NASA expected the Opportunity Rover to last 90 days. Nearly 12 years later, it’s still roaming the red planet. But the mission was nearly scrubbed, had it not been for the engineers visiting the Dark Room.
Aerospace engineer and author Adam Steltzner writes:
When you are solving a problem, you might find yourself stuck with no viable solution in sight. I call this place the Dark Room. It is a terrifying mental state, especially if you are on a timeline with an unmovable product debut date.
The problem he refers to? A fatal flaw with the Rover’s air bags. Because NASA borrowed a design from the 1997 Pathfinder craft, the team didn’t test them until a year from launch.
As Murphy’s law would have it, rocks shredded the air bags. And none of the team’s solutions could patch the issue. Enter the Dark Room.
There is a virtue in staying in the Dark Room until you completely surrender—not give up but completely surrender your ego, and stop trying to force the existing solution. That’s when a breakthrough occurs… you’re so completely drained and empty that you’re wide open to it, devoid of all prior notions, completely receptive. It’s the perfect blend of the conscious and subconscious minds working together.
After almost a year in the figurative darkness, he and his found a solution.
We emerged from the Dark Room triumphant that time. But you never know when you’ll be back in it again. It never gets less terrifying. Today when I’m confronted by the confounding uncertainty and stress of a seemingly intractable problem, I tell my teams, “Just keep working, and if death comes to visit us, let us be surprised.” Where there is will and ingenuity, there has always been a way.
Next time you reach an innovation road block? Head to the Dark Room. We know we will.
Read more on LinkedIn.