Cultural Tale of Two Shuttles
The Cultural Tale of Two Shuttles
1. What factors in NASA’s culture contributed to the Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters? a. The main guys said everything was fine to go ahead with the launch. Their basic assumptions were skewed to what they thought was perfect. The Decision-making style is corrupted they need to get involved and listen to everyone besides their group. They did not believe they could fail and that the success of the mission took precedence over cost and deadlines. They felt their mission was more important than a role of any individual or group. Their inside training needs work to get out of the norm to fix the assumption that everything is problem free.
Using Schein’s “onion mode” of culture, is it possible to show how basic assumptions are linked to beliefs and values and then to potentially fateful behaviors? The NASA group is very self-centered. They believed they had a higher standard and they were better than any other. Trying to link what appears as a company that believed they had a sound system and that system would not fail is hard to fit into the onion mode. At the level 3 change for them, was difficult because they did not believe there was a problem and that the mission would be successful. They overlooked reality and truth to get accomplished what they felt was the only mission. Their sense of time was distorted. They were only concerned with the time for getting the shuttle in space and the glory of who was on board. The values they held for the rest of the staff was way below the normal. They felt they knew best even though the crew tried to speak out against it. Then the final level of the onion mode the NASA team does not show encouraging behavior for the rest of the staff. They forgot how one failure could improve future launches. They assumed they were better.
2. Cultural change was obviously difficult at NASA. Can you think of specific things that could
1. What factors in NASA’s culture contributed to the Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters? a. The main guys said everything was fine to go ahead with the launch. Their basic assumptions were skewed to what they thought was perfect. The Decision-making style is corrupted they need to get involved and listen to everyone besides their group. They did not believe they could fail and that the success of the mission took precedence over cost and deadlines. They felt their mission was more important than a role of any individual or group. Their inside training needs work to get out of the norm to fix the assumption that everything is problem free.
Using Schein’s “onion mode” of culture, is it possible to show how basic assumptions are linked to beliefs and values and then to potentially fateful behaviors? The NASA group is very self-centered. They believed they had a higher standard and they were better than any other. Trying to link what appears as a company that believed they had a sound system and that system would not fail is hard to fit into the onion mode. At the level 3 change for them, was difficult because they did not believe there was a problem and that the mission would be successful. They overlooked reality and truth to get accomplished what they felt was the only mission. Their sense of time was distorted. They were only concerned with the time for getting the shuttle in space and the glory of who was on board. The values they held for the rest of the staff was way below the normal. They felt they knew best even though the crew tried to speak out against it. Then the final level of the onion mode the NASA team does not show encouraging behavior for the rest of the staff. They forgot how one failure could improve future launches. They assumed they were better.
2. Cultural change was obviously difficult at NASA. Can you think of specific things that could