How NASA Builds Teams: Mission Critical Soft Skills for Scientists, Engineers, and Project Teams

CHAPTER 14

People Need to Feel Included by You

 

 

 

This chapter is about what people next most need from you after feeling appreciated: feeling included (Figure 14.1).

FIGURE 14.1 Including, the Third of the Eight Behaviors

Personas and Authenticity

We routinely don masks and assume roles to get our needs met for feeling appreciated (loved) and feeling included by others. Psychologists call these “personas,” which is Latin for masks.

Do you put on an appearance that is different from your fully authentic self when you are in each of these contexts?

• Attend a football game with your buddies?

• Don a military uniform?

• Answer questions in a University oral examination?

• When you make your first briefing to top management?

These brief excursions into persona are as useful as putting on a jacket to go outside in the winter. Personas, however, limit us when we (unconsciously) adopt habituated personas (from childhood) that:

• Are rooted in fear/pain avoidance.

• Prevent us from interacting authentically with others.

A Troubled University President

When I first moved to Boulder, I was surprised to see local news dominating the front page of the Boulder newspaper, the Daily Camera. The newspaper was pummeling the university president, Judith Albino, day after day. Even in Washington, I had never seen anything quite like it. After watching this for a few weeks, I saw her dilemma as a ...