Editor’s Notebook: Crushing Barriers
Joy Finnegan
Recently I saw an interesting clip on YouTube. It is a short video produced by NASA astronaut Andrew Thomas. The video shows a young engineer attempting to bring her ideas about a redesign of part of a spacecraft to her superiors. The engineer is met with much resistance from every level. Her ideas are basically dismissed out of hand without the slightest consideration about their validity, applicability or relevance. Although everyone involved acts professionally, the young engineer is given platitude after platitude, basically patted on the head and told to behave. You can view the video at our website, www.aviationtoday.com/am.
These subtle messages are just the types of barriers to innovation and dissent that crush new thinking.
This video was produced as part of an attempt by NASA to encourage open-minded discussion and innovation among its employees. The video is a compilation of many people’s experiences there, but based on actual occurrences.
It reminded me of several places I have worked as well. And it also reminded me of one place that I worked where new ideas and innovation were welcomed.
I’m sure everyone has worked at a company that blocks innovation and ideas even under the guise of welcoming them. One of the most striking things about the video is the hypocritical nature of the responses. Even as they are telling the young engineer that they welcome new ideas and discussion about differing opinions, they are shutting down the creative process. As I said, I have worked in a place that did just that and worse.
I can remember bringing an unsafe situation to the attention of my superiors at one company. I was told that it would be taken care of and believed at that moment that I had made a difference and prevented a potential catastrophe. Later I learned that my concerns had been dismissed out of hand when I observed the same situation continuing after my report.
Fortunately, in that case, the unsafe situation didn’t continue much longer as a third party, outside of the company, also reported it. At that point, the company could no longer bury their heads in the sand.
Later, a leader of that company said to me, “I guess we owe you an apology.” But he never did apologize. Semantics? Yes. But these subtle messages are just the types of barriers to innovation and dissent that crush new thinking.
On the other hand, I also worked at a company that truly encouraged creative thinking. The entire time I worked at that OEM there was an openness and underlying sense of energy created by the free exchange of ideas between various departments. The company had some “old-school” systems and thinkers, to be sure. No company is perfect.
But, I knew from the first week of employment there, that things were different. The head of the department I worked in, a vice president of the company, was respected, revered, some would even say feared. She ran a very tight ship. But in my very first week, I attended a departmental meeting. I thought I would simply sit, observe and learn. I was the newest, youngest member of that team and had never done that type of work before. But in that meeting the vice president spoke to me and asked me for my observations of the department and said, “We welcome your ideas here. A fresh set of eyes is always good to have. If you see things that can be done differently or better, please let me know.”
A statement like that really sets the tone, not only for the employee being addressed but also for others there. If the leader of the department is asking for ideas from the youngest, most inexperienced team member, then it must be fine for the more experienced ones to bring their ideas to the table as well.
The NASA video concludes with the young engineer at her new place of employment, Google. She brings up an idea to her supervisor. He encourages her to pursue the idea with upper management. The clip also states, “Maybe it’s not surprising that the monthly income at Google is about the same as NASA’s annual budget.” I applaud NASA for having the courage to release this clip and encourage you to take a look at it. Perhaps there are lessons there that can help your company lower the barriers to innovation.
Related Articles
One of the major European postal services decided in the late 1990s to make a change in their plant maintenance organization. In my own U.S. Postal Service, there had been talk for years of combining the operations and maintenance supervision and reducing the supervisory ranks. It is easy to say, but how do you do it? Be careful of what you wish for!
One of the major European postal services decided in the late 1990s to make a change in their plant maintenance organization. In my own U.S. Postal Service, there had been talk for years of combining the operations and maintenance supervision and reducing the supervisory ranks. It is easy to say, but how do you do it? Be careful of what you wish for!
See More
The emergence of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) has given AI agents a standardized way to share context, understand intent, and collaborate across different tools and data environments. In essence, MCP is teaching machines how to talk — not just exchange data, but align on purpose.
The emergence of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) has given AI agents a standardized way to share context, understand intent, and collaborate across different tools and data environments. In essence, MCP is teaching machines how to talk — not just exchange data, but align on purpose.
See More
Big changes are happening in today’s workforce. These changes have nothing to do with downsizing, global competition, or stress; it is the problem of a distinct generation gap. Young people entering the workforce are of diversified background and have much different attitudes about work. They want a life‐work balance. They want to be led, not managed — and certainly not micro‐managed. The new mode is flexibility and informality. A large proportion of our managers of the veteran era have been trained in relatively autocratic and directive methods that don’t sit well with today’s employees. Are we preparing our workforce to meet tomorrow’s need?
Big changes are happening in today’s workforce. These changes have nothing to do with downsizing, global competition, or stress; it is the problem of a distinct generation gap. Young people entering the workforce are of diversified background and have much different attitudes about work. They want a life‐work balance. They want to be led, not managed — and certainly not micro‐managed. The new mode is flexibility and informality. A large proportion of our managers of the veteran era have been trained in relatively autocratic and directive methods that don’t sit well with today’s employees. Are we preparing our workforce to meet tomorrow’s need?
See More
So, it’s a manager’s job to keep an organization energized. To keep everyone moving onward and upward out of the ruts. To maintain that sense of urgency. To build a culture where people are concerned when things are just not happening the way they should be, or could be, and they go ahead and systematically do something about it. Energizing an organization is not an easy thing to do and crises, real or fabricated, and a push for immediate fixes are one way to do this.
So, it’s a manager’s job to keep an organization energized. To keep everyone moving onward and upward out of the ruts. To maintain that sense of urgency. To build a culture where people are concerned when things are just not happening the way they should be, or could be, and they go ahead and systematically do something about it. Energizing an organization is not an easy thing to do and crises, real or fabricated, and a push for immediate fixes are one way to do this.
See More
Many companies are beginning to search for and implement sophisticated maintenance and reliability (M&R) tools and technologies in hopes of finding the next best thing to help achieve operational excellence (OE). Terms, such as asset performance management (APM), predictive analytics, machine learning, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), the Cloud, connected plant, etc., are making their way into everything M&R. As game changing as these concepts can be, adopting advanced technologies without first addressing the basic fundamentals of M&R is like building the world’s finest home on a crumbling foundation.
Many companies are beginning to search for and implement sophisticated maintenance and reliability (M&R) tools and technologies in hopes of finding the next best thing to help achieve operational excellence (OE). Terms, such as asset performance management (APM), predictive analytics, machine learning, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), the Cloud, connected plant, etc., are making their way into everything M&R. As game changing as these concepts can be, adopting advanced technologies without first addressing the basic fundamentals of M&R is like building the world’s finest home on a crumbling foundation.
See More
