Gritty Explorers at SpaceX

A - Z Characteristics of High Achieving Organizations

In a recent Harvard Business Review article "What Your Moonshot can Learn from the Apollo Program," John Geraci makes the claim that "there was nothing wildly spectacular or fantastical about the 1969 moon landing." In fact, Geraci says, "it was done mostly with common sense and grit."

Harnessing knowledge and expertise is a purely logistical undertaking. The truly critical ingredient in NASA's success was the type of energy expended in the service of some great goal. Grit, the type of energy alluded here is what Angela Lee Duckworth an associate professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania shared extensively and explained in her award-winning book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. She defines Grit as "a positive, non-cognitive trait, or construct, based on an individual's passion for a particular long-term goal or end state, coupled with a powerful motivation to achieve their respective objective." This perseverance of effort promotes the overcoming of obstacles or challenges that lie within a gritty individual's path to accomplishment, and serves as a driving force in achievement realization.

Duckworth’s research indicates that the construct grit does not correlate directly to IQ but nonetheless demonstrates incremental predictive validity of success measures over and beyond IQ and conscientiousness. These findings suggest that...

The achievement of difficult goals entails not only talent but a "perseverance and passion for long-term goals” over long periods, despite failure, and in the face of adversity.

Critics of Duckworth’s work contend that her concept of grit is really the same as conscientiousness, one of the Big Five personality traits, a model used since the 1960s to comprehend the relationship between personality and academic behaviors. Duckworth and other researchers distinguish grit from conscientiousness by maintaining that grit contains a factor called "consistency of effort."

Gritty people have a singular passion that they pursue year-in and year-out.

If we really want to examine the trait, quality, or factor of grit in a contemporary expression we should consider Elon Musk and his company SpaceX.

In 2002, Elon Musk started SpaceX to build rockets that would launch satellites, ferry astronauts to space stations, and someday carry tourists into space. SpaceX’s initial efforts go like this:

• Rocket #1 launched in March 2006 failed.
• Rocket #2 launched in March 2007 failed.
• Rocket #3 launched in August 2008 failed.
• The fourth launch succeeded and initiated a revolutionary space-age industry. Falcon 1 became the first privately developed liquid fuel rocket to orbit the Earth.

Each effort was massively expensive, and each failure was a step closer to bankruptcy. Musk, Angela Duckworth would say, has grit. He perseveres stubbornly and undauntedly in face of huge obstacles like going broke and losing face.

In his own words, Musk says .. "No. I don’t give up. I’d have to be dead or completely incapacitated.”

 Musk embodies an almost supernatural ability to analyze and overcome failure— six weeks after his third launch failure he launched the Falcon 1 success. This is grit. SpaceX is a culture of grit. According to Musk “failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”

Elon Musk moves steadily and methodically towards the long-term goal of shaping the future at a time when others are focusing on short term wins. For Musk success proceeds from effort and practice. New employees are evaluated according to what drives them to perform not their desire to look smart or seek approval. Musk learns quickly and can apply knowledge to solve problems creatively. His knowledge and confidence increases rapidly and inspires his employees at SpaceX. He persevered for six years to achieve his first successful launch.

In the final analysis we can say about SpaceX what Geraci said about NASA and the moon landing at the beginning of this article —“there was nothing wildly speculative or fantastical, it was done mostly with common sense and grit.”

Articles in this Series: A - Z Characteristics of High Achieving Organizations

1. Agility Thinkers at Facebook
2. Boundary Spanners at Juniper Networks
3. Change Agents at IBM
4. Decision Drivers at Cisco
5. Execution Experts at Caterpillar
6. Future Scenario Planners at Shell
7. Gritty Explorers at SpaceX
8. Honest Culture Creators at GE
9. Innovation Masters at W. L. Gore
10. Justice Ambassadors at General Grain
11. Knowledge Management Champions at Xerox
12. Loyalty Partners at Starbucks
13. Motivation Maximizers at Trader Joe's
14. Nurturing Leaders at FedEx
15. Optimistic Visionaries at Intel
16. Performance Navigators at Gap
17. Quality Virtual Instructors at Boeing
18. Resilient Re-inventors at Barnes & Noble
19. Servant-Leader Heroes at Southwest Airlines

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Sandhya Johnson, PhD is a leader in HR optimization, leadership development, team performance, and organization effectiveness. She has a proven track record of developing innovative talent management strategies for a diverse group of leading organizations. Sandhya is the founder and Managing Director at Ingenium Global, a Dallas-based consulting firm that is committed to co-creating talent-driven organizations. Connect with her on Twitter @IngeniumGlobal