A good friend and mentor of mine recently sent me this lesson that he learned in his MBA program. It’s definitely a skill I’m trying to work on more and more as our team grows:

“In the late 80s after the Challenger explosion, NASA sought to investigate whether crashes were due to independent and uncontrollable variables, or whether pilot errors played a role in crashes involving the space shuttle.  To better determine the exact origin of such catastrophes, NASA developed an experiment that took two separate teams and placed them in a simulator.  While in the simulator, the engineers launched a number of ‘disasters’ that each team would have roughly 30 seconds to resolve (with the dire consequence a 'fatal' crash looming over them).  The designers of this experiment also gave detailed instructions to the commander of each test group.  The first commander was told to assume control of the situation and to take responsibility for the fate of the entire crew.  Alternatively, the commander of the second group was told that he must solicit the input of his crew before making any decisions.

“NASA took its flight crews through hundreds of simulations to ensure that their conclusions were actionable.  The results were staggering.  The survival rate for the first group was around 20%, whereas the second group survived over 75% of the time.  Why was there such a wide disparity?  Both teams faced the exact same types of disasters.  Both teams had exactly the same amount of time to determine a best course of action.  The only difference was in the decision-making approach of each team.

“By involving others in the process, the commander of the second team did two important things:  1) he placed the onus of survival on the entire crew, rather than just himself, and 2) he exposed himself to a greater breadth of ideas and solutions than he could have come up with all by himself.  This is not to say that the process was completely democratic; the commander still had the authority to make the final call in the end.  However, by involving others, he had a wider variety of good options to choose from. "

Marketers always have to deal with the problem of everybody offering unsolicited input into their endeavors. Everybody thinks that they are a good marketer, right? But, perhaps structured and solicited input will make everyone more feedback-adverse. Remember, it’s not just your internal team that has an opinion…interactive surveys with your subscriber base will be the most valuable information for you. Your partners, vendors and competitors are also good sources of information.

So, as I tie this string around my finger to remember to involve more stakeholders in my decisions, I urge you to do the same with your marketing programs. I have enough string for all of you!