Running head: LEADERSHIP HURDLES
Leadership Hurdles: Recommendations for the Organizational Structure of the National Aeronautic and Space Administration
Erin Peters
On the morning of the organizational
structure and culture. In order to avoid
future fatal accidents, NASA needs to restructure organizational rules so that
risk is managed more effectively, redirect and open action channels among
multiple actors, and eliminate barriers which limit the amount of information
accessible to key actors. Good job on your intro. and thesis. I can see how
you put together concepts with problems at NASA. The perspectives you are using
are not yet entirely clear, but they can be developed later and I have a sense of
where you are headed.
Piloting
humans into space is a risky endeavor.
With over 250,000 complex working parts, the space shuttle can have a
variety of problems that are impossible to predict and overcome. However, since the 1960’s the United States
has had hundreds of successful manned flights into space, some well-publicized
and some unknown by the public. Due to
this remarkable success, the American public has become desensitized to how
difficult it is to launch a space shuttle, complete its mission and bring the
shuttle back to Earth. As the NASA
manned space flight program becomes increasingly successful, the public becomes
more immune to the difficulties of space travel and expects NASA to progress to
a higher target. As NASA falls lower and
lower below the public’s perceived target, managers in the organization take
bigger and bigger risks to increase the chance of reaching the targets. James G. March describes in his book, A primer on decision making, (1994) states:
“Risk-taking propensity varies with the relationship between an
individual’s position and a target or aspiration level, and thus between
contexts of success and failure” (March 1994 p. 42). As the public’s perceived target rises, NASA
is inclined to take more risks to reach the target, and the possibility for
failure increases. NASA managers
continue to promise aggressive schedules of space flight to Congress in order
to maintain or increase funding from the American public. The American public demands more performance
from NASA as Congress grants more funding.
You
probably need a paragraph break about here. Also, don’t forget to develop the
whole March perspective. You could use less on NASA and more on March at this
point to make the analysis clearer. This dangerous cycle could be
disarmed if NASA assembled a hard line, multi-media campaign to inform the public
about the realities of the dangers of space flight. The organization rules established by NASA,
which restrict information from the public regarding the general dangers of
space flight, need to be restructured.
New rules should be implemented that allow the public to be informed of
the dangers of space flight. The
campaign need not be alarmist, but the goal of the campaign should be to
deflate the public’s unrealistic expectations of NASA, resulting in a more realistic
schedule for space travel. The current
organizational rules at NASA regarding the release of safety information to the
public are causing the public to raise their perception of success within NASA
and are forcing NASA to take unnecessary risks.
Great
points are made here. You could be more persuasive about rules is you used
March’s analysis of how rules change and how roles and rules are tied together.
The March perspective seems quite helpful here.
Other
organizational rules at NASA are not perceived by employees as important and are
becoming dangerously atrophied. The foam
strike that most likely caused the crash of the Graham Allison
and Philip
Zelikow, the action of each member of an organization leads to an
organizational output. One type of
behavior that leads to an organizational output is Standard
Operating Procedures (SOP). Standard
Operating Procedures avoid repetitive phrases are in place
so that reliable performance of critical tasks is ensured throughout an organization. Although SOPs can make decision making in an
organization sluggish, they serve to ensure that a particular performance is
completed. Basic cues in this case were
not followed. Security clearances at the
highest levels were not established, standard waivers not reviewed in a timely
manner, and routine meeting times were not met.
A consequence of unreliable attention to organizational rules at NASA is
an increase in risk-taking. Such basic cues need to be defined at all levels of
NASA as Standard Operating Procedures in order to guarantee that important
functions of the organization are met and result in less risk-taking. Good analysis of the pathology, but you’re mushing
together rules and SOPs. I think that March and A & Z use these terms
somewhat differently. There’s another interesting point:
Maybe routines were applied inappropriately to a non-routine situation.
If a routine at
NASA does not reinforce the positive outcome of less risk-taking in the
organization, then the routine should be adapted. When the foam problem occurred in February,
it did not distress the managers because foam appeared on the critical safety
lists, but it was given a standard waiver.
Standard waivers are reviewed annually, rather than when necessary. When organizational routines are established,
it must be determined how they interact with each other and be attended to so
that they do not unravel. In their
description of an Organizational Model, Allison and Zelikow state, “Organizations
must be capable of performing actions in which the behavior of hundreds of
individuals is precisely coordinated” (Allison and & Zelikow
1999 p. 170[The ampersand is used in citations and reference
lists only.]). When
organizations are complex, the actions become more important and the
coordination among actions becomes more difficult. The formation of a committee composed of
engineers and managers, called the Renewal Committee, is suggested
You mean
that you are suggesting this, right? Avoid that [scientific] passive voice. to
better coordinate individual and program outcomes. This committee should be charged with
examining how the scientific decisions and policy decisions interact so that
routines reinforce each other, and ensuring that the risk of manned space
travel is minimized. Decision-making requires appropriate habits of mind to
allow for effective retrieval of possible solutions. This committee will explore the habits of
mind that are valued at NASA and analyze them to make certain that these habits
are productive and do not atrophy. I see the logic behind presenting your solution
here, but it is a little confusing. For four pages you’ve been analyzing
problems, then this solution pops up with no transition into it. Your use of
passive voice adds to the lack of clarity about what you’re doing.
The
engineers and managers at NASA have conflicting identities and priorities,
which cause them to work unsuccessfully as a team of multiple actors. The engineers are asked to solve the
countless technical difficulties involved in the risky business of manned space
travel and the managers must sell this risky program to the White House, the
press, and the public as ground-breaking yet safe. The engineers must solve problems at a
micro-level and recognize that the solutions to problems can cause a myriad of
further problems. Managers promise
unreasonable schedules of launches and very difficult missions to Congress in
order to maintain funding from the government.
The managers’ need to progress often conflicts with the reality of the engineers.
The caution of the engineers often stops the progress sought by the
managers. In order to minimize the
conflict between the two groups, a committee of both engineers and managers
should be formed to discuss particulars of programs before they are presented
to the White House, press, or public.
All of the actors on the committee will have different priorities, but
they must communicate and bargain so that each perspective is understood. According to March, two stages must occur
before this committee can effectively operate:,
agreement and implementation. The
initial conflict between engineers and managers must be negotiated until there
is agreement. After an agreement is
made, the team must take steps to administer the agreement. The inconsistencies of the perspectives of
engineers and managers will be removed through bargaining when the committee is
required to act as a team.Coalition? Action channels between managers and
engineers, which were originally closed, will be open through the discussions
of this committee. Nice job, but you haven’t yet analyzed anything in
terms of action channels, so it is awkward to propose a solution involving
them.
The
current action channels at NASA prevent any questioning of procedures or
actions and cause a culture in which people fiercely guard information. The culture of NASA is described by Steven B.
Wallace, chief accident investigator at the Federal Aviation Administration, as
“success-based optimism” without any “collective curiosity” (Smith 2003). John Logston, a member of the investigation
board and an expert on space policy, describes NASA’s culture as know-it-all
and isolated from the public (Smith 2003).
In Michael Fullan’s book, Leading
in a culture of change, he states that dissent should be seen as a source
of new information and leads to breakthroughs.
By supporting people who think alike, leaders are gaining a smooth
operation, but are lacking possible new information. However, Logston describes human spaceflight
as “a place where dissent was not welcome” (Smith 2003). Data gathered by engineers and administered
by various managers is selfishly guarded.
Even during mission flights, the engineers have charge of their discrete
packet of information, but do not have the opportunity to discuss the
interaction of this data with engineers from other areas. When problems occur, often engineers will not
see the severity of the problem because they have a discrete packet of
information. Engineers can better
establish patterns that identify problems with in-flight shuttles if they could
share data through open action channels.
During flights, engineers that who have faulty
data should be able to openly communicate with engineers who are charged with
related data. In this way engineers can
determine the severity of a problem while there is still time to act on the
difficulty. NASA does not support a
combination of presenting ideas, seeking out and listening to doubters in order
to build good relationships among the engineers at NASA. Managers at NASA should develop an explicit
reward program to disarm the culture of isolationism. NASA needs to have employees at all levels
buy into the idea that their organization will grow and prosper if there are
many eyes looking for potential problems.
The current NASA culture of defensiveness and isolation needs to be
replaced with one of cooperation and knowledge sharing to support the
development of new information and breakthroughs. A sharing culture can be fostered at NASA by
opening action channels among the engineers so that they may identify
destructive patterns in the data collectively and be rewarded for such
actions. It would be helpful to use A
& Z Model III explicitly and Fullan on knowledge management.
The
established channels of vertical communication at NASA are nominal and
unidirectional. Over thirty expert
engineers requested more imagery of the foam strike area because they were
concerned that the strike caused serious problems with the outer protective
tiles on the shuttle. When Linda Ham,
the mission management chief, learned of concerns about the foam strike six
days into the mission, she claimed she could not find any managers or engineers
that sought out the imagery. Transcripts
of critical decision makers during the flight in
In
flight, the astronauts are limited in their decision making by the amount of
information that mission control is providing.
Seven days after lift-off, a flight official in mission control sent an
electronic mail to the shuttle Herbert A. Simon’s
idea of bounded rationality. Basing a
decision on too little information causes unnecessary risk. If the astronauts
and mission control communicated their faulty data to each other, the decision
regarding examining further imagery could have been more informed. Since the astronauts are on site of the problems,
they are best equipped to assess any damage, and they have the most at stake in
the damage assessment. The astronauts
are limited by the information provided to them by mission control, so they
make their decisions based on a very small number of events. Had mission control alerted the astronauts to
the foam strike, the astronauts might have paid more attention to sensors in
that area and made more informed decisions about the event.
Another barrier that limits information the organization uses to make decisions is the lack of attention given to the safety office. NASA’s safety office is responsible for catching problems before they cause tragedy, but it gets “no respect” according to Nobel Prize-winning physicist Douglas D. Osheroff (Smith 2003). The current culture of defensiveness at NASA makes it difficult to proceed with an internal investigation sponsored by the safety office. Many teams at NASA do not believe that safety is a primary concern according to the investigation report, which describes the agency’s assumption that, “less safety, reliability, and quality assurance activity would be required during routine operations” (Smith 2003). The agency is taking unnecessary risks by assuming it does not require information about possible safety enhancements. According to Fullan, when an organization is satisfied with its structure, it is less responsive to change. When a difficulty arises, change allows more options for success. NASA is incurring additional risk because it is assuming past success will ensure future success and ignoring the importance of the safety office. Apathy to safety does not allow the organizational system to reorganize and make new sense of the changed environment. Evidence of apathy is apparent in the staffing of the safety office where only 55 percent of the original staff is currently employed. Admiral Harold W. Gehman Jr., the chairman of the investigation committee, states that “there’s nothing back there. There’s no people, money, engineering, expertise, analysis” (Smith 2003 You need a page number when you are quoting.). The management at NASA should change their organization structure so that the Safety Office has access to other areas within NASA to gather information to help provide safety at all levels. The lack of attention toward safety will be eliminated by the addition of staff to the office and by the visibility of the members of the staff throughout NASA, which will provide cues that the issue of safety is a top priority at NASA. When the safety office has full access to information, NASA can make less risky decisions.
NASA’s hands-off relationship with contractors who provide essential equipment results in limited information for decision making and threatens the safety of any future space flight. After the Challenger accident, the commission blamed the Marshall Space Flight Center for failing to work as a system. Each part of the operation did not communicate with other parts in the system, and NASA blamed the faulty equipment on the contractor for this incident. Integrating the elements of the NASA system is still not occurring. During the Columbia accident, requests for further imagery were deferred until more engineering analysis was done by the engineers responsible for the foam. The analysis was done on faulty computer modeling at a contracting site, but no one at NASA discovered this because the responsibility of the integrity of the software was dependent on the contractor. NASA should develop new accountability standards for contractors and have a small team of representatives at each contractor’s site to make certain that all pertinent information is communicated to NASA. Since NASA contracts out much of the work that is done, the agency needs to develop a system of checking for reliability and communication. Relationships need to be developed among the contractors so that there are clear standards for the quality of the product and attentiveness to safety in all aspects of the mission. If NASA and contractors develop relationships in which information is freely shared, decisions regarding safety can be less restricted.
Themes of organizational difficulties addressed in the Challenger commission continue to surface in the investigation of the Columbia mission. The public continues to perceive space flight as straightforward and harmless because of the long series of missions NASA has successfully achieved. Organizational routines at NASA are unexamined and sometimes useful policies atrophy. Engineers and managers have conflicting priorities because the engineers are aware of the innumerable technical problems that could occur and managers try to minimize the possibility of failure in order to promote the program to Congress. Curiosity is discouraged in the agency, and constructive criticism of program operations by junior members of NASA is discouraged. Channels of communication flow only from the top to the lower levels and are limited among the horizontal levels in the organization. In flight, astronauts’ decisions are limited by the amount of information that mission control provides via email and verbal communication. NASA’s safety office lacks an assertive identity and has limited access into the activities of the other offices in NASA. Contractors are given a large part of the responsibility during missions, but have little accountability to NASA before missions proceed. NASA would benefit by shedding the limiting and isolationist cultures and mores adopted in the “Space Race” era and modernize to include open communication channels and knowledge sharing in their paradigm. NASA has a clear focus in their mission, but would progress to higher targets of success if the organization restructured and established a new culture to emphasize cooperation. Given the difficult mission of exploring places where no human has been, NASA must adapt and find habits to use resources in complementary, not contradictory, manners.
I thoroughly
enjoyed reading your paper. It stimulated a lot of my own thinking about
organizations and how they function. You obviously have a firm grasp of several
different perspectives and you use these quite well to analyze the pathologies
at NASA and propose solutions. My comments above are mostly of
a polishing nature, but they are things to pay attention to for the future of
your writing. The biggest challenge here is organization. You change gears at
times without signaling such a change to the naïve reader. That makes it hard
to follow you in places. Your concluding paragraph does not
seem to begin with a re-statement of your thesis. You provide a nice drawing
together of many of your ideas from the paper, but it doesn’t tie up the main
point: how NASA can/should fix itself. Re-stating the thesis at the end is an
important contributor to coherence in your paper.
Thesis: 6 Analyses & Explanations: 8 Conclusions: 3.5 Grammar & Mechanics: 2 Total = 19.5 points