Smell of the Place

In 1990, Charles Pellerin and his team launched a $1.7 billion telescope into space, only to discover that it could not focus due to a flawed mirror. Following this incident, NASA established a Failure Review Board chaired by the highly respected General Lew Allen, the director of the Jet Propulsion Lab.

General Allen assembled a group of experts to determine the root cause of the incident. They found that the problem was caused by an adjustment error in a small device called the Null Corrector, used to shape the mirror. This process took place at the vendor's facility. The Failure Review Board initially concluded that the fault lay with the vendor.

However, General Allen was not satisfied with this explanation. He continued to investigate and discovered that the technicians at the vendor's site had suspected issues but did not report them due to extreme pressure related to schedules and budgets. He questioned why these technicians had not communicated their concerns to NASA. He then uncovered that NASA had created a high-pressure and hostile environment for vendors, which discouraged them from reporting technical problems.

Ultimately, the Failure Review Board submitted a report identifying the issue as a leadership failure. Charles Pellerin admitted it was his failure for not creating a psychologically safe environment where team members and vendors felt comfortable discussing issues. He realized that fostering creativity requires an environment where people feel safe from the fear of failure.

Sumantra Ghoshal, the late professor of strategic and international management at the London Business School, referred to this as the "smell of the place". He argued that leaders need to create an environment that makes people feel safe in order for them to be creative and to speak up when something is not working. He emphasized the importance of organizational culture and the responsibility of leaders to create an environment that enables employees to perform at their best.

As a leader, what kind of smell are you creating in the workplace?