Image Source: Matt Biddulph, Creative Commons
During one team session we were working through a difficult topic and seemed to be moving farther and farther away from an acceptable solution. In an effort to disarm some of the volatility in the room I shifted the conversation away from the topic itself and began to focus the team on techniques for giving and receiving better feedback. As each side began to understand better where the other side was coming from and the gulf between the two opinions began to narrow, one of the team members invoked the old adage:
“Well, it’s not rocket science.”
Well, actually it is rocket science.
During the early days of rocketry when Van Braun, Goddard and others were making their first attempt at developing functional rockets, they quickly discovered that they could build a rocket with enough thrust. Thrust was not the problem. The problem was they couldn’t hit a target. They actually had to spend more time, effort and resources to develop what they began to call feedback mechanisms, a term they coined to describe the process of firing off a rocket, taking measurements on the trajectory, and feeding back those calculations to adjust the thrusters so that they could eventually hit a target.
Look around any team meeting today. Thrust is usually not the problem. There is enough education, experience, energy, dedication and desire to accomplish a goal. The problem is actually keeping all of that energy adjusted and headed for the same target. It takes strong feedback mechanisms to actually hit a target. Without good feedback systems on style, skill sets, culture, decision making processes and conflict resolution, the team simply scatters and dissipates the thrust in multiple directions that will never be capable of hitting a target.
Actually, it is rocket science.