How NASA Builds Teams

Charles J. Pellerin

Charles J. Pellerin holds a PhD in astrophysics and is the former director of NASA's Astrophysics Division, where he oversaw an annual budget of $750 million, launched a dozen satellites, and led the team that repaired the Hubble Space Telescope. He was also Professor of Leadership in the business school at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Every successful organization needs high-performance teams to compete and succeed. Yet, technical people are often resistant to traditional "touchy-feely" teambuilding. To improve communication, performance, and morale among NASA’s technical teams, former NASA Astrophysicist Dr. Charlie Pellerin developed the teambuilding process described in "How NASA Builds Teams"—an approach that is proven, quantitative, and requires only a fraction of the time and resources of traditional training methods.