Powerconnect and the Optical Society Presentations

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Charlie Pellerin

I had two especially well received presentations (Download the Presentations in PowerPoint) during the past several days. The first was at a Powerconnect meeting in the Cisco facility in Palo Alto to Indian IT experts working in the US who graduated from the National Institutes of Technology.

The second was in Boulder, Colorado to the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Optics Society of America.

You will understand my presentation most easily if you have visited my web site at www.NASAteambuilding.com or read my book, How NASA Builds Teams (Wiley, 2009)

I believe that these talks were especially well received (on the advice of JJ)  because I began with very real emotional content. I described my experience of 25 years ago when I pulled into the NASA Headquarters to be met by a member of my staff who informed me that Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded, killing the entire crew. I wrenched with anxiety as I wondered whether my “low-cost Spartan payload” could have caused the accident. Of course, it did not.

I watched the testimony of the NASA managers who approved the launch, as I knew many of them well. I could not understand how they could have approved going ahead with a vehicle with ice all over it. Moreover, my hero, Richard Feynman’s demonstration of dipping an O-ring in his ice water and showing it stiffen, mesmerized me. My technically oriented mindset completely missed the point of the Rogers’ Commission report that the root cause was sociological. I would pay dearly for this oversight when I launched Hubble with a flawed mirror—with exactly the same root cause!

Please look at the slides and tell me what you think

Charlie Pellerin

Posted in 4-D Systems, Challenger Explosion, Hubble Space Telescope, Leadership, Project Management, Risk Management, World Economy | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Why I Sold All My Stocks

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Charlie Pellerin

Stocks (and fiat currencies) are “tertiary” forms of wealth with no value without primary and secondary wealth. Primary wealth is economically harvestable basic resources. Secondary wealth is product made from primary wealth, taken to markets and then sold.

More importantly, stocks have current value because of revenues they will generate with future growth. What are the prospects for future growth in the largest economy in the world?

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its latest Budget and Economic Outlook last week.  According to CBO, the fiscal condition of the United States has deteriorated since its last report issued in August.  Highlights of the new ten-year budget “baseline” include projections of:

  • A slower economic recovery;
  • An unprecedented deficit of $1.5 trillion for this fiscal year (FY), which, at 9.8 percent of the economy or gross domestic product (GDP), is only slightly below the post-World War II record of 10 percent recorded in FY 2009;
  • Compared to August, an increase in cumulative deficits over the 2011-2020 period of more than $1.4 trillion, assuming current laws are maintained. When likely changes to current law (extension of the tax cuts, maintenance of Medicare’s physician payment rates, and a phase-out of war spending) are assumed, cumulative deficits are projected to be more than $3 trillion higher;
  • Permanent cash flow deficits for Social Security;
  • A doubling of spending for health care programs over the decade; and
  • Interest costs that will equal non-defense discretionary spending in 2019.

Other highlights:

  • CBO expects unemployment to remain very high despite projected economic growth in 2011 driven by the tax cuts passed at the end of 2010.
  • CBO projects that federal health spending will continue to be one of the fastest-growing areas of federal spending, increasing at an average rate of 7 percent per year over the next decade. In contrast, over that same time, GDP is expected to grow at the rate of only 2.4 percent per year.
  • Medicaid’s growth is projected to be responsible for 40 percent of the growth of federal health spending over the next decade.
  • Medicare, which has historically grown faster than Medicaid, is projected in the baseline to be responsible for 30 percent of the growth of federal health spending.

You get the idea! (Data from the Peterson Foundation)

(Actually, I kept one stock, Silver Wheaton)

Charlie Pellerin, author of How NASA Builds Teams

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A Special Team Development Opportunity (No Kidding!)

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Charlie Pellerin

Are you a member of, or working with a team that would like to experience the full 4-D Team Development Assessment (TDA) process? As a special promotion, we are providing select teams the following for free.

  • A full Team Development Assessment (TDA) including preparation and set up by a 4-D Master Certified Coach
  • The TDA Report briefing to the team leader by the same Coach
  • Support to the team leader by the same Coach when they brief the team, if they want this support.
  • A 50-50 share in the cost of a copy of How NASA Builds Teams for each team member  Tell us when you order books (we recommend Amazon, $25) for half of your team members, and we will ship you the same number directly from Wiley free. Each participant needs a reference copy of How NASA Builds Teams to benefit fully from this and future assessments.

(The retail value of this offering is ~$2000.)

To request this, send an e-mail to Charlie@4-DSystems.com describing:

  • The name of the team and what they do
  • Who you are and your relationship to the team
  • Whether the team leader is willing to do his or her part, which is
  1. To participate in the set up and launch of the TDA
  2. To receive the TDA report briefing
  3. Brief the results to their team. and
  4. Model the assessed behaviors.
  • Please include any special reasons that this team should receive this extraordinary gift.
  • Note: We will only communicate directly with you and only on this matter. No one else will receive any other communications from us.

With warm regards, Charlie Pellerin, author of How NASA Builds Teams

Posted in 4-D Systems, Business success, Hubble Space Telescope, Leadership, Lean Development Program, Project Management, Risk Management, Workshops | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

4-D Network Member Communication 2’9’2011

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Charlie Pellerin

Big News on Multiple Fronts

Out third “Learning Tool” is now operational! We urge all Network Members to use these. Access the tools from  the “Learning and Resources” tab at www.NASAteambuilding.com.

Overview:

We now have 4-D Network Members using Team Development Assessments (TDAs) in English (many countries), Chinese (Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Mainland), Japanese, Korean, and French (Canada and France) with Vietnamese, German, Turkish, Russian, and Norwegian up soon. (Marilyn Atkinson is doing the latter four tranlsations, thank you.)

Charlie this Sunday in Palo Alto

I will present at a “Powerconnect” event at Cisco Systems this Sunday noon to four in the Cisco  week  that JJ stimulated. The event is open to the public. My contact is NIT Brand Ambassador Sridhar Muppala at sridhar89@hotmail.com.

Charlie at the University of Colorado Thursday, Feb. 17

I am speaking to the Rocky Mountain Section of the Optical Society of America (RMOSA) at 7:30 PM. The meeting is in Koelbel Building, Leeds Business School at Q20 on the CU campus map. It is open to the public as far as I know. My contact is Alex Hartwit (aharwit@ball.com), son of the world-renowned scientist, Martin Harwit.

Charlie in Japan last week of April:

Global Coaching Conference, date: 4/25/2011, time: 15:00-18:00

15:00~16:30 Ed Modell -ICF Chairman　Organizational Activation and Employee Development by using coaching

16:30-17:15　Dr. Charlie Pellerin-How NASA build teams

17:15-18:00　Ms. Tachibana Fukushima Sakie-Korn/ferry

Coaching Social Forum 19:00-21:00

Upcoming Publications:

Space News has accepted my Op-ed “Learning from Challenger and Hubble” and will publish it soon.

Susan at IEEE:

4-D Coach Susan Shapiro sent this: Charlie and Skip, I have been asked to speak at an IEEE engineering manager’s meeting in February in Dallas. The group will be mainly technical managers and some individual contributors in the technology field. 4-D is my platform and I will pull the best slides together from your materials. I hope to get some interested parties who want to learn more about 4-D as a result.

HNBT (English):

My editor, Richard Narramore told me today that we have broken through 10,000 hard copy sales. He is willing to consider publishing a second edition, soon! My agent, Doris Michaels will make the arrangements.

Recent Presentations by Charlie:

Hugh recently arranged for me to spend an enjoyable afternoon with a group of “hi-pots” at L 3 Communications in Greenville, Texas.

I gave a talk at the Training 2011 conference in San Diego yesterday. Go to our website and click on the Blog to view the slides. (If you are at the Blog, just scroll down to “The Leanest and Most Effective Team and Leader Development Processes in Existence.”)

India:

JJ reported that stocks for ‘How NASA Builds Team’ are now in India. Times Book Group is spreading the book through their network in all major cities. This is a special low-cost version that Wiley permitted.

HNBT Indian reprint available on Flipkart.com, most popular online store in India. http://www.flipkart.com/nasa-builds-teams-pellerin-charles-book-8126529539

Vietnam:

Thanks Charlie, I am implementing your ideas with my team first (eating my own dog food so to speak).  If I can crack the code with my team my plan is to introduce it to my clients.  My main business here is executive search and selection of Vietnamese manager and professionals into middle/senior roles with our clients who are 70% foreign companies. It would be great to meet you.  If you are ever in the region (Singapore, KL etc.) let me know, Regards Tom Voyers, General Director, HR2B / Talent Recruitment JSC tom.vovers@hr2b.com or 1@hr2b.com

Japan:

Achievement Publishing is moving rapidly forward in Japan! I recently received this e-mail from Achievement’s President (and my good friend, Aoki-san)

Dear Mr. Pellerin, I am truly glad to get to know this 4-D system. I promise you to bring great success on this project, including the process of Japanese translation, I think now we are ready to selling. From this point, we will do marketing to big companies and government. We changed the direction for this project. Now, Eiro Sato who is the director of Achievement, Corp. (Charlie note: and a Master Certified Coach) is in charge of this project. We believe that this project should be our high priority and something that we need to invest in.

I arranged for my assistant, Tsukasa Dakeshita who graduated from Azusa Pacific University and has a master on HROD, to be his assistant to carry on this project. (Charlie note: She has an undergrad and advanced degree from a university in California. We have been working with Tsukasa, and she is wonderful!) Our company has 100 employees and we have great members from sales department. I am looking forward meeting you in the spring.

Blessings, Satoshi Aoki, President of Achievement Corp.

Arlington County, Virginia (USA):

Wow! What exciting events and schedule!!! My colleagues, Angela Churchill and Susan Barrett have had an amazing first round of 4 D inside our local County Government (Arlington VA) Office of Human Services. The “word on the street” is TRANSFORMATIVE , even in the early stages. We are introducing the concepts to the Economic Development Team next week. Rock on, Sandy Brody

Texas Instruments:

Charlie, I feel like a kid right now. Attached are the results of the TI (ABC) team’s second TDA and they went from 63 to 76!!!!! This is better than expected as I have only gone over the Appreciation and Shared Interests sections with them. But the team is experiencing a surge of good will and excitement about bettering themselves. I have been pressing them on specific Action Items and they have taken the bit in their mouth and run with it. Its all good and should lead to our goal of making 4-D a institutionalized process for Texas Instruments teams. The next step is to put an analysis together for the TI Leadership Team and HR. I will keep you appraised as we progressed. This is what I need to show L3 and Raytheon; real progress and numbers to support the 4-D process in commercial high tech industries. Thanks so very much, Hugh Wilson.

China and Korea

Hi Charlie and Anne, Thank you so much for sharing wonderful ideas! Now my 4d teams and coaches are doing many marketing stuff in China now. My staff with Amy is helping NASA book publishing process and national promotional event together with Chinese publisher now. I am introducing this book to major MBA and government leaders in china. I did some 4D AD for National Training Magazine in China too

In Korea, I teach 4D at PM Korea leaders at Seoul National University (#1 university in Korea) few times. In Asia, it will take a lot of time to go to government and top leadership. Please let me know future 4 D-workshop events, I like to join too Now I am having family vocation in Orlando, FL

With grateful heart,

Paul Jeong

Wiley Training Sales:

(This was in an old e-mail that I came across)

“Charlie, I want to tell you that I just received a big promotion. After I participated in your workshop as an observer, I applied what I learned at the office, especially in how we worked with other companies. Everyone noticed the change, most especially my boss. When people asked me about my new behaviors, I handed them a copy of your book saying, read this—it actually works.”

—Jeff Parker, Senior Sales Representative, John Wiley and Sons

France:

Five plant managers and other senior officials from EDF arrive in California this weekend to begin a tour of four NASA centers to discuss common interests and 4-D Teambuilding. Christian and Anne are accompanying them. Our excellent CPMs arranged events at JPL, Glenn, JSC and Goddard.

New Events for Charlie (and Anne) in South America:

-          Speech at Coaches Conference in Sao Paulo – June 28 – Contact Maria Angelica maria.angelica@ecosocial.com.br

-          PMI Workshop in Rio – June 29 and PMI Keynote address – July 1 My contact is Edivaldo Zava  e.zava@optionbrasil.com.br for all Rio PMI activities

-          Uruguay workshop – TBD date (see below) contact Roberto Tento rtalentolane@gmail.com for information

Hi Charlie, I’ve started my contacts with companies here in Uruguay. In this instance I’m proposing these companies to give an sponsorship to the event. I would like to share my thoughts (and numbers!) with you. I would like to propose a “sponsorship package” that includes:

-          At least 10 seats at the 1 Day Workshop

-          2 participants at a “VIP” session with you. This session could be in the form of a dinner or a 2 hours meeting.

-          Some kind of Publicity. For example you could be to allow the companies to advertise they are sponsoring the event and give them permission to take a photo with you, so they can use it as publicity with their customers.

The first reactions to my contact have been positive. It is likely that in the next couple of weeks I will have meetings with them to go into the details. I would like to have your OK before proceeding to negotiations.

Last but not least, let me introduce Guillermo Talento to you. Guillermo, to whom I am copying this mail, will be organizing the event with me.

Warm regards,

Roberto Talento – If you are in Uruguay, contact Roberto at rtalentolane@gmail.com

South Africa:

Bruce Rodrigues (Human Systems International) has “come alive” and is using the Learning Tools. Great to see you engaging, Bruce!

With deepest respect, Charlie Pellerin author of How NASA Builds Teams

Posted in 4-D Systems, Business success, Challenger Explosion, Hubble Space Telescope, Leadership, Lean Development Program, Profitability, Project Management, Rio PMI, Risk Management, Sao Paulo Coaches, Uruguay Workshop, Workshops | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Leanest and Most Effective Team and Individual Development Processes in Existence

Posted on February 8, 2011 by Charlie Pellerin

The Leanest and Most Effective Team and Individual Development Processes in Existence is a presentation I gave at the Training 2011 Conference yesterday – the slide notes should help you understand the slides. I selected the title because the claim, to the best of my knowledge, is true.

Charlie Pellerin

Author of How NASA Builds Teams

Posted in 4-D Systems, Business success, Hubble Space Telescope, Leadership, Profitability, Project Management, Risk Management | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I’ve Read Some Shocking Things, But…

Posted on February 5, 2011 by Charlie Pellerin

I routinely read Chris Martenson’s daily blogs, and this tops anything i have seen yet. This is so outrageous that only months ago, I would have trashed it. As a physicist, I am trained to examine evidence as it matches with observed fact. I am growing ever more convinced that what she says is reality. Look at your peril at this Catherine Austin Fitts link.

Posted in Investment Strategy, Macro-economics, US Economy, World Economy | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Eliminating Future Challenger Explosions

Posted on January 29, 2011 by Charlie Pellerin

Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of the tragic explosion of Space Shuttle Challenger. As NASA’s Director, Astrophysics I was, of course, shocked to hear about the Challenger accident. I had a “Spartan-Halley” payload on Challenger and for a time worried whether my low-cost satellite could have somehow caused the accident. Of course, the small satellite had nothing to with the explosion. I followed the failure investigation very closely watching the testimony of my colleagues on television, and then studying the Rogers Commission report. The human mind is interesting. The central finding that the root cause was “social” rather than technical did not register at that time. I soon paid heavily for this oversight.

In 1990, I was responsible for launching Hubble Space Telescope with a flawed mirror. After mounting the mission to repair Hubble, I began to study the causes of accidents and mishaps. To my chagrin, I discovered, long after the fact, that the same “flawed social contexts” that caused the Challenger accident caused the Hubble mirror flaw! In 1995, I left the University of Colorado’s business school and began experimenting within aerospace companies with tools to manage project risk by managing “team social context.”

The real breakthrough in accident prevention and team performance enhancement came in 2002 with an initiative by Dr. Ed Hoffman, NASA’s Director of the Academy for Program/Project and Engineering Leadership (APPEL). NASA formed the APPEL after the Challenger accident to reduce the risk of future flight failures. Dr. Hoffman decided to apply the full suite of “4-D” social context management tools to NASA project teams. As president of “4-D Systems,” we have since engaged 700+ NASA teams in performance enhancement and risk mitigation.

I named this piece with a very provocative title, “Eliminating Future Challenger Explosions.” Much of what I know about Challenger, beyond what I described above comes from Diane Vaughn’s book, “The Challenger Launch Decision,” which persuasively (at least for me) argues that the tragedy had sociological factors as root cause. She named, for example, the phenomenon, “normalization of deviance” as a root cause of the accident. I was Hubble’s Program Director for eight years before it launched with the flawed mirror and for two years after. Dr Hoffman and I are clear that the APPEL 4-D Team Development Assessment (TDA) would have benchmarked teams from both Challenger and Hubble in the bottom quintile. Moreover, these “team social contexts” created the distorted perceptions and toxic behaviors that caused both incidents. Finally, it is clear that if we had the APPEL 4-D processes then that we have today, with team leaders willing to use them, that we could have dramatically reduced the likelihood of these tragic events.

Future Challenger-like explosions are unlikely as the Space Shuttle program is ending. This blog is actually about enhancing performance and reducing risk in professional/technical teams of all sorts. We assert is that our “4-D” processes significantly reduce the probability of mishaps (and overruns) at costs that are minuscule in comparison with the salary costs of the teams that use them. I explain these processes in detail in my book, “How NASA Builds Teams” (Wiley, 2009) and on my website www.NASAteambuilding.com.

Posted in 4-D Systems, Business success, Hubble Space Telescope, Leadership, Lean Development Program, Project Management, Risk Management | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why I Blog about Scary Futures

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Charlie Pellerin

While the response my Blogs about preparation for massive and unpleasant change has been overwhelmingly positive, I received one critical e-mail from a 4-D client. He referred to my blogs as “bizarre” and “survivalist.” I thought I might tell you why I write this kind of blog rather than on the topic of my business, which is leadership and teambuilding.

When I was in my 20′s I read an article in Physics Today about the massive disconnect between human perception of risk and the reality of risk. The subject has fascinated me ever since. Technical teams thoroughly address “hard-side” when the cause of failures is consistently “soft-side” risk. This is the core of the risk management philosophy underlying 4-D systems.

I took the inquiry about risk into my personal life. What are the risks that I should mitigate? Many people in the US, for example, are obsessed with the risk of terrorism. I believe this is a misplaced assessment of risk. Other countries, such as Japan and Australia see much greater risk in a bird flu epidemic. Did you notice the US government’s response to the recent swine flu scare? Every official from President Obama on down, named the first three standard actions to deal with flu epidemics. They all deliberately omitted the fourth, which is to stock enough food and water to be able to stay in your house for weeks at a time. I think it is obvious why they omitted this action. Had they given this advice, panic would have been widespread as the average city only has three days worth of food available. I have prepared for flu epidemic for many years. Then, I had a real wake-up call.

In September 2008, I had essentially my entire life savings including my IRAs in a hedge fund in Boulder that was “safer than T-Bills.” I became concerned about the concentration, despite the funds’ managers, whom I knew well, constant reassurances that I had adequate diversification within the fund. I gave the required thirty days notice for major withdrawal scheduled for September 30. On September 28, the fund collapsed, and I lost everything.  This was an important event for me. What had been previously inconceivable had actually happened.

When I described this to a close friend, he urged me to watch Chris Martenson’s Crash Course (free, on-line) to see why losing this money might not matter as much as I thought. Chris’s slogan is “The next 20 years are going to look nothing like the past 20 years.” His basic argument is that the economic system requires constant (exponential) growth, and we are running up against resource shortages in a finite world. Human nature prevents the actions required to mitigate even imminent crises in (at least) three ways:

1.    We tend to predict the future by extrapolating the past. This simply does not work as we encounter resources limitations, such as peak cheap oil.

2.    We do not take action when crises develop slowly. The invasion of Pearl Harbor is a good example as a Japanese attack was predictable; and

3.    We, particularly at the political level, do not easily invest money now to mitigate future difficulties.

I care about people and have used the blog and conversations to motivate people to take some simple steps to protect their families, while they still can, from bird-flu and economic meltdown.

Moreover, the only way I see to mitigate these risks is by enhancing the performance of technical teams worldwide. 4-D processes are spreading rapidly with everything free to entities that have no capacity to pay. Moreover, I am providing free services to cash-poor local government and non-profit entities.

In any case, I will not blog much more on this topic as I have little more to say. Moreover, I believe the window for action is closing—I have found some of my recommended items are now backordered.

Technical experimentation with how to live off the grid remains a fun hobby for me (it is about the only thing I do except travel and 4-D development work). If I find anything remarkable, I will post it to the Blog.

Here are a few of the on-line sources I read and listen to, FYI:

-         Financial Sense – Jim Puplava interviews a broad spectrum of financial managers

-         King World News – Eric King interviews financial stars with a bit of a gold-bug emphasis

-         Powers Energy Investor – Bill Powers rates Oil and Gas “Junior” companies

-         Elliott Wave – Bob Prechter – if you are gloom adverse, skip this one

-         J. A. Gould World – articles and videos

Some highly recommended books

-         Economy – “The Postcatastrophe Economy” – A prescription for American economic revitalization by Eric Janszen

-         Environment – “Storms of My Grandchildren” – The first model independent analysis I have seem by NASA scientist Jim Hansen

-         Energy – “Beyond Smoke and Mirrors – Physics Nobel Laureate Burton Richter simplifies energy

-         Social context management – “How NASA Builds Teams” – My book on managing social context for life leadership effectiveness

Posted in 4-D Systems, Investment Strategy, Leadership, Macro-economics, Risk Management, US Economy, World Economy | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

4-D Network Members and Friends

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Charlie Pellerin

A lot of time has passed since in communicated with you. I have been waiting for the launch of our “Learning Tool” which, like all things that involve software, has taken longer than we thought. It provides an easy way to learn first, an overview, and then instructions on how to use our “New Client PowerPoint Briefing.”  To try it out, go to www.NASAteambuilding.com, click “The 4-D Network” tab and then the link, “Register and start…” For more news, check out my Blog on the first page of the same web site.

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The Most Important Investment Question

Posted on January 20, 2011 by Charlie Pellerin

Should you buy assets that benefit from:

1. Money printing (“quantitative easing”) such as gold, silver, and resource stocks, or

2. From GDP growth such as stocks, rental properties and other historical investments.

What do you think?

Posted in Macro-economics, Profitability | Tagged | Leave a comment