Lessons From Outer Space — What Tim Peake Taught Me About Team Dynamics

Earlier this month I went to see Tim Peake talk about his trip to the international space station. It was fascinating, with so many great stories and insights (like the rocket they go to space in is green, it’s just the ice on the outside making it white). But amongst all the mind-blowing facts and anecdotes, what struck me the most was the selection process.

Through the European Space Agency, approximately 23,000 people apply to become astronauts. There are clearly a huge number of very qualified and capable people within that list and from that only a small number of them become Astronauts. To whittle this group down even further to select who would be going to the International Space Station was an arduous task. In the history of the International Space Station only 112 people have ever visited it, and very few of them have been from the European Space Agency.

He spoke of the selection process and whilst there was a base level of skills, aptitude, and ability needed, the bit that really stood out was the activities they undertook to test how you got on with your potential crew. It tested how you acted towards your colleagues under pressure. Ultimately the process assessed how agreeable you were in the most difficult of situations. Of all the criteria and with such a huge pool of people to choose from, team dynamics became the most critical and decisive factor.

In the interval, my friend Sean (he writes some great stuff on agile https://seantrobinson.co.uk/) and I were discussing that this seems like a sensible recruitment strategy, however, organisations often hire the person with the most aptitude, the highest intelligence, or the most experience. I’m often wary of the term ‘cultural fit’ and the risks of unconscious bias, but surely selecting for team dynamics and getting on with others is a good thing if the work is going to be delivered through a team? Or do you run the risk of driving out healthy conflict and with a team set to continue repeating failures and going with the status quo?

Let’s Start with Chickens

I was reminded by a great TED talk by Margaret Heffernan in which she opens by talking about a study of two groups of chickens. “Chickens live in groups, so first of all, he selected just an average flock, and he let it alone for six generations. But then he created a second group of the individually most productive chickens — you could call them superchickens — and he put them together in a superflock, and each generation, he selected only the most productive for breeding.”

You’d expect the superchickens to do much better right? But quite the opposite, the natural flock did just fine. The superflock? All but 3 were dead as they’d pecked each other to death. As I look around the teams in organisations I’ve been a part of building, I do really hope that the results of hiring really smart and capable people haven’t been quite so catastrophic. I mean, we’re all drawn to hiring the smartest, most experienced, or technically capable people, right?

So does Intelligence matter?

A base level of intelligence (which will vary based on the requirements of the role) will obviously be important, however, a study by MIT showed that when it came to team performance other qualities were much more important than the collective average intelligence or having a couple of people in the team with exceptional IQ. The three characteristics they found were empathy, everyone having an equal say, and having a higher proportion of women in the team. Women generally have a higher level of empathy (although a neat study here suggests that it’s likely created by systemic factors like gender roles).

Apart from the gender angle, you can see how this can map to Google’s Project Aristotle which found the number 1 most important characteristic of a high-performing team was psychological safety. How do you create psychological safety? Soliciting the opinions of the team is a great starting point. In fact much of the advice around improving team performance relates as much to the ‘glue’ of the team than the work itself. When assessing teams, collective intelligence wasn’t found to be a key factor when determining team success.

So should we select based on being ‘nice’?

In a study of 107 project teams, an assessment was made as to how ‘agreeableness ‘ impacted team performance. In defining agreeableness it stated, “Agreeable people tend to be thoughtful, sympathetic, and cooperative and often see other people this way.” Notice that agreeable is not just how you present yourself, but the way in which you assume the intent of others.

In this study, it was found that the level of agreeableness of its team members was one of the highest indicators of team performance (although one of the worst of individual performance). Interestingly as a side-note in a world that is debating the office/remote/hybrid arrangement, agreeableness had negligible impact remotely. Therefore you may want to try and build interpersonal relations at first, but if an existing team has low levels of agreeableness, the study found that working fully remotely might be a better way to enable performance.

There is a big warning here however as in a further study it found that you can have too much of a good thing and you can indeed be ‘too nice’.Like most things, it follows a bell curve, so a team of people that are hyper-agreeable might have a negative impact on team performance.

Does Patrick Lecioni’s ‘Ideal Team Player’ Fit this Model?

If you were to look at the above picture without reading the book, you’d likely think not. However when you consider that smart in the above venn diagram, is reference more to “people smart” (asking good questions, listening intently etc) then it starts to align with the above picture. There are some great tools and models that are shared as part of the above book, however, my only concern in using it, is that it’s not hugely grounded in data. That said the author has intuitively grasped on to the golden thread of this whole piece.

Where do we go with this information?

There have been many times in my career I’ve worked with hiring managers who have been so bowled over by someone’s style and approach that they’ve selected them over more experienced candidates. When done properly, it’s rarely gone wrong.

What should you do with this information?

1. Test base-level skills as the bar, but hire for qualities associated with agreeableness. What I mean by this is hire someone who will become more of the glue, than unstick the pot;
2. Empathy can be trained! Don’t believe it is just something you have or you don’t. By understanding this it means you can develop the skills of agreeableness within teams and existing teams;
3. Avoid hiring the ‘brilliant jerk’, unless they are in the rare circumstance that they are working in isolation and not part of a team. That said, beware of that individual’s impact on organisational culture and perception.
4. The best litmus test for this is involving the whole team in the recruitment process. They will be able to have a gauge of how well the individual will interact and will give you early warning signs for potential clashes. Whilst it feels like a time burden, it’s nothing compared to getting the wrong hire.
5. Agreeableness is one of the key facets of a team, so whilst using it to help guide selection decisions (like who goes to the International Space Station), it has a mild correlation to slightly poorer individual performance. Therefore it was found that when coupled with contentiousness (for example self-discipline) and creating an environment in which they were encouraged to ask for favours too that their individual performance improved. Create a safe space for teams to ask one another for help when they need it and actively encourage it when individuals are less strong at doing so.
6. Face to face is definitely not dead. In the TED talk mentioned above (honestly go watch it, it’s brilliant) she describes at great lengths some of the strategies that to bring people together. The quote I adore here is “what matters is the mortar, not just the bricks”

A cautionary final note from me around diversity. Don’t conflate ‘agreeableness’ with ‘they’re like me’. Challenge and difference are really important, but it's the safe way you do this that matters.

How to hire like Nasa

So if we’re to take the lessons from above it would be sensible to understand the base level of skills needed to perform the duties of the role. Test for this first, so that you know any remaining candidates can do the functional tasks required.

Beyond this point, selection should be based on team dynamics and attributes like agreeableness and empathy which are evidenced to be critical factors for team performance.

So, get out there and get hiring those astronauts.