Daily Lessons from Life 29 December 2010 - Medvedev fires space chiefs after satellite launch failure

"Medvedev fires space chiefs after satellite launch failure - Wed, Dec 29, 2010 AFP

MOSCOW - President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday fired two top space officials and reprimanded the space agency chief after a launch failure caused Russia to delay the deployment of its own navigation system.

This month's failed launch of three Glonass-M orbiters marked a humiliating setback to the country's efforts to introduce a global rival to the US Global Positioning System (GPS).

A presidential statement said Energia Vice President Vyacheslav Filin and Roskosmos deputy head Viktor Remishevsky had been fired for 'the mistakes made in the fuel calculations'."

Cultural difference is my topic today actually. On top of this report, there was also a report about frayed passengers beating up airport personnel due to delay in flights caused by the heavy snow storms in Moscow, Russia.

Some cultures are more tolerant of failures while some are not. Or to be more precise, all cultures tolerate failuers except some people within their culture may react or respond stronger to failure than their fellow country folks!

Lessons for me are:

1. when failure occurred and it was taken as a personal and emotional thing negatively, strong actions are normally taken to take down the people responsible without investigating the true root causes of the failure. Why? Decisive actions need to be seen to have been taken by the leadership. If everyone understand this rule before they come into the game, fine and well. If not, it will frighten those that come after the initial batch and you will have 'sit-on-my-hands-until-I-have-no-choice-but-to-make-a-decision' type. Afterall, you cannot fail if you do nothing! (mostly);

2. when failure occurred and it was looked at in a rational and totally unemotional manner, the logic and analysis for the possible root causes can be worked out so that remedial actions can be taken to prevent recurrence. At the same time, responsibility for the impact, especially the negative one, has to be shouldered by the people responsible - overall and specific issues. This will be a more balance approach and will NOT discourage others from trying and doing and taking risks to perform challenging tasks;

3. in whatever culture, if the leader is clear about what consequence on the future takers of challenges he or she wants, he or she will choose option 1 and option 2 accordingly!

Choose wisely. Emotional is not for solving problems. Reigned in your emotional so that rationality can work its magic properly! Be alert. Be aware.