Expeditionary Skills, Leadership/Followership, Communication, Self-care, Team-care, and Team-Skills
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Christopher Lusardi
Apr 23, 2020, 3:32:34 PM4/23/20
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Astronaut Tom Marshburn ’82 and Colleagues Message to the Davidson Community
Published: Apr 23, 2020
Publisher: Davidson College
Tom Marshburn: NASA trains us how to live in isolation. Not only to be able to get by but also how to be very effective as a team member. So that we not only just survive it, but we're able to thrive in it. The way NASA does this is it takes us in small teams and puts us in austere environments. Where we learn what we call good Expeditionary Behavior. We might be working together in the winter, backpacking in the mountains, or in caves, or in an undersea laboratories. But, it's in these environments that we learn how to practice good leadership, followership, good things like taking care of our team members as well as taking care of ourselves.
And so now here are some of my astronaut physician colleagues to share some of their experiences.
Kjell Lindgren: It takes great leaders and followers to work effectively. And, you'll find yourself transitioning between those two roles over the course of a mission, a week, or even a course of a day. Leadership is built on the relationships that you have with your team. The faith and trust that you have in each other. And in my experience, great and effective leaders are less interested in the power and status that go with the position and really see it as a privilege, an opportunity to guide and serve their team towards some mission objective or goal. When I was in the Air Force one of the fundamental tenants of leadership was take care of your people. And, if you take care of your people. If you provide for them, train them, empower them, communicate with them, set expectations, and help them meet those expectations. You are on a trajectory for success. I'm reminded of a time on the International Space Station during my mission. Now, I had the opportunity to fly with Scott Kelly during his one-year mission. And, he was a commander of the station for part of that time. And, one Friday afternoon, I was a little slow in my work. And, the workday had officially ended. And yet, I still had probably an hour's worth of work still to do. And, I remember Scott floating into the module where I was at. And, instead of harassing me, teasing me, or asking me why I was so slow, he simply grabbed a procedure, grabbed some tools, and asked me what he could do to help. And, I think that's a great example of a leader serving their team. And, it's one that I try to emulate in my own leadership.
Lee Morin: I wanted to just mention a couple of issues with leadership that were very key in my training. You'll see this in our T38 training. Where you'll have some of the best pilots in the world are the test pilots in the front seat in the astronaut corps. And, they need to take a physician or a scientist like myself in the back seat who has much, much less capability. And, the goal there is for that front seater who may be used to flying by themselves, take a rookie, from their perspective, and bring them along, nurture them. So that as a team, you're able to perform much better as a team than you would have individually. And that, you can end up augmenting that experienced test pilot. And, the two of you, if you're in a bad situation, or moving on to a space flight together. You perform more effectively than either individual could by themselves. And, the real enemy of teamwork, either from leadership or followership, is the ego. If the ego gets out of hand, the teamwork will not perform. And, I would say that's one of the most important parts of the training. We exercised that throughout our astronaut training and in life in general. Leadership and followership is really key.
Michael Barratt: So a few words about communication, the International Space Station is a bilingual platform. Everybody has to be proficient in both English and Russian. And on my long flight, we had five nationalities present. So every day, we had to communicate across barriers of culture and language. But by far, the biggest misunderstandings I've ever had have all been in English with fellow Americans. Your senses and knowledge help you to assess a situation. But, it's communication that stands between your brain and the brains of your teammates. This is our predominately verbal version of the Internet, if you will. It's slower, but much more measured. And unlike ones and zeroes, it is packed with subtleties and nuances that can make us so much more effective, or not. When something really matters, you need to know your stuff. And, you need to know your people. But even that's not enough. You need to know how to communicate your stuff with your people. Checklists, standardized terminology and phrases, and training as a crew are some of what keep us synchronized and effective. So practice communication methods well before the mission. Whatever your mission may be. So that, you understand how to understand one another. Don't wait till your spaceship's on fire to get to know one another's communication styles. And, the same goes with your professional relationships.
Johnny Kim: And today, I'd like to talk to you about self-care. When I was a special operator, I had the privilege of serving as a combat medic and corpsman for my team. And, this is the first time I heard about self-care which initially to me sounded selfish. This idea that we put ourselves before other people seemed to contradict the oath that I swore as a medic and later as a physician. But, that's not what self-care is. Self-care isn't selfish. Self-care is making sure you're the best version of yourself. So that, you can be an effective teammate and take care of the people that you love. This is especially vital during times of stress. And, it's an essential ingredient to living a balanced life. Self-care applies to all of us in all aspects of our lives. As teachers, parents, physicians, even astronauts, we can be more whole if we are intentional about our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health, thus putting ourselves in the position to help other people. So, I encourage you to be intentional about your self-care, take a walk, go exercise, read a book, spend time with the people that you love.
Frank Rubio: I wanted to talk to you about team care which is one of the most important components of team skills. It's really important to be aware of how your actions and your words affect your teammates. But, none of us are perfect. And so, it's also important to schedule time at the end of the day, or maybe even every other day to have those discussions about how we can each do better. It's also really important to know your teammates well. Often times, it's hard for us to ask for help. We don't ever want to be the person that holds the team back or slows the team down. And so, we might hesitate to ask for a helping hand. But, when you know your teammates well, you understand the subtleties of when they're at that point. If we're doing training that's gonna last a long time or just be really difficult. I try to make it a point to carry a snack, a snickers bar or something that my teammates might enjoy. And, as we all get hangry throughout the day it often helps to give them something like that. So ultimately, team care is about putting the needs of others first and considering your teammates in everything you do.
Tom Marshburn: You know that NASA is really good at teamwork. And so, we try to adopt what NASA knows about teamwork into our crew. Sometimes one event will bring all this together in very, very bright light. We had one time. One of my crewmates noticed that there was a leak of fluid outside the space station one day looking out the window. And, we found out that it was coolant. Without the coolant, we couldn't maintain power to the space station. So, we had about two days to go out and do a spacewalk and fix it. Typically it takes about nine weeks to get ready for a spacewalk, so with the hard work on the ground and with us applying some of these skills such as being accountable to each other, making sure that we do our job well, but also own up to mistakes right away, and being able to manage options, understanding that while no one person can do everything, everybody can bring something to help solve the problem. And, about a day and a half later, we went out. We did our spacewalk. It was successful. We fixed the leak. And in many ways, an event like that, a challenging event like that brings people together. It certainly brought us together. We were much closer as a crew after that event. And, we're able to not only be safe and accomplish the mission but have a good time.
David Saint-Jacques: I worked as a family physician in a small Inuit village. There I learned a lot of the team skills that I applied throughout astronaut training. And, that ultimately helped me be successful in my six months mission to the International Space Station. An essential team skill is group living. This is particularly challenging when you're confined with the same few people for a long time as we are in space and as a lot of us are right now during isolation. Three things help me for better group living, in space, and on Earth: (1) Be organized with your personal belongings, don't sprawl out, be particularly careful with common areas, (2) Respect other people's bubble, every now and then, we all need some time alone. It's important to allow that. (3) Don't let tensions silently build-up, address any frustration or misunderstanding early before it develops into conflict.
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