The Right Kind of Crazy

A True Story of Teamwork, Leadership, and High-Stakes Innovation

By: Adam Steltzner, William Patrick

Narrated by: Christopher Grove

Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

From Adam Steltzner, who led the Entry, Descent, and Landing team in landing the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars, comes a profound book about breakthrough innovation in the face of the impossible.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is home to some of history’s most jaw-dropping feats of engineering.

When NASA needed to land Curiosity - a 2,000-pound, $2.5 billion rover - on the surface of Mars, 140 million miles away, they turned to JPL. Steltzner’s team couldn’t test their kooky solution, the Sky Crane. They were on an unmissable deadline, and the world would be watching when they succeeded - or failed. At the helm of this effort was an unlikely rocket scientist and accidental leader, Adam Steltzner. After barely graduating from high school, he followed his curiosity to the local community college to find out why the stars moved.

Soon he discovered an astonishing gift for math and physics. After getting his PhD he ensconced himself within JPL, NASA’s decidedly unbureaucratic cousin, where success in a mission is the only metric that matters.

The Right Kind of Crazy is a first-person account of innovation that is relevant to any­one working in science, art, or technology.

For instance, Steltzner describes:

• How his team learned to switch from fear-based to curiosity-based decision making
• How to escape “The Dark Room” - the creative block caused by fear, uncertainty, and the lack of a clear path forward
• How to tell when we’re too in love with our own ideas to be objective about them - and, conversely, when to fight for them
• How to foster mutual respect within teams while still bashing bad ideas

The Right Kind of Crazy is a book for anyone who wants to channel their craziness into creativity, balance discord and harmony, and find a signal in a flood of noise.

©2016 Adam Steltzner and William Patrick (P)2016 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Steltzner's enthusiastic, passionately written memoir is an insider's guide to engineering wizardry and a testament to the effectiveness of team-minded engagement, rational problem-solving, and the concept of 'making ideas reality'. A motivational journey for armchair astronauts and readers fascinated by the unlimited wingspan of human potential." (Kirkus Reviews)

“Steltzner is a genetic cross between Einstein and Elvis Costello who has mastered the art of managing complex tribes of humans. The Right Kind of Crazy is a fabulous - and ongoing - story.” (Juan Enriquez, coauthor of Evolving Ourselves)

“Crazy ideas stay crazy until they become reality. The problem is, it takes a lot of people working together to turn crazy into amazing. Adam Steltzner should know - he did it. In this book he shows us that doing what others think is impossible takes more than grit and courage. It takes the ability to inspire people.... It takes leadership.” (Simon Sinek, optimist and author of Start with Why and Leaders Eat Last)

Engaging

Good mix of lessons in problem-solving, teamwork, and leadership. The subject-matter of Mars landings keeps the story engaging.

For space AND business geeks

I'm not often planning a 10-year mission to land a Mini Cooper-sized UFO on a hostile planet like Mars but the lessons Steltzner suffers through while doing just this can be applied to every day life. I'm a space and business geek...this satisfies both sides of that coin.

Great listen

Great book for engineers of all types and curious people. Highly recommended. Also great story telling.

Excellent recount of an amazing story

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes - Interesting story of leadership and management faith

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Right Kind of Crazy?

When Nasa finally approved rover on a rope

narrator's accent was distracting

I enjoyed the book but found the perofrmance distracting. The narrator has a strongly clipped north-eastern accent and I found his pronunciation of words to be distractingly weird at times. Sometimes I had to back up and listen again to understand what he was saying.

It was also weird to hear the 'voice' of the author, who is from California, read in this accent. I found it incongruous.

I got over it about halfway through the book but was still left scratching my head why this narrator was chosen for this particular book.

Thoroughly Enjoyable

One part Mars fanboy service, one part engineering, one part leadership lessons. A little for everyone... except young adults on account of a few curse words.
Clear, easy reading.
I really liked hearing the evolution from the lotus blossom + airbags of Pathfinder to the invention of the sky crane of MSL and Perseverance.
It gets personal and had plenty of lump in to your throat moments.

Is it ever going to end.

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Focus it more on the narrative of the Curiosity rover and less on the complete history of Mars exploration. Provide fewer details about which room something occurred in and more about how the engineering problems were worked out. Remove most of the relationship and wife stories, because they seemed out of place and didn't really add the narrative. Drop a lot of the pretentious self analysis, because it really felt like rose colored glasses and hindsight and not in the moment thinking that fit with the narrative.

What could Adam Steltzner and William Patrick have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Choose if this is an autobiography, a philosophical introspective about good engineering and lessons learned, or a really great story about the challenges encountered while building the Curiosity rover.

Which character – as performed by Christopher Grove – was your favorite?

It's mostly first person storytelling, so no-one else really stood out.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Probably not. With the right cast and some great editing, it might be interesting. As is, it would be a pretty boring story.

Any additional comments?

1 - Apparently, tough engineering problems are solved by going to the desert and drinking a lot. Or by brining in someone new after months of effort. And all projects just take as long as they're going to take, but still end up on time-ish. Very little schedule concerns are really discussed.

2 - I recommend watching some of the mars rover landing animations before getting too far in. A lot of what is described can be hard to visualize at the level of detail necessary to understand the problems and solutions described. I had a copy of the physical book too, some sketches or napkin drawings could have made sections of this book really great.

team leadership 101 and awesome space crafts.

Great book about curiosity to learn more, being a team and cool entry-descent-landing tales from Mars.

Awesome book

Awesome book, I really enjoyed listening to it. It gives great insights on how our space exploration gets done.

All that craziness expected

The book taught me about a lot of points of life as professional. Specially related to the common goal. Which drives to success of the project and the leading aspect of human nature for connections in the ongoing activities.
Highly recommended for those who are willing to be an executive some day.