, when it gets dark out, just your general, your situational awareness is a little bit less than it normally is. I think that’s the case no matter what we’re doing. When it becomes nighttime, we’re driving a car or we’re hiking or doing whatever. It just becomes a little different. It’s harder to see. You lose a little bit of awareness. Anyway, we were getting ready to go, and we were given a heading for departure. When you take off, you go to an altitude, you start climbing to an altitude, and at the same time you turn in a direction.

Mike Massimino [00:05:54]:
And they gave us a direction of, let’s say, 180 on takeoff. So I put that in the flight computer while we were still on the ramp over by the FBO or the flight business, office there that we were getting, fueled up at. And then we get our clearance to go taxi to the runway. So we’re taxiing to the runway, we get to the runway, we’re still not clear for takeoff, and the flight controller comes over the communication line and says, all right, NASA 922, clear to climb to 15,000, turn heading 360 on takeoff, clear for takeoff. I repeat that back. My job was to handle the comm for this portion of the flight and the navigation. So I read that back, and I put the new heading into the flight computer. He changed it on our taxi from base ops over to, to the runway.

Mike Massimino [00:06:40]:
So Vegas lights the afterburner, we get the right takeoff speed and he lifts the nose and we start flying and climbing. And then he starts turning in the direction of the old heading. And I’m seeing him do this, and I don’t say anything. And I realize he’s going in the wrong direction or so I think. I’m not sure. Maybe I heard wrong. What do I know? I’m the new guy. He’s the great test pilot hero.

Mike Massimino [00:07:07]:
And I just shut up and don’t say anything. Well, after a couple moments of this, the, flight controller comes over the communication and says, NASA 922, sharp right turn now. Turn now. Heading 360. So Vegas grabs the airplane, you know, he’s flying, but a big abrupt move, you know, high g turn, getting into the right direction. The urgency of the of the controller was palpable. We could tell that he was he had something he was concerned about. And what had happened was in that time between where we were at base ops and when we got to the runway was that another airplane had arrived at the airfield.

Mike Massimino [00:07:44]:
And so that’s why he changed our direction because that airplane was coming toward the field. We were leaving, and their initial heading would have turned us right in from which is what we were doing. We almost had it midair with this other airplane. So we avoided this midair because once the controller told us what was happening, Vegas made the turn. And then once we got on the right heading and things settled down a little bit, he goes, holy cow. What was that all about? Because did he did they change our heading on us? And I said, yes. And he goes, you knew that? And I go, yeah, it’s right there in the flight computer. And he goes, you knew he changed the heading and you saw me going in the wrong direction and you didn’t say anything? And I said something like, no.

Dave Stachowiak [00:08:24]:
Mhmm.

Mike Massimino [00:08:24]:
I thought you knew what you were doing. And that was the end of that conversation. That when there was no more just what we needed to do to get back to Houston, we landed, we parked the airplane, we opened the cockpits and I go down the ladder, put my feet on the ground. And my buddy is already on the ground waiting for me, You know, not not not like in my face, but very close to me and very serious. He’s very jovial, great friend of mine is now trying to make this a really important teaching lesson to a new guy. And he says, mass, we almost got killed tonight because I went in the wrong direction. We almost had a midair, and that’s on me. He goes, but we also almost got killed tonight because you didn’t speak up.

Mike Massimino [00:09:07]:
And that’s on you. And you have to speak up. Even if you’re not sure, you need to speak up. It’s better to speak up and be wrong than to stay silent and be sorry. And that was the and he goes, you got it? You have to speak up. And I said, Vegas, I got it. And that was, a lesson learned that I never forgot. Every other flight I had, if I saw something that was concerning, I would speak up.

Mike Massimino [00:09:33]:
And sometimes most of the time, you know, you’re just kind of checking, hey, I see this. What do you think? And, you know, you’re not always right, but it’s always good to speak up. So that was the way we operated. And I think it was more on not just the young, the new person or the new person speaking up, but it was more on the on the shoulders of the leadership to encourage that, not to be insulted when someone brings something up that maybe is correcting their action or something they missed. And you don’t want people to keep silent because they’re afraid to say anything.

Dave Stachowiak [00:10:04]:
Yeah. It’s both sides. Right? It’s both the the newcomer, the rookie, but it’s also the person who’s got the experience in setting the tone. And one of the things that you talk about in the book is the trigger of knowing when it’s the time to speak up. And you had a bunch of experience with this, of course, in all the venues you’ve worked in and flown in. How do you know, like, just as an individual that as you, when you saw situations, especially learning from that situation, like, how did you know it was the time to speak up? What was the trigger for you?

Mike Massimino [00:10:39]:
We used to talk about it sometimes in the airplane when you get that, like, sinking feeling in your stomach or, you just feel like this doesn’t seem like a good idea or you’re uncomfortable, you kinda, it was almost, it was like a visceral feeling that you feel like, oh, man, what is going on here? Or that just doesn’t seem right to me. It could also be like just in your head, like, that doesn’t seem quite right. But usually, like, in a safety situation, what I found in the airplane, like, at that time going in the wrong direction, I was like, we’re heading it seems that we might be heading the wrong direction, which could be really bad. And when you have those thoughts, even if you’re not really sure, it’s important to speak up. When it was more like in the engineering side of things, which might be more applicable to our daily lives that we’re not necessarily under a threat of danger, of physical danger, but maybe working on a new product or figuring out how to go on a sales call, or whatever it might be that you’re doing at work and you’re the new person, what I found was it’s just what I would notice as the new guy, especially, if there was something that was done the same way over and over again, but they had trouble doing it, but it was just an accepted, it was like an accepted inefficiency. I would say, wait a minute. I would say to myself, why are they doing it that way? Is there is that really the only way to do it? And so an example of that was the installation of, science instruments on the Hubble.

Mike Massimino [00:12:07]:
In particular, this one type of instrument was the category, the way it was described was was an axial instrument because it went along the axis of the telescope, and they were the size of a refrigerator or a telephone, but they’re fairly large boxes, these instruments were. There were 4 of them in the telescope, And they had replaced them on previous missions. And on my first mission, I was gonna be removing me and my so the space walker were being trained to remove and put a new one in. And watching the tape and hearing the stories and listening to the training, they continually had trouble inserting these instruments. They can get the old one out, but the new one was really hard to align because you had to align it with a latch in the back. And once you put the instrument, you started putting it into the telescope. You couldn’t see back there. So it was kinda trial and error.

Mike Massimino [00:12:52]:
Like, you put it in there, you drive a latch, and then it didn’t work, and you put it back down. So there’s a lot of hunt and peck, trial and error back and forth. You don’t have a lot of time to waste. Every minute counts on a spacewalk. Really, almost every second counts. It’s very important to be efficient when you’re out there. And this thing took a it could take a while doing this this task. And I realized that the problem was you couldn’t align it in the back.

Mike Massimino [00:13:14]:
But I knew we could see in the front really well and that there was a lot of detail and data about how big these things were and how they would fit in the enclosure. So my idea was, let’s align it in the front with a new tool that I that I thought of. And let’s align it with this new tool in the front. And we know we’ll be aligned in the back. And that was a pretty good idea, is what my my colleagues told me. And we had a a mock up, a little proof of concept made, and we tried it. And then we did we they had a higher fidelity version of it. And then we eventually built one the the team built one that we would use both in our training and on orbit.

Mike Massimino [00:13:54]:
So we’d use this alignment tool. And on future flights, that’s how on my last flight, we used that same tool to align the instrument. So that was an idea that I put forward. And even though it is something that had been done before, they were very accepting of listening. Now for that one, I had a for me to that or an idea like that, I probably had 10 really bad ideas that I would voice, and they’d be like, yeah. No. You know? But we would use it as a teaching moment. But every once in a while, you get a good one.

Mike Massimino [00:14:19]:
Same thing happened on my second flight when I was a leader. We were doing a gyroscope changed out. And gyroscopes are smaller instruments. They were about the size of a large shoebox, let’s say. So that was about the size of the gyroscope. But it were a little little finicky getting in. It was very the way we had done it was was really not efficient. But that’s the way it had been done.

Mike Massimino [00:14:40]:
It had been done in orbit twice. I trained to do it on a previous mission. I was gonna do it on my final mission for real. And I knew how to do it. You know, I had already trained to do it on a previous flight. We had a new guy, Drew Foyce. So I was like, this doesn’t seem like a good way to do it. And he had an idea for a new tool based on a toy in his kid’s toolbox, like a grabber tool to put the instrument in and take the old one out, put the new one in.

Mike Massimino [00:15:03]:
And we listened to them, and that was a pretty good idea. We got a mock up built and tried it, and and we did it in training and we built a unit for on orbit. And that’s why we did it on orbit. So sometimes it’s it’s important to speak up when there’s ever a safety concern. You know, if you see something, say something. I ride the New York City subway and you have these signs there. If you see something, say something. Something that might be suspicious, let somebody know.

Mike Massimino [00:15:29]:
I think that when you see something like that, something suspicious, it’s important to speak up. When you see something that might be a danger, whoever it might be, speak up. You know, driving in a car with your significant other and you see something and they may not, it’s always better to voice it, I find, than to stay quiet. And the person has to to appreciate that you’re trying to help. And then when you have a new idea, sometimes it’s the new person that sees something differently. And that input is important.

Dave Stachowiak [00:15:56]:
You write in the book, “not only are the opinions of outsiders and rookies valid. Outsiders and rookies are often the most observant people on the team.” Tell me more about that.

Mike Massimino [00:16:08]:
I think that sometimes it’s kind of a human tendency to get accustomed to doing things a certain way and that everything’s gonna be okay. And that was something I remember hearing early on as well, the important of staying vigilant, Always being vigilant about things. And that when you let your guard down and you might just accept things, you know, okay, this is just the way it is, that can be an issue. A new person comes in without any of that previous experience. And that previous previous experience is great. You know, it’s very, very valuable, but maybe not as valuable, but also important is the the new fresh perspective coming in. And I think that sometimes a new person just comes in there and is trying to learn and their eyes are open and they haven’t been doing these things a 1000 times already. So when they get in, they get into a training session or into a meeting or into the airplane or whatever it might be, their antenna are up.

Mike Massimino [00:17:09]:
You know, I noticed that we were going in the wrong direction, even though I was the new guy in the in the airplane. I’d made the mistake in not speaking up, but I noticed it. And the experienced guy with 1,000 of hours did it. So because I was on the line like this, experienced guy with 1,000 of hours did it. So because I was on, like, this heightened awareness of what was happening around me. And I think that that that’s something to realize, that as much as we try to stay vigilant, sometimes we just kinda fall into that into that state of, well, things are okay. It’s always been like this or you’ve had all these flights or you have all this experience and something happens and it you might not be be expecting it.

Mike Massimino [00:17:44]:
But the new person, they might be a little bit more attuned to what’s going on. They don’t have the experience, but I think the combination of a new person and an experienced person is good because the experienced person can kind of guide where we’re going here if something is brought up and the experience the inexperienced person is learning and and may notice more than the person who has who has done it a 1000 times before.

Dave Stachowiak [00:18:10]:
There’s another distinction you highlight in talking about this in your work that it’s one thing to speak up when you see something wrong. It’s another thing to speak up when you do something wrong. And there’s a culture around this in NASA, and you write in the book that whenever there was a close call, the job was of the person who was responsible for that to brief the astronaut office about it. And you write, the astronaut involved in the incident has to brief the entire astronaut office about it during our Monday morning meeting. It’s like going to confession if only more embarrassing because instead of talking to a priest anonymously in private, you are publicly admitting your mistake to your colleagues right out in the open. That’s a high fear thing to be able to do. How did NASA and your colleagues get to a place where despite that feeling of embarrassment that people felt safe to actually bring issues out and talk about something they messed up on?

Mike Massimino [00:19:12]:
Well, if, the penalty for, you know, for someone someone making a mistake, if you make a mistake, you make a mistake. But the penalty to everybody else, if you don’t hear about it, is that you might repeat that mistake. And all kinds of crazy stuff can happen. And it can happen to very experienced people, particularly with the, you know, with the airplane. There’s a lot of with the airplane, but also during spacewalks or working the robot arm during the flight or during training, whenever we had these close calls or someone because sometimes it wasn’t, you know, things just happen, but sometimes it was the person’s fault. But usually it’s compounding things. No one wants to make mistakes. You know, we’re well trained, we’re conscientious, but every once in a while, something happens, for whatever reason, and you and you do something that you didn’t wanna do.

Mike Massimino [00:19:55]:
But if it can happen to 1 person, it can happen to more than 1. And if you survive that in what we call a close call, which means something happened, some mistake was made or a malfunction happened or something happened, and you’re still alive to tell about it, you need to tell people about it because the next time it might not turn out that way, that it might end up being something that could be harmful to someone. So that was the problem there is that you didn’t want people to not vocalize things because then you could start repeating problems or put other people at risk. But the only way to do that was to make sure that if someone did come clean quickly and came forward with whatever happened in their close call, then there would not be penalties. You wouldn’t be held against you. We would understand. And I heard this and I was, I was kind of maybe at first was a little skeptical, like, I don’t know. But then I saw it happen pretty early on, and I talk about it in the book.

Mike Massimino [00:20:51]:
There was an incident where a pilot was doing touch and goes where maybe you’re coming back from a from a training flight and you have some extra gas. So you do these practice landings and then you take off right away again. You touch on touch the runway and get the airplane reconfigured and light the afterburner and go back up there and do another and do another practice landing. So he was doing a bunch of touch and goes. And he got a little bit too quick with the gear handle after he landed. So you land and then you power up and then you come off the runway. And you want to make sure you have at least 2 indications, like you have, vertical velocity or your altitude or something, two indications from your instruments that you’re climing and then you can get the gear. It’s safe to get the gear.

Mike Massimino [00:21:44]:
But what happened was is he was a little bit too hasty, and he got the gear up a little bit too quickly. And the airplane settled back down to the runway. And he hit the runway at a high speed with a wingtip and was able to kind of wrestle the airplane off the ground and do that next landing. But he did damage to the airplane, but he lived to talk about it. And he talked about it. He came at the next Monday morning meeting. He came clean and and told us what happened. And he was forgiven.

Mike Massimino [00:22:12]:
And, you know, the thought was if this can happen to him, it can happen to anybody. There was a another pilot who made a mistake and damaged an aircraft and tried to hide it and didn’t fess up and was discovered because a mechanic was inspecting the airplane and saw what had happened. And because that pilot never came forward, that pilot was never forgiven and never flew in space again. So the penalties for not speaking up were major. The penalty for speaking up was I wouldn’t say nonexistence. I mean, it depends on what you did. But I never saw anyone punished for speaking up. And these are some really like blatant, dumb things that we’re doing.

Mike Massimino [00:22:54]:
But as long as you came clean You know, the feeling is everyone’s going to make mistakes because this can happen to anybody. As long as you come clean, you’re gonna be forgiven and, you can be trusted because everyone makes mistakes. And that’s the only way I think to enforce that. If you if you make it where you made this mistake, now you’re gone. People are gonna try to hide their mistakes. And that puts other people at risk. And we just couldn’t afford that.

Dave Stachowiak [00:23:19]:
You said this earlier in the conversation, but I think it’s such a key point. I’d love to come back to it. The power of 2 words. “Thank you.” And you highlight this at several points talking about speaking up in your writing that particularly in the cockpit, particularly in these higher these high stress situations that even if it’s something that’s like, okay. Yeah. We know that the newcomer, the Voorhees says something. Just the power of saying in that moment, thank you.

Dave Stachowiak [00:23:47]:
It makes a big difference, doesn’t it?

Mike Massimino [00:23:47]:
Yeah. It certainly does. And sometimes it’s thank you because, hey, you saved the day and also the but the other thing is more like, that’s more common is when you say thank you for something that maybe wasn’t necessary but shows that that person is engaged. Mhmm. Again, early on in my my training, there was an example given by one of our leaders of, something that happened on the space station during some robotics operations. And, everyone on the loop, on the crew, in the control center who’s involved with watching or looking being involved with moving the robot arm at the time can voice what we call an all stop. So if you see something that might seem out of the ordinary or concerning, anyone on that team could call all stop. And the person the the astronaut who’s operating the robot arm in this in this example would stop what they were doing, put the brakes on, and and listen to what was going on.

Mike Massimino [00:24:44]:
And so the example was that an all stop was called by someone on the ground, the control team, that was voiced to the crew, all stop. You know, nothing you don’t need a, like, an explanation or at first, the explanation comes later. And they thought they saw something on the camer. And the crew member who was an experienced crew member said, yes. I see that. Thank you for saying that, for seeing that and calling it. But I see this, this, and this. And that’s why I think that that was okay, but I’m seeing this data over here. So I think I’m in the clear. Do you agree? And then the ground looked at it.

Mike Massimino [00:25:23]:
He goes, yes. You know, we can we can agree. You can continue. He says he goes, thank you know, and then what he what he finished with is, okay. I see. Blah, blah, blah. I’m gonna do this. And thank you again for calling me all stuff.

Mike Massimino [00:25:34]:
So even though he had interrupted what this guy was doing, was kind of saying you’re doing something that could create a problem when and he wasn’t. He didn’t take any offense to that. In fact, he was grateful that the flight controller called the all stop because it showed that they were paying attention in there. They were involved. And maybe next time when they call all stopped, it was for for something that really needed an all stop call. But I I remember that, and that was brought up in one of our meetings as an example of how to operate. And, as astronauts, we we were sometimes we’re commander or the leader of something officially, but we always were kind of in a position where we were sort of the the leader of almost everything we were doing in certain ways because people looked up to the astronauts. And I think peep in a lot of work environments, people look up to the leaders or the manager or the person that has the experience or the legend at work, whoever it might be.

Mike Massimino [00:26:32]:
And they’ll listen to us. And and we want them to come forward. And the the reason that that it was one of our leaders telling all of the astronauts that this is the way you should operate was that even if you were the new guy and you were doing something just operating like this on the robot arm, that this is the way you do it. Because even though you might be the new guy, the people on the ground, on the control team, the the instructors, they’re gonna look up to you. You’re the astronaut. You’re at the tip of the spear. They’re gonna listen to what you have to say. And so for you to set a good example, this is how you do it.

Mike Massimino [00:27:05]:
This is how we operate. And so that message was for everybody in the office that when you’re in that position, you know, where you can say, you know, you where you could say something negative. Oh, believe me alone. I was fine. Why’d you do that? That’s not the right answer. The right answer here is to be a a good leader. And if you’re not in, the official commander of things, but you’re a you might be the person that everyone’s looking up to or counting on and will listen to when that’s a powerful position to be in. You can can move things one way or the other.

Mike Massimino [00:27:36]:
You can define the culture or influence the culture. And that was the message there that even if you’re an inexperienced astronaut, you have the ability to influence how people are gonna are gonna operate, and this is the way to do it. When someone points something out and they’re incorrect, you still say thank you and make sure that they know you appreciate them putting, you know, putting their their time and their attention to helping

Dave Stachowiak [00:28:03]:
you. It’s interesting how often I think we underestimate in leadership roles how much other people are paying attention and especially to us and what we’re doing or not doing and especially in a role as visible as astronaut right like you said you could be the new 1st day on the job, but because of the role and the title and the power that comes with that is so many folks in our audience have in their roles, it really does change how you respond. One, the culture overall, but in the moment when things happen, like having that discipline to say thank you in the moment makes a really big difference. And you mentioned Drew Feustel a bit ago and him coming in as the new person on the Hubble for the second flight that you were on and looking at something and saying, hey. I’ve got a better way to do this. And, ultimately, that prevailed as, like, a great way to go forward. Right? But, initially, I’m curious. Do you recall what you and some of your veteran colleagues, like, how you responded to him at that time to encourage, like I think initially, there was a little bit of skepticism there, but, like, what you did so that information actually came out?

Mike Massimino [00:29:12]:
Well, before I knew Drew, there’s a saying, you never have a second chance to make a first impression, so you always wanna try to make a good first impression. But a lot of times, we don’t get off on the right foot or we have a different impression than what reality is. And when I first met Drew, I mean, I think other people really liked him. And when I first met him, you know, he seemed like a nice guy and but we were gonna do a training exercise together, and I was more the person who had over prepare for things, and, he was a little bit looser than I was. And so he was a new guy, and I was gonna this is before we were assigned to a flight together. And when I had one of my first training runs in the pool, this is a a space walking training run, the, mentor I had was my friend Steve Smith. And I wanted to learn as much as I could, and I think I was a bit nervous about it and wanted to make a good impression.

Mike Massimino [00:30:05]:
And Steve was a friend of mine, and so he helped me. We went and did some extra work out at the pool and prepared and talked about it. And so I kinda used that as the model of how you get a new guy ready to space walk because that’s how Steve did it with me because that’s the way I wanted to do it, and Steve complied. And when Drew and I were assigned to do this, and now I was the experienced guy, and I’d say, hey. Do you wanna get together and go out to the pool and do this stuff or get there early and do this extra prep? And he’s like, yeah. No. I’m okay. Don’t worry about it.

Mike Massimino [00:30:35]:
I was like, really? And he’s like, yeah. Don’t worry about it. I remember I showed up early, and he wasn’t there, you know, just in case he changed his mind. He showed up right on time. And I was like, well, we’ll see how this goes. It was, like, the best training run I’ve ever seen anyone have for one of their first training runs. He was just a natural.

Mike Massimino [00:30:52]:
And he prepared differently than I did. But my first impression was he maybe he doesn’t care as much as I care, but he did. He cared just as much as I did. And as I got to know him, he became and still is one of my best friends. I talk to him usually about once a week about whatever was going on. He just recently left the astronaut office. He went on to fly a couple more times after I that first flight he had with me and went on to become the chief of the astronaut office. He was the boss of all the astronauts and now just recently left and retired from NASA.

Mike Massimino [00:31:21]:
So if you would have told me that this guy would end up being one of my 5 best friends in my life. When I first met him, I’d be like, no. I don’t think so. But that’s what happened. He really is a a dear friend of mine, and I love the guy. And and I didn’t have that great first impression. And there was another thing I write about in the book, I think somewhat related to this, was that if you meet someone at work or someone on your team and, you know, they’re there for a reason. They were picked, selected, earned that position for a reason.

Mike Massimino [00:31:52]:
We might not know what that reason is yet, but when you first meet them. But if you meet someone and you don’t hit it off or you don’t like them, don’t think of it as you don’t like them. Think of it as you don’t know them well enough. And take that time to not jump at first conclusion, that first impression if it’s a negative one.

Dave Stachowiak [00:32:07]:
You’ve written a couple of best selling books. You’ve had your work out there. You’re in the media all the time and sharing lessons about work as an astronaut. I’m curious, like, if you reflect on the last year or 2 of and especially getting this new book out. You know, leaders are learning, growing as you talk about a lot in the book. Sometimes they’re changing their minds. When you reflect on the last year or so, what’s one thing you’ve changed your mind on?

Mike Massimino [00:32:34]:
A couple things. One is is that when I first leaving NASA, which I talk about as well, was somewhat traumatic. You know, here I was wanted to be an astronaut my since I was a little boy, and I made it, and I was there. It ended up being for 18 years, but I felt like we talked about, like, your instinct and what your gut is telling you, and I felt like it was time to go. And there’s always a some regret involved with that. You know? Oh, did I make a mistake? I think a couple things have happened in the last couple years. Once I I one, I realized that I never really left the space program. I don’t work for NASA anymore.

Mike Massimino [00:33:08]:
They don’t pay me anymore. But, of course, once an astronaut, always an astronaut. And what we’re talking about now is space experiences. I teach at Columbia in my class yesterday. I talked about space travel. When I go on the news, I’m usually talking about space travel. I also talk about, I mean, lessons in different ways. So I think what I’ve learned in the in the last last couple of years is that I don’t have to be an astronaut to contribute to the space program or to have a happy life.

Mike Massimino [00:33:34]:
I don’t know if that makes any sense. Because I’m able to to use those experiences and share them in a way that is very meaningful to me. And maybe even more helpful to the greater good than me serving on a flight crew like I used to do because that was very directed. But to take those experiences and now be able to share those lessons with others, I found that to be very gratifying. So maybe that’s what I think I’ve learned in the last couple years that, things have turned out okay.

Dave Stachowiak [00:34:00]:
Mike Massimino is the author of Moonshot: A NASA Astronaut’s Guide to Achieving the Impossible. Mike, thank you so much for your work and for sharing it with all of us.

Mike Massimino [00:34:10]:
Dave, thanks for having me. And to all those listening, thanks for listening. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Dave Stachowiak [00:34:22]:
If this conversation was helpful to you, a few related episodes I’d recommend. One of them is episode 433, the way to start managing up with Tom Henschel. Tom, the host of the Look and Sound of Leadership podcast, has been on the show dozens of times over the years. And in that conversation, we looked at one of the people specifically in the relationships many of us do wanna speak up to, at least occasionally, the next level manager. How do we do that effectively, politically and also with some savvy? Tom and I walk through step by step what are some things to think about, not only the tactics, but perhaps more importantly, the mindset of doing that well. Episode 433 for that.

Dave Stachowiak [00:35:01]:
I’d also recommend episode 546, how to speak up with Connson Locke. Conson’s book, Making Your Voice Heard, is the number one recommendation I have for folks who reach out to me and say, I’d like to get better at speaking up. What do I need to be thinking about and doing? How do I actually do that in practice? Connson is a great resource for that. You’ll find, some of the details of our conversation in episode 546, and, of course, her book is a great follow-up to that.And then finally, I also recommend episode 597, how to help people speak truth to power. Megan Reitz was my guest on that episode, and we looked at it from the other side. If you’re the person who’s in the leadership role, what are the things that you can do to make it easy or at least easier for people to speak up to you? And looking at some of her research and practice on how to do that well. Episode 597. All of those episodes, a good complement to this conversation with Mike. And, of course, you can find them all on the coachingforleaders.com website.

Dave Stachowiak [00:36:01]:
I’m inviting you to take today to set up your free membership at coachingforleaders.com because it’s gonna give you access to the entire episode library of episodes I’ve heard since 2011, and you can search by topic for exactly what you’re looking for. This episode is gonna be filed under organizational culture, personal leadership, and influence. Dozens and dozens of other episodes we’ve aired over the years under all of those topics, plus many, many more. It’s one of the benefits inside of free membership. In addition to full access to my library, I am databasing just about everything I find that I think will be helpful to you. Other podcast episodes I find on the Internet, resources and articles from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, so many of the industry publications. Whenever I find something online that I think will be helpful, I do pass along those in the weekly guide each week, but I’m also databasing those. And I’m adding to that database regularly.

Dave Stachowiak [00:37:01]:
It’s all freely available to you inside of Dave’s library. One of the benefits inside of the free membership to access it, just go to coachingforleaders.com and set up your free membership, and you can begin exploring around there inside all of those benefits. And if you’ve had your free membership for a bit, I’m inviting you to find out about Coaching for Leaders Plus, one of the benefits that I’m providing each week for our members of Coaching for Leaders Plus is my weekly journal entry. I’m writing an entry with a response to a question from one of our members or a topic that I’ve been hearing about that I think will be helpful or reflection on one of the recent episodes. This past week, one of our members asked me, how do you kick start development for a team when they’re overextended? How do you actually support professional development when there’s no margin, there’s no budget? Maybe there was a development program at some point, but for whatever reason, it’s just not funded, not available right now. Where do you start? How do you begin? I answered that question in detail in my most recent journal entry.

Dave Stachowiak [00:38:04]:
And if you’d like to get not only that one, but access to all the new journal entries each week that come to you on email, it’s one of the benefits inside of Coaching for Leaders Plus. You can find details by going over to coachingforleaders.plus. Coaching for Leaders is edited this week as it always is by Andrew Kroeger. Production support is provided by Sierra Priest. Next Monday, I’m glad to welcome Mike Caulfield to the show. He is going to be walking us through how to prevent being duped. So much more, we’re seeing things online that aren’t true, are misleading.

Dave Stachowiak [00:38:40]:
There’s so much advertising. There’s so much sponsorship on the open web. How do we actually sift through it and find out what’s true? So when we are looking for information to support our work, to support our clients, to support our employees, that we know we’re finding the best information. Mike’s gonna walk us through a process for how to consider that next week. Join me for that conversation, and see you back on Monday.