On Culture and Leadership, by Douglas Kruger

  • Guernsey

Author:  Douglas Kruger

Short Description

On Culture and Leadership, WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE SAFER THAN A RIGID RULE…? Can debate produce greater safety than rules? Isn’t the iron-clad rule a surer safeguard against disaster? We tend to think of organisations like NASA as having more or less the same basic character despite the passage of years. But it’s not necessarily […]

On Culture and Leadership, WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE SAFER THAN A RIGID RULE…?

Can debate produce greater safety than rules? Isn’t the iron-clad rule a surer safeguard against disaster?

We tend to think of organisations like NASA as having more or less the same basic character despite the passage of years. But it’s not necessarily so. All organisations accumulate rules over time, and when left unchecked, these rules can fundamentally alter the nature of any organisation.

When NASA faced two separate, well-known challenges, their culture at each stage was very different.

In 1970, Apollo 13 was two days into its mission. While the astronauts on board hurtled towards the moon at 2 000 miles per hour, an explosion knocked out one of their oxygen tanks, leading Commander James Lovell to utter the now iconic statement, ‘Houston, we have a problem.’

The ensuing creative scramble to get the astronauts safely home is the stuff of legend. Just about everything that could go wrong did.

The creative trial and experimentation that went into rescuing the astronauts was formidable. New procedures were made up back on earth, then quickly tested in the simulator, then relayed to the astronauts 200 000 miles away, almost in real-time.

Yet through this process of creative trial and experimentation, of collaborative interdisciplinary debate, one by one the issues were resolved, and, ultimately, the crew was brought home safely.

On Culture and Leadership, by Douglas Kruger

…And here’s why:

At this point in time, NASA’s culture was ruled by imaginative debate. It was an exploratory culture, an experimenting culture, a culture based on learning and evolution, in which, every day, every new exercise and every new thing learnt was prodded and handed around like a toddler in a mommies’ group.

Even though the mission essentially failed, NASA nevertheless classified it as a ‘successful failure’, because of the experience gained and lessons learnt while rescuing the crew.

The alternative

By contrast, at the time of the Columbia disaster of 2003, the culture of experimentation had given way to one of formalised rules, regimented procedures and rigid hierarchy. One could argue that NASA had stopped being a learning organisation. It had become a bureaucracy instead.

As Columbia re-entered the earth’s atmosphere, a large piece of foam fell from the shuttle’s external tank and broke the wing of the spacecraft. First, atmospheric gasses entered the cabin, then the shuttle itself broke into pieces.

NASA recovered 84 000 pieces from a debris field of over 2 000 square miles.

The investigation into the disaster was exhaustive. Besides the physical cause of the accident, investigators made some damning remarks about the culture that led to the problem. Reliance on past success had become a substitute for true learning.

During a post-launch review, a group of engineers actually saw this foam dislodge from the rocket. They tried to pass on this information, and voiced their concern about it.

NASA’s management, which by this stage liked to manage everything ‘by the rules’, had seen dislodged foam before, and, according to their institutionalised perceptions, deemed it to be unimportant.

The engineers tried to argue that it seemed like a lot more foam than usual. It was a qualitative argument, based on human insight and intelligence. But NASA was unable to listen. The set-in-stone norms had it that dislodging foam was a known quantity, and the voices of the engineers went unheeded.

NASA by this stage was so bound in rules and procedures that, in important ways, it had ceased to be a learning, experimenting culture. Now it was an unheeding, process-following one. And that made it incapable of hearing an idea, to its great detriment.

Situational awareness:

The best and most agile organisations are not run by rigid rules. Instead, they favour imaginative debate. Encouraging imaginative debate allows situational awareness to pass up and down the chain of command. It promotes the opportunity to see innovation possibilities, and it becomes a safeguard against unexpected problems.

And so, a simple test: Which culture prevails in your organisation today? Imaginative debate? Or rigid rules? If it’s the latter, remember: They’re your rules. You can break them.

Douglas Kruger specialises in dismantling needless rules. A business speaker and author of 9 books with Penguin Random House, including ‘They’re Your Rules, Break Them!’, and the global publication, ‘Virus-Proof your Small Business.’ He speaks on leadership, culture, disruptive innovation and how to reduce your own rules for greater efficacy. Douglas is also a multiple award-winning speaker, who was inducted into the ‘Speakers Hall of Fame’ in 2016.

Contact Us at WeSpeak Global and follow us on Facebook

Author Profile

The articles, video and images embedded on these pages are from various speakers and talent.

These remain the property of its owner and are not affiliated with or endorsed by WeSpeak Global.

Similar to On Culture and Leadership, by Douglas Kruger

Last month Renias and I helped a game reserve start a leopard habituation project in the Waterberg and here is my MESSAGE FROM A WILDEBEEST. A Tracker Academy project to track, find and form relationships with leopards. For the benefit of ecotourism lodges in the area. During the day we tracked leopards. In the evenings, […]

  • Author: Alex van den Heever
Dr. Justin Cohen

A study of 70 top European Organisations shows that that the 10th reason they Choose One Pitch Over Another is the paper proposal. That’s not to say the paper proposal is not important but most people are neglecting the #1 reason. I share it at the biggest sales conference in Europe. “I’m not sure our […]

  • Author: Justin Cohen
Lessons in building business

Ten years ago, I was retrenched from a marketing and sales position. My story is the same as many other people. Sometimes losing a job can point towards a better life and opportunities you never thought possible and now Ten Years as an Entrepreneur. After my retrenchment, I didn’t have an epiphany about starting a […]

  • Author: Mike Saunders

THE STRUGGLE OF ALL SALESPEOPLE, UNDERSTANDING THE MONEY VALUE Here’s what you should know about salespeople, and really people in general. They don’t struggle with time management, they struggle with self-management. You can’t manage time, time ticks whether we want to or not. Here’s why we struggle with self-management In the absence of a clearly […]

  • Author: Rory Vaden
Sara Ross

How to handle COVID-19 working from home and These Three Mindsets Will Help You Thrive During Change With all of the uncertainty everyone is facing, there are three guarantees that you should expect : 1. Everything will take longer. Conferencing everyone in, trying to call into a customer service center, or waiting in line at […]

  • Author: Sara Ross
WS Logo 512

Business success isn’t only reserved for large corporations with seemingly unlimited budgets to design customer experience. There are countless stories of small businesses that have grown to incredible heights simply by treating customers in a way that made them want to share their experience with family, friends, colleagues and on social media and encourage them […]

  • Author: Juanita Vorster
WS Logo 512

This has been a year like no other in Defying the odds. It has no doubt tested every ounce of our faith, our resilience and our belief in the future in owning your life. Some of us have already reached our tipping point whilst others are hanging on by a sheer tread. I acknowledge all […]

  • Author: Nimee Dhuloo
Joshua M Evans

In organizational culture, there are two types of people: those who look for reasons to be offended, and those who look for ways to understand others. The former type tends to lash out at coworkers, saying cruel things in private or criticizing them in public. They seek revenge on their managers if they feel they […]

  • Author: Joshua M Evans

Our Mission

We are your partner creating memorable and engaging experiences that go beyond the event itself.

© All rights reserved 2025. Created using VOXEL THEME