Speaker 1: Your morning news, on the way to work and all
Speaker 1: day in fault check.
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Speaker 1: Fifty five KRC, the talk station eight five Here fifty
Speaker 1: five KRC, you talk station. A very happy Friday to
Speaker 1: you intrigued about this book. I'm happy to welcome to
Speaker 1: the fifty five Carcy Morning Show, doctor Charles Kamara, author
Speaker 1: of the book We're going to be talking about Mission
Speaker 1: out of Control and astronauts Odyssey to Fix High Risk
Speaker 1: Organizations and Prevent Tragedy. He is, as the book suggests,
Speaker 1: and astronaut. What a cool thing to say. You are
Speaker 1: research engineer and venor author, educator, Internationally recognized expert, invited
Speaker 1: speaker on subjects regarding engineering, engineering, design, innovation, safety, organizational
Speaker 1: behavior and education. He's got more than sixty technical publications,
Speaker 1: hold nine patents, and over twenty national and international awards
Speaker 1: that could go on for hours on his background. He
Speaker 1: retired from NASA and May twenty nineteen after forty five
Speaker 1: years of continuous research as our continuous service as a
Speaker 1: research engineer technical manager at Langley re Search Center. Who's
Speaker 1: Director of Engineering at Johnson Space Center and Senior Advisor
Speaker 1: for Innovation and Engineering at Development at Langley. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the Morning Show, Doctor Kimarta. It is a pleasure to
Speaker 1: have you on today.
Speaker 2: Good morning, Brian, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I mean, I got it being an astronaut. To me,
Speaker 1: that's just fascinating, and you probably won't. You're a very
Speaker 1: small slice of the entire population. I'm just kind of
Speaker 1: wondering whether you would rather be referred to as astronaut
Speaker 1: doctor Charles Karmonda or doctor Astronaut Charles Commoner, because I
Speaker 1: would always want to put that in when I was
Speaker 1: introducing myself.
Speaker 2: You know, Brian, most people call me Charlie.
Speaker 1: There you go, Well, Charles mission, out of control, astronauts
Speaker 1: O honesty to fit the high risk organization and prevent tragedy.
Speaker 1: First off, what I think I have an understanding as
Speaker 1: to why what prompted you to write this book before
Speaker 1: we start talking about what the book is intended to do.
Speaker 2: Well, as you said, I worked for NASSA for over
Speaker 2: forty five years and it was an amazing organization when
Speaker 2: I was a young researcher at massalignedly, but it changed.
Speaker 2: It lost its way. We stopped doing real applied research.
Speaker 2: We started becoming a production organization, especially on the human
Speaker 2: space flight side, and we started just looking at operating
Speaker 2: vehicles and flying them in space, and we lost our
Speaker 2: touch with our research routs, and we lost our capability
Speaker 2: to actually understand when we had critical problems.
Speaker 1: So am I to understand? You were on the team
Speaker 1: that led the investigation why the Columbia Space Shuttle blew up?
Speaker 2: Well, I didn't lead the team. I led one of
Speaker 2: the teams that was investigating the technical cause of the problem,
Speaker 2: and that was the impact. And we used some of
Speaker 2: my good friends Matt Mellis and some of Kelly Carney
Speaker 2: and some of the great people at Glenn Research Center
Speaker 2: right there in Cleveland.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, when I was reading through the materials, I
Speaker 1: did write Boeing down here, because Boeing has been plugged
Speaker 1: with problems. They make the planes, but they don't, you know,
Speaker 1: like for example, let the air pilots know they change
Speaker 1: the software they have, you know, the poor performance in
Speaker 1: terms of manufacturing. They have a product, but they have
Speaker 1: breakdowns in manufacturing that obviously can lead and have led
Speaker 1: to the loss of life. Is that sort of an
Speaker 1: illustration of the of the like a company to whom
Speaker 1: you would focus this book or directed their attention to
Speaker 1: this book.
Speaker 2: Absolutely a lot of companies. It's a very similar problem
Speaker 2: because what we learned after the Columbia accident was that
Speaker 2: the primary cause of the of the of the accident
Speaker 2: was the culture. And what you saw after the seven
Speaker 2: thirty seven MAX accidents with Boeing is they came to
Speaker 2: the same conclusion. Boeing lost this way, just like National
Speaker 2: loss this way. Technical excellence was no longer and safety
Speaker 2: were no longer the key primary focus of the organization.
Speaker 2: It got bobbed down with the bottom line market share profit.
Speaker 2: That's very similar but different reasons. Became very focused on
Speaker 2: production schedule and budget and keeping the programs alive, and
Speaker 2: it's become a loaded bureaucracy. And what I realized, what
Speaker 2: I learned in the research writing the book, is that
Speaker 2: what other people missed was there's a difference between technical excellence,
Speaker 2: technical people, good engineers, and what I call research engineers.
Speaker 2: And so I described the elements that make up a
Speaker 2: good research, a good learning organization like what Boeing used
Speaker 2: to be, just like NASA was, and how that can
Speaker 2: lead to a very toxiculture which becomes psychologically unsafe. People
Speaker 2: are afraid to speak up, and then bad things happened
Speaker 2: and the accidents recur, just like Challenger and Columbia.
Speaker 1: Well, you mentioned bottom line, profit share, market share, and
Speaker 1: profit all being primary dry and to the exclusion of
Speaker 1: perhaps this intense focus on perhaps safety. But on a
Speaker 1: similar note, I kind of think that maybe, like if
Speaker 1: you look at DEI departments, they're focused on culture, and
Speaker 1: they're focused on social issues and issues that transcend any
Speaker 1: given companies primary focus, which would be should be providing
Speaker 1: a quality product and or service to their customers. Is
Speaker 1: that another form of sort of a lack of focus
Speaker 1: or improper direction that we could point to.
Speaker 2: Well, diversity is good, right, it helps us create, It
Speaker 2: helps us come with very innovative solutions. But DEI and
Speaker 2: quoteas and getting away from merit talkers. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: a good research organization is knowledge is key, and you
Speaker 2: have deference to the people that have that expertise, and
Speaker 2: you always have to develop those skills and maintain those standards.
Speaker 1: Well, are you concerned about the state of education in
Speaker 1: the United States because we seem to be turning out
Speaker 1: young people who just are taught to the test but
Speaker 1: not taught to critically think. I mean, it's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why I love law school so much because
Speaker 1: it was a socratic method, that back and forth and
Speaker 1: that delving down and looking into and analyzing, you know,
Speaker 1: in that particular case, different areas of law. But it
Speaker 1: was a wonderful teaching method. We don't seem to be
Speaker 1: teaching children logic and reason anymore? Is there a shortage
Speaker 1: of that? Is that part of the cultural problem here?
Speaker 2: You're absolutely correct. When I was resigned that mathif was
Speaker 2: speaking up, I started diving into how do we train
Speaker 2: our young engineers and education in general around the United States.
Speaker 2: As matter of fact, I started a five oh one
Speaker 2: to three CE educational nonprofit cuts called the Ethic Education Foundation,
Speaker 2: where we used a challenge based learning approach. And yeah,
Speaker 2: absolutely correct. Lawyers do this. They think critically, They look
Speaker 2: at all different sides of an argument. And you had
Speaker 2: this free environment where you could have this discourse, you
Speaker 2: could have these disagreements, but you relied on the facts
Speaker 2: and the knowledge and the knowledge that was verified by
Speaker 2: tests and analysis.
Speaker 1: Okay, So in a corporate environment, moving away from you know, lawyers,
Speaker 1: you know, talking and advocating on behalf of their clients
Speaker 1: and sort of thinking around the different challenges they face
Speaker 1: but in a corporate environment, I think you alluded to
Speaker 1: it earlier, people have this reluctance to hold their hand
Speaker 1: of it and say no, no, that's a dumb idea because
Speaker 1: of the you know, am I going to lose my job?
Speaker 1: Am I going to embarrass my boss? I can't do that.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be the one that cheeks up.
Speaker 2: That's exactly what you're talking about, a psychological safety. Amianmentsid
Speaker 2: wrote a book to Feel this organization about this, and
Speaker 2: I talk about this in my books. How in a
Speaker 2: real true research culture, a true research environment, this is
Speaker 2: this is absolutely critical. And so when I spoke about
Speaker 2: my book and culture to the senior executives at Boeing
Speaker 2: and I told them how ugly the culture was in
Speaker 2: the environment was NASAs. Their eyes were wide open. But
Speaker 2: people were coming up to me and saying, you know what, Charlie,
Speaker 2: the culture is worse at Bowing. And I didn't believe them.
Speaker 2: But that was six months before the first of the
Speaker 2: first y In Air crash of seven thirty seven, and
Speaker 2: then six months later that you had the Ethopian Allines
Speaker 2: crash and the body sell out of Boeing, And so
Speaker 2: what I was trying to tell the Bowie senior executives
Speaker 2: after the seven thirty seven crash, was that you need
Speaker 2: to listen to your people. People are telling you there
Speaker 2: are major problems, but their voices are being muted and
Speaker 2: they're being canceled.
Speaker 1: Well, part of me, let me ask you this, sir.
Speaker 1: And then again I guess is astronaut doctor Charles kamarda
Speaker 1: Mission out of Control and astronauts Odyssey to Fix High
Speaker 1: Risk Organizations and Prevent Tragedies? Sort of the subtitles suggests
Speaker 1: high risk organizations? Who did you write the book for?
Speaker 1: Was it for the public at large? Are you focusing on,
Speaker 1: you know, corporate culture and your leaders and executives within companies.
Speaker 2: Originally I focused on it as a way to help
Speaker 2: fix NASA, but what I realized was when NASA wasn't listening,
Speaker 2: there were many organizations that have this very similar problem.
Speaker 2: And so the second half of the book I talk
Speaker 2: about ways that we could fix this problem, how we
Speaker 2: could use technology, how we could to train people differently,
Speaker 2: how we can build what I call these five key
Speaker 2: principles of a research culture.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess there's probably you know, using Boeing as
Speaker 1: an illustration, and NASA's an illustration there. I would imagine
Speaker 1: there is a different mindset among the employees that in
Speaker 1: the private sector, Yeah, you run the risk of losing
Speaker 1: your job, you run the risk of getting fired for incompetence.
Speaker 1: But I would think in a government environment, you're less
Speaker 1: likely to face any well penalty for maybe not doing
Speaker 1: work or for maybe causing a problem or something. There's
Speaker 1: a sort of a protection element in governm jobs. It
Speaker 1: seems to not exist in the private sector. Is there
Speaker 1: a distinction between them, and along the lines of what
Speaker 1: you're talking about, it's.
Speaker 2: Not really, Because you know, I spoke up after I
Speaker 2: flew in space. I became director of engineering, and when
Speaker 2: I saw problems with safety, I spoke up in a
Speaker 2: flight readiness review and I was reassigned three days later. So,
Speaker 2: if you can imagine an astronaut being silenced, it can
Speaker 2: happen to anyone. And while you don't might lose your job,
Speaker 2: you might lose your position, you might lose your voice,
Speaker 2: and you're placed in a terrible situation where you no
Speaker 2: longer can do the job that you loved. People will
Speaker 2: not treat you the same because you're no longer you're
Speaker 2: a piranha, you're a pariah, your persona non grata.
Speaker 1: Fair enough, well, doctor, Obviously in the book, you identify
Speaker 1: the general concepts we're talking about the problem that we face,
Speaker 1: and I presume that you offer and outline solutions to
Speaker 1: these problems, practical solutions that people in the business world
Speaker 1: can incorporate.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I have key things for leaders to look for
Speaker 2: signs that the culture is going awry. I talk about
Speaker 2: technical use of technology to help us identify when an
Speaker 2: individual team, because it only takes one small team to
Speaker 2: be dysfunctional, like the team that was working on the
Speaker 2: ownings or the team that was analyzing the impact of
Speaker 2: foam on Columbia. You have one dysfunctional team and it
Speaker 2: could cause a tragedy. So I highlight several ideas for
Speaker 2: how you build a psychologically safe environment, a knowledge based
Speaker 2: hierarchy where you encourage people to fail and learn by failure,
Speaker 2: and how you're transparent, how you share information openly and
Speaker 2: you encourage competing ideas.
Speaker 1: I love the sound of it. It sounds practical and
Speaker 1: logical and reasonable to me. Astronaut doctor Charles Kamarta, author
Speaker 1: of Mission out of Control and astronauts Odyssey to Fix
Speaker 1: high risk organization and prevent tragedy. Doctor. We have your
Speaker 1: book on my blog page, fifty five KRC dot com.
Speaker 1: I sounds to me like there's a lot of business
Speaker 1: owners out there in my audience. I would love to
Speaker 1: get a copy of this, and I'm sure they will.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: Thank you for spending time with my listeners and I
Speaker 1: today and identifying this problem so we can work on solutions, sir,
Speaker 1: That's what it's all about.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for having me Brian.
Speaker 1: My pleasure, Absolutely, my pleasure. It's eight eighteen right now,
Speaker 1: fifty five KRC Detalk Station. Feel free to call. I
Speaker 1: had a couple of callers online as we went into
Speaker 1: the break. If you guys want to call back, Joe'll
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