I’ve been reading an Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth by
Chris Hadfield, and in it he shares a lot about how NASA deals with mistakes
made and turns them into learning experiences. I want to quote a section that I think can teach some neat spiritual lessons:
“In
any field, it’s a plus if you view criticism as potentially helpful advice
rather than as a personal attack.
But for an astronaut, depersonalizing criticism is a basic survival skill. If you bristled every time you heard
something negative—or stubbornly tuned out the feedback—you’d be toast.
At
NASA, everyone’s a critic. Over
the years, hundreds of people weigh in on our performance on a regular basis.
Our biggest blunders are put under the microscope so even more people can be
made aware of them: “Check out what Hadfield did—let’s be sure no one ever does
that again.”
Often,
we’re scrutinized and evaluated in real time. Quite a few simulations involve a
crowd: all the people in Mission Control who would in real life work that
particular problem, plus the trainers who dreamed up the scenario in the first
place and the experts who best understand the intricate components of whatever
system is being tested. When we’re simulating deorbit to landing, for instance,
dozens of people observe, hoping that something new—a flaw in a standard
procedure, say, or a better way of doing something—will be revealed. They
actually want us to stumble into a
gray zone no one had recognized could be problematic in order to see whether we
can figure out what to do. If not, well, it’s much better to discover that gray
zone while we’re still on Earth, where we have the luxury of being able to
simulate a bunch more times until we do figure it out. The main point is to learn—and then to
review the experience afterward from every possible angle.
The
debrief is a cultural staple at NASA, which makes this place a nightmare for
people who aren’t fond of meetings. During a sim, the flight director or lead
astronaut makes notes on major events, and afterward, kicks off the debrief by
reviewing the highlights: what went well, what new things were learned, what
was already known but needs to be re-emphasized. Then it’s a free-for-all.
Everyone else dives right in, system by system, to dissect what went wrong or
was handled poorly. All the people who are involved in the sim have a chance to
comment on how things looked from their consoles, so if you blundered in some
way, dozens of people may flag it and enumerate all the negative effects of
your actions. It’s not a public flogging: the goal is to build up collective
wisdom. So the response to an error is never, “No big deal, don’t beat yourself
up about it.” It’s “Let’s pull on that”—the idea being that a mistake is like a
loose thread you should tug on, hard, to see if the whole fabric unravels.
Occasionally
the criticism is personal, though, and even when it’s constructive, it can
sting. Prior to my last mission,
my American crewmate Tom Marshburn and I were in the pool for a six-hour EVA
evaluation, practicing spacewalking in front of a group of senior trainers and
senior astronauts. Tom and I have both done EVAs in space and I thought we did
really well in the pool. But in the debrief, after I’d explained my rationale
for tethering my body in a particular way so I’d be stable enough to perform a
repair, one of our instructors announced to the room, “When Chris talks, he has
a very clear and authoritative manner—but don’t let yourself be lulled into a
feeling of complete confidence that he’s right. Yes, he used to be a
spacewalking instructor and evaluator and he’s Mr. EVA, but he hasn’t done a
walk since 2001. There have been a lot of changes since then. I don’t want the junior trainers to
ignore that little voice inside and not question something just because it’s
being said with authority by someone who’s been here a long time.”
At
first that struck me as a little insulting, because the message boiled down to
this: “Mr. EVA” sounds like he knows
what he’s doing, but really, he may not have a clue. Then I stopped to ask
myself, “Why is the instructor saying that?” Pretty quickly I had to concede
that the point was valid. I don’t come off as wishy-washy and I’m used to
teaching others how to do things, so I can sound very sure of myself. That
doesn’t mean I think I know everything there is to know; I’d always assumed
that people understood that perfectly well and felt free to jump in and
question my judgment. But maybe my demeanor was making that difficult. I decided
to test that proposition: instead of waiting for feedback, I’d invite it and
see what happened. After a sim, I began asking my trainers and crewmates, “How
did I fall short, technically, and what changes could I make next time?” Not
surprisingly, the answer was rarely, “Don’t change a thing, Chris—everything
you do is perfect!” So the debrief did what it was supposed to: it alerted me
to a subtle but important issue I was able to address in a way that ultimately
improved our crew’s chances of success.
At
NASA, we’re not just expected to respond positively to criticism, but to go one
step further and draw attention to our own missteps and miscalculations. It’s
not easy for hyper-competitive people to talk openly about screw-ups that make
them look foolish or incompetent. Management has to create a climate where
owning up to mistakes is permissible and colleagues have to agree,
collectively, to cut each other some slack.
I
got used to public confessionals as a fighter pilot. Every Monday morning we
got together for a flight safety briefing and talked about all the things that
could have killed us the previous week. Sometimes pilots confessed to really
basic errors and oversights and the rest of us were expected to suspend
judgment. (Deliberate acts of idiocy—flying under a bridge, say, or showing off
by going supersonic over your friend’s house and busting every window in the
neighborhood—were a different story. Fighter pilots could be and were fired for
them.) It was easier not to pass judgment once I grasped that another pilot’s
willingness to admit he’d made a boneheaded move, and then talk about what had
happened next, could save my life. Literally.
At
NASA, where the organizational culture focuses so explicitly on education, not
just achievement, it’s even easier to frame individual mistakes as teachable
moments rather than career-ending blunders. I remember one astronaut, also a
former test pilot, standing up at a meeting and walking us all through an
incident where his T-38 (the plane we all train on to keep up our flying
skills) slid off the end of a runway in Louisiana. For a pilot this is hugely
embarrassing, a rookie error. There wasn’t much damage to the plane, so the guy
could’ve either kept his mouth shut, or the moral of the story could have been,
“All’s well that ends well.” But as he told it, the moral was: be careful
because the asphalt at this runway is slicker than most—it contains ground-up
seashells, which, it turns out, are seriously slippery when it’s raining. That
was incredibly useful information for all of us to have. While no one thought
more of that astronaut for sliding off the runway, we certainly didn’t think
less of him for being willing to save us from doing the same thing ourselves.”
(pp77-80)
Thinking about this
spiritually, I think we can learn a lot about sincere repentance.
How often, when we’re
repenting, do we take time to have a debriefing meeting with ourselves as we
discover we have sinned or made an error? Do we concentrate on what we can learn and refrain from labeling ourselves or beating
ourselves up? How often do we try to
dissect exactly what went wrong, from the thoughts in our mind, to our energy
levels, to the pressures that were on us, to the principles that we forgot or
were decided to ignore? How
often do we notice where we fell into a gray area where our
standard operating procedures of sin resistance training hasn’t been built
up? How often do we amend our
inner manuals to ensure it never happens again?
Faith in Christ is necessary
to repentance, but so is self-analysis to figure out what to do better next
time. If our standard ops don’t
change, have we really changed?
Not really.
Another thing I notice is
that in Hadfield’s experiences, when people gave criticism, it focused on what
he did, not who he was. Even calling attention to his
authoritative manner wasn’t designed to attack him, but point out something he
was doing. You have to give him credit that he stopped to think
about why it was given and he examined himself enough to realize that there was
something to what had been said.
Lessons: Constructive
criticism has to be very specific and focused on what people are doing, not who they are.
To receive reproof well, you
have to think carefully about whether there might be a reason for it, then find
ways to adjust.
Here are some great things
that Guide to the Scriptures says about chastening (or reproof):
Correction
or discipline given to individuals or groups in order to help them improve or
become stronger.
· Despise not the chastening
hand of the Almighty:Job 5:17; ( Prov. 3:11; )
· Blessed is the man whom
thou chastens, O Lord:Ps. 94:12;
· All scripture is given for
reproof, for correction:2 Tim. 3:16;
· The Lord chastens those
whom he loves:Heb. 12:5–11;
· The Lord sees fit to
chasten his people:Mosiah 23:21–22;
· Except the Lord chasten his
people, they will not remember him:Hel. 12:3;….
· They were chastened that
they might repent:D&C 1:27;
· Whom I love I also chasten
that their sins may be forgiven:D&C 95:1;
· All those who will not
endure chastening cannot be sanctified:D&C 101:2–5;
· My people must needs be
chastened until they learn obedience:D&C 105:6;
· He that will not bear
chastisement is not worthy of my kingdom:D&C 136:31;
I’m okay at receiving
constructive feedback in some things, but in other things I am not so
great. I suppose I will have to
some careful self-analysis about that
in preparation for improvement.
I like what the D&C says,
not just about chastisement, but about how we should respond.
31 My
people must be tried in all things, that they may be prepared to receive the
glory that I have for them, even the glory of Zion; and he that will not bear
chastisement is not worthy of my kingdom.
32 Let
him that is ignorant learn wisdom by humbling himself and calling upon the Lord
his God, that his eyes may be opened that he may see, and his ears opened that
he may hear;
33 For my
Spirit is sent forth into the world to enlighten the humble and contrite, and
to the condemnation of the ungodly. (D&C 136: 31-33)
Sometimes reproof and
chastisement comes because we are ignorant. We don’t know what we don’t know
and we don’t know how to make it better.
I like that the above scripture says that if we humble ourselves and
pray for the Lord to help us see, the Lord will enlighten us. The Lord is both gentle and powerful
when He enlightens. The times He
has enlightened my ignorance about what I’ve done, it has not caused me pain,
but it has deeply impressed me as to the importance of changing and doing
things differently such that I become very motivated.
..with the chastisement I prepare a way for their deliverance in all
things out of temptation, and I have loved you— (D&C 95:1)
I love how this
scripture is so similar to 1 Nephi 3:7.
Just like the Lord prepares a way for us to keep the commandments He
gives, He also prepares a way for us to be delivered from temptation when we
are chastised.
Another spiritual principle
we can see in from Hadfield’s experience is that our painful experience can be
very helpful in preventing others from getting into difficulty and can help
others get out of it. I’ve heard
of how sharing in a safe environment is an important part of addiction recovery
meetings. I know I have been
helped by all those who have shared their struggles with me and how they’ve
overcome them. If we look
carefully in the gospels, we can find instances where Jesus shares principle of
resisting temptation.
This leads me to a question
that I’ll pass on to you: What do
you think is the difference between sharing experience with sin and escaping it
in order to help others versus
dwelling it and wallowing in it, as we’ve been instructed not to do?
Bonus insight: What might
the NASA debriefing meetings tell us about the kind of accountability interview we
might have on Judgment Day? If the
lives of astronauts are so valuable that so much effort is made to keep them
safe, and if their technical decisions on spaceflights are so important that
they are hashed over so carefully, then what does that say about what awaits us
on the other side considering God has told us near the beginning of this
dispensation that the worth of souls (our own and others) is great in the sight
of God? Also consider Jesus’s
words here: “But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak,
they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.” (Matthew 12:36).
I can't end without noting how awesome it is that the Lord helps us with all stages of repentance. He brings about chastisement and reproof so we can realize we've sinned. He has given us our conscience so we can have an inner connection to Him, no matter what spiritual stage we're at. He invites us to repent. He gives us this time of probation in mortality in which to repent before the full consequences of judgment come. He promises and gives enlightenment if we're not sure what to do instead or how exactly we're off. He takes our sins when we have faith in Him. He helps deliver us from temptation. He gives us grace to overcome.
How wonderful that we can repent!
