{"id":771013,"date":"2023-11-01T12:57:29","date_gmt":"2023-11-01T16:57:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=771013"},"modified":"2023-11-01T12:57:29","modified_gmt":"2023-11-01T16:57:29","slug":"six-rules-for-surviving-in-a-government-organization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=771013","title":{"rendered":"Six Rules for Surviving in a Government Organization"},"content":{"rendered":"
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8 min read<\/p>\n

Six Rules for Surviving in a Government Organization<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

An interview of Dr. Paul Hertz, a senior leader in the Science Mission Directorate<\/strong><\/p>\n

By: Anna Ladd McElhannon, Summer 2022 Intern, Office of the Chief Scientist<\/p>\n

Dr. Paul Hertz is a leader of NASA and had served as the Astrophysics Division Director since 2012 until 2022. Throughout his career, he remained a well\u2010respected and admired leader who accomplished things that an undergraduate physics student like me could only dream of.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

We met for the first time on a summer day full of sudden, fierce storms. On the way to a quiet meeting place (a video conference meeting, of course), the previously blue sky started pouring rain. I was surprised my laptop still worked when I finally came indoors. Paul, though, was sitting in his home office with a grin on his face, perfectly content to ignore my soaking shirt and dripping hair.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Considering what I had been told, his easygoing kindness and immediate friendliness was no surprise.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

We started by bonding over our shared love for all things astrophysics. His passion began during the Apollo missions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember John Glenn\u2019s flight, and I must have been in second grade. From that point on, I was following everything that happened.\u201d He would watch all the astronauts on TV, and he kept a scrapbook of any newspaper clippings he could find on the space program. \u201cI remember when Armstrong walked and, my parents used to let me stay home from school whenever the astronauts were walking on the Moon.\u201d<\/p>\n

His passion for space did not end there. With undergraduate degrees in math and physics from MIT, he proceeded to earn his Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard. Like most students going into the sciences, he assumed he would become a professor at a university. He realized, though, that professorship wasn\u2019t the life for him. \u201cI made a choice early on when I had young kids and a family, that I was going to have balance, and I wasn\u2019t going to be a world\u2010famous scientist.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a NASA intern interviewing the Paul Hertz, one of my newfound idols, I found this comment amusing. But the sentiment still stood. \u201cI made the choice not to be a professor but to stay as a government scientist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Somehow, though, he was able to become a famous scientist with a prestigious job and still feel satisfied with his personal life. Naturally, I asked him for advice on how to obtain this sort of balance without letting either side of one\u2019s life fall onto the backburner.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

He jumped at the opportunity to teach me these life lessons with a list of six rules he titled: How to Survive in a Government Organization.<\/p>\n

6. Train your successor<\/h2>\n

When he first told me this rule, I applied it to my life. At my university, there is a Society of Physics Students. Every few years or so, we have incredible leadership that wins awards and involves students all over campus. Then the next election rolls around, and all the hard work dissipates. Paul says, \u201cThere\u2019s all your institutional knowledge walking out the door every year.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTrain your successor\u201d immediately propelled me into planning mode: how can we incorporate a system at my school where the previous leaders sufficiently train their successors every year?<\/p>\n

Paul was happy about this application, but it wasn\u2019t what he originally intended by the rule.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I was thinking is that when people who are highly successful at their job start talking about getting another job, their boss says, \u2018Sorry, you can\u2019t go. I need you too badly.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

As someone who has never worked in a similar system, I was appalled. Fortunately, this has not yet happened to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been very successful in every job. I\u2019ve had people around me say, \u2018What are we going to do without you?\u2026 Nobody can replace you.\u2019 I hate hearing that nobody can replace you because it\u2019s patently untrue.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Sometimes it turns out that the answer to your research is uninteresting. You realize, oh my\u2010\u00a0there was no \u2018there\u2019 there.<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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5. Delegate<\/h2>\n

\u201cA lot of us competent people think that we can do it better than anybody else. And so we want to hold on to it and do it ourselves because we know it\u2019ll be done best\u2026 I used to do everything myself, and I was bad at teaming. You\u2019ll kill yourself that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the Director of Astrophysics at NASA, I assumed he would have to be the best of the best. Regardless, as he said before, there is always someone who could replace him. While this sounds a little sad, it can come as a relief to someone trying to find peace in their work life.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople like that want to do the part of their job that they could easily hand off. They are overworked and overwhelmed because they want to do it all themselves. They think they can probably do it better\u2014 but that\u2019s not the point.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Paul says, the point is to do your job efficiently and not perfectly.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0\u00a0Don\u2019t Make Work<\/h2>\n

\u201cA lot of times you get choices.\u201d He began, \u201cWe could do it this way or that way, and this way is a lot more work.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most bosses strive for perfection, but Paul understands how to balance perfection with importance. Asking, \u201cHow do I do it perfectly?\u201d can cause problems and lead to employees feeling overworked.<\/p>\n

[They say] \u2018I\u2019m just drowning.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

[I say] \u2018You only have three assignments. You\u2019re making too much work, you\u2019re not delegating, and it\u2019s taking twice as long. Don\u2019t do it this way.\u2019<\/p>\n

Paul believes that if you can make your project better by a small amount, but it takes twice the time, the extra mile just isn\u2019t worth it.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cIf it increased my chance of surviving surgery, then I would take that extra 10%.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re level of perfection is plateauing over time, as it inevitably will, just accept it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you insist on perfection\u2026 that\u2019s making work.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Don\u2019t break it<\/h2>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t break it\u201d was one of the first rules he came up with. It simply means \u201cdon\u2019t make it worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

It goes hand in hand with \u201cDon\u2019t make work.\u201d Sometimes people can be perfectionists to the point where it impacts their personal life, and sometimes it can impact their professional career as well. That is the secret to finding balance.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople feel overwhelmed because they\u2019re not practicing these rules\u2026 You keep them in mind and then you use them to help prioritize. You must have a feel for what\u2019s the most important thing and then for what\u2019s the most important thing to do very, very well.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Don\u2019t Take It Personally<\/h2>\n

\u201cYou should accept 90% of your projects are going to work.\u201d He asserts, \u201cYou should not expect it to always go right. And you should keep it in context when failure happens.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

That raises the question: what context?<\/p>\n

It is difficult to imagine someone as successful as Paul to go through failure. But he has had his fair share of rough times in his own research. \u201cSometimes it turns out that the answer to your research is uninteresting. You realize, oh my\u00a0\u2010there was no \u2018there\u2019 there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even when projects are cancelled, or someone else publishes their results before you can, your time isn\u2019t waisted. There is a certain magic that comes with conducting scientific research, and it makes even failed projects worth the time and effort. \u201cTo me, the excitement is the hunt. It\u2019s doing the research. It\u2019s collecting the data and analyzing it. It\u2019s looking for the signal that no one has ever seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2026if something goes wrong, I\u2019m going to hear about it. I want to hear about it from them\u2014I want to hear their view on it and I want us to solve it together.<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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1. Don\u2019t Surprise the Boss<\/h2>\n

\u201cSomebody probably told me this rule when I showed up at NASA. You can Google it and find out that it was a rule back in the Roman Empire\u2014or something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked how long he has considered himself a leader, he began at high school. \u201cEvery club that I joined, I ended up being president\u2026 I ended up being added to the yearbook. When I went to college, I was president of clubs. When I was a researcher, I put together collaborations to do research\u2026 I wasn\u2019t a supervisor or boss, but I was a leader; that\u2019s been true at all stops along my career.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the importance of the number one rule, Paul says it\u2019s important to be transparent so that issues can be solved quickly and efficiently. \u201cI don\u2019t want my team to sugarcoat things. I want them to tell me. If something goes wrong, I\u2019m going to hear about it from someone. But, I want to hear about it from them\u2014I want to hear their view on it, and I want us to solve it together.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n Click here for original story, Six Rules for Surviving in a Government Organization<\/a>
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\nSource: NASA Earth News <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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