Why NASA’s Top 3 Personality Traits Also Apply to Companies

Let’s do a thought exercise. Imagine that you were selected by NASA to be part of an experiment designed to simulate a four-month mission on Mars. The objective of the experiment is to study what actual life on Mars would be like, physically and psychologically, under tightly controlled conditions, with a small group of people together constantly in close quarters. NASA has predetermined a number of key factors that would help ensure the success of the experiment (and, by extension, of the imaginary mission). One of those key factors is how well the crew can get along and work with each other because every space mission requires close cooperation between the crew. It doesn’t matter if every other factor is in place if the crew can’t be effective together, especially considering how costly even tiny mistakes can be.

Considering the delicate nature of space missions, what do you think NASA would consider to be the three most important personality traits for anyone who gets chosen to be part of the crew? Before continuing to the next section, take a moment to think to come up with your guesses for what the correct answers would be.

Having Crew Members You Can Rely On

Before I reveal the answer, you should know that such an experiment was actually carried out by NASA in 2013 (and numerous times subsequently). It was called the Hawai’i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, or HI-SEAS. To recreate the living conditions of a long-term mission on Mars as authentically as possible, NASA and Pacific Domes built a 44-foot geodesic dome that would serve as a temporary home for the team of six crew members. To go outside of the dome to explore the vast, Mars-like terrain of Mauna Loa which surrounded the dome, they had to wear “space suits” and were not allowed to leave the experiment area unless they wanted to withdraw from the project permanently. In a real-life mission on Mars, such an option to abandon the mission wouldn’t be possible, so you can see why NASA would have wanted to pick crew members who could stick it out to the end.

So, then, coming back to the question of the three most important personality traits, did you come up with your guesses? If one of your guesses was “intelligence,” that’s a nice guess but remember that intelligence is a basic trait for any aspiring astronaut and without it you can’t even become an astronaut in the first place. But just because you’re an astronaut doesn’t mean you get to be on a four-month mission to Mars. That requires something more. It requires the following three traits:

• A thick skin
• A long fuse
• An optimistic outlook

Just to make sure everyone is familiar with the slang terms, having “thick skin” means having the ability to resist getting hurt, upset, or offended by things that people say or do. Having a “long fuse” is similar but more specific in that it’s the ability to not lose one’s temper quickly or easily. Why are these traits important? Because people have a tendency to say or do whatever they feel like in the moment, and there are surely many opportunities for saying harsh words in a high-stress environment such as a space station where there is literally no escape. Strong negative emotions such as anger have also been shown to reduce decision-making ability, and given the high stakes of a space mission, imagine how risky it would be to have high-strung or hot-tempered people in the crew.

Next, why would an optimistic outlook be important? For the same reason that a space mission presents crew members with plenty of opportunities to get angry or frustrated. To be able to see a high-stress situation or environment through to the end, an individual needs to be able to interpret the experience positively. They need to believe that the mission can succeed, for example, and they need to be able to bounce back from the difficulties, setbacks, and frustrations along the way. This is called resilience and research shows that optimism increases resilience.

A Metaphor for the Workplace

While living for months in a confined space station on Mars may seem like a literally far-out situation, the truth is it can be a metaphor for organizational life. While not necessarily as small as NASA’s geodesic dome, organizations are also confined spaces where you’re often stuck with the same people every day, where mistakes can be costly, and where stress can create opportunities to say harsh words. The same goes for our own homes, especially during the pandemic, when people have spent more time indoors than ever before. And so organizational life is another situation where a thick skin, long fuse, and optimistic outlook would be beneficial.

The problem is that there are many aspects of the modern world that practically train us to have thin skin, short fuses, and pessimistic outlooks. Social media is one of the most powerful and insidious aspects because the algorithms that power them are literally designed to reward people to express more outrage. And because of the way these algorithms manipulate the reward systems of our brains, even people who start out with moderate outlooks may, over time, be conditioned to become more easily offended and express outrage more often. At their worst, these platforms contribute towards the mutual otherizing and dehumanizing of different groups of people which, as I’ve argued on this blog, is the death of persuasion. On top of all this, the news media relentlessly reports negative events which can distort our perception of the world and make us more negative and pessimistic.

None of this means that we have to stop using social media or consuming news, but we should be aware of these potential dangers and try to protect ourselves from them.

What Life as an Astronaut Can Teach Us

In my very first post on this blog, I wrote about Robert Cialdini’s seven principles of persuasion, and one of these was the principle of likeability. Likeability itself has five sub-components of which the three most relevant here are similarity, compliments, and cooperation. Which personality profile do you think would be more likely to find commonalities among people (similarity), say nice things (compliment), and work harmoniously with others (cooperation)? The person who is thin-skinned, short-fused, and has a pessimistic outlook, or the person who is thick-skinned, long-fused, and has an optimistic outlook? Obviously, it’s the latter.

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In other words, the top three personality traits needed to be part of a successful mission to Mars are the same traits you need to be a more likable and, therefore, a more persuasive and influential member of your organization. Conversely, people with the opposite of these three traits are more likely to focus on the differences between people instead of the similarities, to criticize them instead of compliment them, and to sow conflict instead of cooperation. They’re also more likely to forget the most important mantra for good communication and to make mistakes that squander their power. As a result, they are less likable and therefore less influential and persuasive.

I started this post with a thought exercise, and I’ll end with one. The next time you go to work, remotely or in person, imagine that you’re a crew member of a colony on Mars. Remember that the success of the colony depends on your ability to get along and work effectively with the crew. Remember also that bad decisions can be costly, and that this emphasizes the need to minimize unnecessary conflict because conflict can trigger negative emotions, which can lead to bad decisions. Finally, imagine that you’re an expert in your field and that your expertise is important to the mission’s success. You therefore need to apply Cialdini’s principle of likeability because if the crew doesn’t like you, they’re less likely to listen to you, and for the mission to succeed they need to listen to you.

What all this means is that “NASA” (i.e., your organization) needs you to have a thick skin, a long fuse, and an optimistic outlook. And if you don’t have these traits then you’d better cultivate them lest “mission control” (i.e., management) decides to pull you from the mission.

Craig Barkacs, professor of business law and ethics in the Master’s in Executive Leadership and MBA Programs at the Knauss School of Business at the University of San Diego.