Communicating for Results: A Guide for Business and the Professions, 9th Edition by Hamilton Cheryl

Author:Hamilton, Cheryl [Hamilton, Cheryl]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Wadsworth
Published: 2010-08-24T16:00:00+00:00

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As you read this chapter, see if you can (a) identify which symptoms of groupthink contributed to this disaster; (b) determine what role e-mail played in the engineers’ attempts to communicate; and (c) explain why the CAIB report summary stated, “We are convinced that the management practices overseeing the Space Shuttle Program were as much a cause of the accident as the foam that struck the left wing” (CAIB, 2003, p. 11).

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Nevertheless, on that Monday, 30 NASA engineers and contractors of the newly formed Debris Assessment Team met, looked at the available evidence, and agreed that they needed additional images to clarify the severity of the damage. The team sent an e-mail to the shuttle engineering manager, requesting that the astronauts try to visually locate the strike. When they’d received no reply, they sent a second, more urgent, message: “Can we petition (beg) for outside agency assistance?” (Glanz & Schwartz, 2003, para. 27). It took two days for the shuttle engineering manager to reply that management had decided against seeking additional images. Astonished, the team asked why, and the engineering manager told them, “I’m not going to be Chicken Little about this” (paras. 30–31). The team wrote an angry reply but decided not to send it, remembering that “engineers were often told not to send messages much higher than their own rung in the ladder” (para. 36).

The engineering manager wasn’t the only one to fail to take the team’s requests seriously. For example, one NASA manager noted, “As engineers, they’re always going to want more information” (Glanz & Schwartz, 2003, paras. 4 & 26). In another instance, in a meeting where Boeing engineers had concluded that “the shuttle probably took the hit without experiencing fatal damage,” a NASA engineer who wanted to discuss remaining areas of uncertainty, was cut off by the chair of the shuttle mission management team and no further mention of the wing area was made in the meeting (para. 45).

In another attempt, some of the team members contacted a United Space Alliance manager with their concerns. In response, he phoned the Department of Defense (DOD) Manned Space Flight Support Office to request additional imagery of Columbia while it was in orbit. Later e-mail obtained by the CAIB “shows that the Defense Department had begun to implement [this] request” (CAIB, p. 150). However, a later discussion between the DOD, the chair of the shuttle mission management team, and other program managers resulted in the cancellation of the request. The following day, the team tried again by contacting mission operations about obtaining more images of the wing damage via spy satellites. Mission operations, impressed by the team’s concerns, presented them to a Columbia flight director, who said he’d see what he could do. However, after speaking with the mission management team, he determined there was no reason for additional images, saying, “I consider it to be a dead issue” (Glanz & Schwartz, 2003, para. 7).

The shuttle tragedy resulted in major restructuring and policy changes at NASA.

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