How NASA Builds Teams

I am reading a book called “How NASA Builds Teams” and I thin it is an interesting books for those of you who would like to improve their soft skills. There I learned a tool called The 4-D Organization System. Basically, the tool tells us how people make decisions ans build teams.

A reporter asked Richard Feynman to define physics. He answered, “Physics is what physicists do late at night.” Actually, physicists work to understand nature with mathematical models called “laws.” These generalizations simplify nature and allow us to make reliable predictions about the future. These laws are only as valid as the results of experiments that test them. Physicists begin by guessing the law. Therefore, the writer guesses what kind of X–Y system might simplify our understanding of teams and leaders. It is reasonable to begin with the most fundamental actions of leaders—using information to make important decisions.

Therefore, the writer guesses that “deciding” would work for our X-axis in the figure. Now, what are the ways we decide? Fortunately, there are two, so we can label the two ends of our X-axis. Some of us prefer to use emotions for decisions, and some prefer logic.

As the book says, great leaders like Gandhi and Eisenhower are emotional deciders. They use their connection to their emotions to give passion to their values and to care authentically about other people. They inspire people to follow them and create intense loyalty. Great scientists and engineers are usually logical deciders. In addition, Einstein was likely a logical decider. It turns out that people’s innate deciding preference is about 50 percent emotional and 50 percent logical.

What shall we choose for our Y-axis? We need to gather information in order to make decisions. Therefore, we choose “information” for the vertical or Y-axis. Fortunately, there are two basic kinds of information: what we sense empirically and what we intuit. Seventy percent of us innately prefer to rely on our senses for observation. There are five classic senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching. About 30 percent of us innately prefer intuited information.