Aim to be a zero - Chris Hadfield

[Rockie]

Am I proclaiming +1ness somewhere Beef? Please point out where. Be specific.

If you can point out a single case where I’ve done that in the 7500 odd posts I’ve wasted time on over the years I assure you that wasn’t my intent. Despite that however, show me and I’ll delete my profile forever. Kind of hoping you can actually...

Offer open to anybody.

[Beefitarian]

I don't want you deleted.

I would suggest anyone getting out of bed to feed themself and change or put on clothes is at +1.

I agree with what I read into what you wrote. Seems like you suggest commander retired Hadfield has abviously gone far beyond +1 in action more often than he has been neutral.

The portion of his book posted, as I read into it, suggests we act neutrally. Specifically, avoid proclaiming ourself to be +1, do your duty and allow actions to speak for you.

It's not a matter of avoiding added value. It's a matter of doing whatever is best for the team. Need to lead, lead. Need to follow, follow. Need to assist, assist. Need to get out of the way, get out of the way.

It might work, I'm too fragile, so sometimes I get defensive. Also I have worked for jerks that will blame their inability to lead on us underlings. On occasion I have just let them have their way. Life went on and I did things in other situation they probably couldn't at the time we worked together. I hope they did well at whatever future endeavors they experienced.

I don't need to fear annoying anyone here, so I'll proclaim myself as a good leader. The office was happy with all the jobs I ran.

[Bede]

I've been reading this thread with some interest. I had the opportunity to go through this last selection campaign. I was short listed so I got to go to the first assessment center. (The first assessment center is still quite a decent way through the process.) I didn't make the cut to the finals though.

This is pretty tough topic to wrap your head around if you haven't seen the process first hand, but once you've been through it "being a zero" is the best analogy I can think of. You're tested on your physical fitness, judgment, reasoning, and behaviour. They watch you like a hawk and a psychologist notes any eye roll, shrug, body language, etc. A couple experiences stand out:
1) Naturally, I was sizing myself up against the other 24 candidates. There were roughly 5 that I knew weren't going to make the cut. Then there were 5 that I was sure would move on. They were rock stars. They nailed everything. When the cuts were announced, something surprising happened. The 5 that I thought's weren't going to make it got cut. Those are your -1's. However of the 5 that I was most confident in, your +1's, 4/5 were cut. The guys that made it through were those guys that you thought, "oh yeah, I remember that guy. Barely. I don't remember him doing anything noticeable." There was a story about Jeremy Hanson (ASC 2009). He didn't say a thing throughout the ASC and pretty much no one remembered him. I'm pretty sure Hatfield coached him. That's the story anyways.
2) I felt pretty confident about my abilities. I'm quite physically fit. Amongst the scientists/engineer/doctor set, I'm comfortable with tools. I'm certainly no plumber/electrician, but I can wire/plumb a house. I also rock climb. Some of the tasks involved using tools while hanging from a harness. I had no problem with it. I helped everyone else out and was an asset to my team. I was thanked for getting the team through some of the technical aspects and physical fitness aspects. I got cut while another team member, who I helped a lot, made it through. The reason was that she knew every instruction down to a T and while I was solving the problems and doing (literally) the heavy lifting. But I had to consistently ask, what are the rules at this station? where do we go now? etc. I was the muscle monkey. She could follow instructions. It's easier for them to train her to use tools and increase her fitness than it is to train me to stop being the guy constantly taking charge, even if I know what I'm doing. Afterwords I read Hadfield's "be a zero" quote. Then it all made sense.

When you're in space, no one needs you to solve the problem- the engineers on the ground do that. They want you to be competent, but follow instructions to a T. I'm not that guy at all. I'm a mouth piece. I'm a know-it-all. I'm a pain to work with sometimes. So when Hadfield says "be a zero", that's exactly what he means.

Andrew Radar (he was also the mission commander for the Falcon 9 rocket that safely landed) wrote an article about the process on Vice. Rumour has it that they weren't too happy about it because it broke the NDA because it was too detailed. Generalities are OK, specifics not.

[dpm]

I'm wondering why some people have difficulty understanding the difference between actually trying to add value and merely proclaiming that you do.

In the aid world, where I work, the well-intentioned (but naive) people jumping in trying to add value are one of the problems. The quiet people, just trying to be average and do their jobs quietly, are the ones who do the real work.

[Rockie]

Adding value doesn’t necessarily mean actively doing something. Consider this.

You’re walking along and find a woman screaming over a prone man. You hand the woman your cell phone and have her call 911. You give CPR to the man until EMT’s show up whereupon you stand back out of the way. You hang off to the side until the scene is over then you leave. You’ve added value in the following way:

1. You provided CPR.
2. You gave the other person the tools be of added value themselves.
3. You got out of the way when the experts arrived giving them room to work.
4. You made yourself available in case someone had questions (police/EMT’s).
5. You left when it was all over neither expecting or receiving a parade in your honour, and nobody even found out your name.

Lots of value added with you actively only doing one thing yourself when it was needed.

[Outlaw58]

Dude... dead horse... Let it go!

58

[digits_]

I've been reading this thread with some interest. I had the opportunity to go through this last selection campaign. I was short listed so I got to go to the first assessment center. (The first assessment center is still quite a decent way through the process.) I didn't make the cut to the finals though.

This is pretty tough topic to wrap your head around if you haven't seen the process first hand, but once you've been through it "being a zero" is the best analogy I can think of. You're tested on your physical fitness, judgment, reasoning, and behaviour. They watch you like a hawk and a psychologist notes any eye roll, shrug, body language, etc. A couple experiences stand out:
1) Naturally, I was sizing myself up against the other 24 candidates. There were roughly 5 that I knew weren't going to make the cut. Then there were 5 that I was sure would move on. They were rock stars. They nailed everything. When the cuts were announced, something surprising happened. The 5 that I thought's weren't going to make it got cut. Those are your -1's. However of the 5 that I was most confident in, your +1's, 4/5 were cut. The guys that made it through were those guys that you thought, "oh yeah, I remember that guy. Barely. I don't remember him doing anything noticeable." There was a story about Jeremy Hanson (ASC 2009). He didn't say a thing throughout the ASC and pretty much no one remembered him. I'm pretty sure Hatfield coached him. That's the story anyways.
2) I felt pretty confident about my abilities. I'm quite physically fit. Amongst the scientists/engineer/doctor set, I'm comfortable with tools. I'm certainly no plumber/electrician, but I can wire/plumb a house. I also rock climb. Some of the tasks involved using tools while hanging from a harness. I had no problem with it. I helped everyone else out and was an asset to my team. I was thanked for getting the team through some of the technical aspects and physical fitness aspects. I got cut while another team member, who I helped a lot, made it through. The reason was that she knew every instruction down to a T and while I was solving the problems and doing (literally) the heavy lifting. But I had to consistently ask, what are the rules at this station? where do we go now? etc. I was the muscle monkey. She could follow instructions. It's easier for them to train her to use tools and increase her fitness than it is to train me to stop being the guy constantly taking charge, even if I know what I'm doing. Afterwords I read Hadfield's "be a zero" quote. Then it all made sense.

When you're in space, no one needs you to solve the problem- the engineers on the ground do that. They want you to be competent, but follow instructions to a T. I'm not that guy at all. I'm a mouth piece. I'm a know-it-all. I'm a pain to work with sometimes. So when Hadfield says "be a zero", that's exactly what he means.

Andrew Radar (he was also the mission commander for the Falcon 9 rocket that safely landed) wrote an article about the process on Vice. Rumour has it that they weren't too happy about it because it broke the NDA because it was too detailed. Generalities are OK, specifics not.

Impressive!

Thanks for sharing!

['97 Tercel]

^ ya man, +1....interesting for sure, thanks for posting.

[Beefitarian]

I did not mean to bully you Rockie. I was just pointing out. Sometimes once you get noticed. You can't get away from it. Even if you were not trying to get noticed.

[Rockie]

I did not mean to bully you Rockie.

No worries...you didn't.

[Eric Janson]

Aim To Be A Zero

A friend of mine was once in a crowded elevator in Building Four South at JSC in Houston when a senior astronaut got on and just stood there, visibly impatient, waiting for someone to divine that he needed to go to the sixth floor, and push the button. "I didn't spend all those years in university to wind up pushing buttons in an elevator," he snapped. Incredibly enough, someone did it for him. This incident made such a big impression on my friend that I heard about it, and probably a lot of other people did, too. For me, it was a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of ever thinking of yourself as An Astronaut (or A Doctor, or A Whatever). To everyone else, you're just an arrogant guy on the elevator, craving significance.

Over the years, I've realized that in any new situation, whether it involves an elev tor, or a rocket ship, you will almost certainly be viewed in one of three ways. As a minus one: actively harmful, someone who creates problems, Or as a zero: your impact is neutral and doesn't tip the balance one way or the other, Or you'll be seen as a plus one: someone who actively adds value. Everyone wants to be a plus one, of course. But proclaiming your plus-one-ness at the outset almost guarantees you'll be perceived as a minus one, regardless of the skills you bring to the table or how you actually perform."

The real problem here is that nobody tells the senior astronaut to get his head out of his ass and to stop being such a ****.

Much more effective than thinking "-1" imho. How does that solve anything?

Things are rarely so black and white that you can categorize people in only 3 ways.

It all fits nicely into the World of Post Modernism and all the rest of the Politically Correct BS that is being continually rammed down my throat.

[AirDoan]

I just read this thread and have read the book, though not with as much focus as I will when I get my copy from BC in July. But my interpretation could be boiled down to a quote from Marcus Aurelius.

"Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one."

Basically its a work ethic/attitude when in any environment. Do your job, and do it well. When you can make improvements and help beyond your bubble, do. But don't sit there looking for the opportunities to interject or show off. If you have to go out of your way to show that your better than everyone around you, you will be perceived as trying too hard or cocky and not looked upon favorably (the +1 being perceived as a - 1). The guy beside you who's there 15 minutes early, leaves last, paperwork is always in order, doesn't cause accidents or problems, first one with a broom when a glass breaks, and helps the overloaded new new hire is the real +1 by naturally being the best 0. The "let me/can I show you how to fix that" not the "just give it to me!" The one who asks the little old lady which floor she's on instead of expecting someone to press the button for him/her.

Again not meant to inflame, I wanted to share this interpretation and I choose to look at it this way.

[B208]

Rare to find people who have read Marcus Aurelius.

[AirDoan]

I have a bit, but you can thank Dr. Who for the inspiration!