A Line in the Sand

(originally published at www.opennasa.com)

I recently had a conversation with a friend about blogging. She said, “I would never blog—I’m worried enough about my words coming back to haunt me through email, let alone captured for the world to see through a blog.”

I told her how I was trying to learn the ropes of blogging (though I’m terribly infrequent about it, I know) and that I try to put at least some conscious thought into the words I use in any communication, including emails and even my post-it notes, which are carefully edited, often crumpled up and re-written to cram all the details I’m trying to convey on that tiny neon green sheet of paper before being applied to a coworker’s monitor in an attention-grabbing location. But, at the end of the day, I’m ok with my words running free, even through the abyss of the Internet.

Yes. These words, too.

I then went on to say, “then again, maybe I just don’t know any better.”

Well, that one’s almost certainly true. Maybe if I knew what I was doing, I wouldn’t leave such an electronic fingerprint on the Internet for all to see 30 or 40 years from now when I’m accepting the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing all nations of the world together to agree on an international ban on paperclips or something. But it doesn’t change the feeling I have that the principle of standing behind your words and taking ownership of them is an important one, and I think one that also resonates closely with the foundations of engineering judgment we depend on so much here at NASA.

To me, learning how to not be afraid of words offers a parallel lesson to learning how to stick behind a technical engineering position on an issue. When it comes down to making any engineering decision, from one that could affect the lives of astronauts and potentially the fate of our nation’s space exploration program to a decision on changing a routine hardware inspection, the bottom line is simple: you’d better know your stuff and have confidence in knowing your stuff, too. Because the alternative is living with the knowledge that you could have done something different, something more. The tough line to find (though probably the most important I’ve seen in my brief career as an engineer) is the one drawn in the sand between being excessively cautious in the name of safety and mission success and knowing when to stand confidently behind a technical position and then move on, because space exploration is inherently risky and we wouldn’t go anywhere if we didn’t know when and where to make that stand.

I don’t mean to say that being excessively cautious is a bad thing. But there has to be a point where you press forward and accept a certain amount of risk in this business.

I draw the parallel to blogging because there are stories and lessons and insights at NASA that need to be told, yet I see an underlying fear that expressing them will somehow overly expose people to labeling, criticism, blame, and liability. While today’s age brings more ways to make a fool of yourself everyday, should that mean that we shy away from sharing anything, out of fear that our words, ideas, and stories might do more harm than good? Doesn’t NASA stand for pushing the limits of exploration? Don’t we bother with exploring in the first place because we believe at some level in that spirit of taking risks?

Maybe there’s a similar fear that handcuffs the technical development of engineers here. While I never want to explain a mistake in engineering judgment with “maybe I just didn’t know any better,” I think it’s important to constantly and actively seek out that line of acceptable risk and learn from mistakes along the way so that when it comes down to a decision of ultimate consequences, you may stand confidently behind your words, whether they come in the form of a speech, hallway conversation, email, blog post, or a tiny, neon green post-it note.