Are you failing or learning? – a tail of two rockets

A huge kudos goes out to Relativity Space , who successfully launched Terran 1, the World’s first 3D printed rocket last week. 

Now I think I’m someone who likes a challenge, but honestly, over 80% of the parts of Terran 1 were printed and, when I reflect on the brittle, low melting temperature rapid prototypes I worked with as a young engineer, it’s amazing to see how far technology has come.

Just a few weeks earlier, Virgin Orbit attempted a similarly pioneering technology, by launching their rocket Launch 1 on the back of a converted passenger jet, Cosmic girl.

What interested me most though, was Relativity Space’s reaction to failure compared to Virgin Orbit’s. 

Though both team’s initial launch stages were successful, neither rocket made it all the way into orbit as planned. Virgin Orbit unfortunately filed for bankruptcy this week whilst, according to Wikipedia, Relativity Space has a very healthy order book.

Amy C. Edmondson offers some excellent insights in here Harvard Business Review article Strategies for Learning from Failure

As many of us have experienced first hand, Amy confirms “learning from organizational failures is anything but straightforward… <and> …organizations that do it well are extraordinarily rare… … The job of leaders is to see that their organizations don’t just move on after a failure but stop to dig in and discover the wisdom contained in it.“

Amy also challenges the common myth that a no-blame culture is essential in a productive learning culture. On the contrary she claims “Paradoxically, people feel psychologically safer when leaders are clear about what acts are blameworthy.“ and she offers a Blameworthy to Praiseworthy Scale, where things like repeatedly ignoring simple, important procedures are blameworthy, whilst failed Research and Development tests are praiseworthy.

Having worked on many projects with huge impact and a high risk of failing over the years, such as the development of jet engines and manufacture of airplanes, this scale should not be underestimated. 

Amy’s article speaks a lot about “leaders” and their attitude to blame. If I have one critique, it’s that Leaders are also humans and though they carry the responsibility for success, it’s teamwork which makes the dream work.

We must understand that the next generation of leaders are challenged, not only by lack of experience, but also by a significant shift in the way teams and individuals want to interact. 

Putting all the ownness on “the manager” whoever that might be is per se pointing fingers. Teams are no longer defined as subordinates who do things for others. In today’s working culture, teams who excel are groups who mutually complement each other and work productively towards a common purpose and/or goal.

So, maybe there is something we can learn by how Relativity Space and Virgin Orbit initially reacted to their interrupted first attempt to launch?

Quoting the immediate responses of Relativity Space’ Chief of Staff for Vehicle Architecture and Tech, Raichelle Aniceto and Technical Programme Manager, Arwa Tizani Kelly, who were smiling from ear to ear… 

“Maiden launches are always exciting, and today’s flight was no exception. Although we didn’t reach orbit, we significantly exceeded our key Objectives for this first launch, and that objective was to gather data at max q <a significant aerodynamic milestone>, one of the most demanding phases of flight, and achieve stage separation. 

Today’s flight data will be invaluable to our team as we further improve our rockets…

...no one’s ever attempted to launch a 3D printed rocket into orbit, and though we didn’t make it all the way today, we gathered enough data to show that flying 3D printed rockets is possible”

Compare this the Launch 1 experience, where things also started off well “it looks to be a perfect ignition”, but the next phase of launch failed and their reporter informed us “It appears that Launch 1 has suffered an anomaly, which will prevent us from making orbit for this mission”

Now we all know how hard it can be to miss a target, especially when it’s a biggie, so the reaction of one of Virgin Orbit’s team is understandable. There were reports of tears and, in the words of one team member, it was “Awful. I’m not going to lie – it’s gutting” 

Hat’s off too to their CEO, Dan Hart, who’s immediate response was to comfort his team. In his words “The team did a phenomenal job, but we had an issue and were going to find out what went wrong, and we are going to fix it” Its an honorable thing to do, but the underlying message was connected to the people and not the data.

Both these teams have tried to make the impossible possible and both partly succeeded on their mission, whilst I have never launched a rocket.

So it’s not for me to judge their efforts or simplify long stories of success and failure into a few quotes in emotional moments, but I do think we can all learn something from Relativity Space positive attitude, data-driven approach and learning culture.

Can’t wait to see how successful the next launch of Terran R will be!