This work offers a summary of the book “HOW NASA BUILDS TEAMS: Mission Critical Soft Skills for Scientists, Engineers, and Project Teams” by Charles J. Pellerin.
Team building must take account of the personalities and expertise of the individual members. Scientists and technical experts often respond to a different type of team building to arts people. Through a great deal of trial and error, NASA has developed the 4-D team building strategy, which has proved very successful. 4-D can also be applied to leadership training.
Every team must be Cultivating (so that everyone is feeling appreciated), Including, Visioning (everyone must think about the team’s future) and Directing (willing to take action to further the team’s success). Each of these attributes entails practical measures: for example, Including means that any agreements made together are kept; Directing entails that no blame is attached to any one member, and that everyone has specific roles. The 4-D model also provides a system to assess personality types, and how to manage and work with each type.
Any system used by NASA (an organization with massively high stakes, both in terms of human life and money) is worth understanding. Charles Pellerin explains how it can be applied to any organization.