A 10-Year Retrospective of the Challanger Space Shuttle Disaster: Was It Group Think? Essay Example

promoted to manager and stayed on through the shuttle’s redesign. Ebeling, says that within a week of the accident he became impotent, and suffered high stress and constant headeaches, problems he still has today. One of those overruled Ebeling and the others was Jerry Mason, the senior Thiokol manager on the conference call. He took an early retirement from Thiokol five months after the disaster.

In Mason’s case, that meant going abruptly from corporate chieftain to unpaid volunteer. For Judson Lovingood, formerly one of NASA’ deputy managers for the shuttle project, wonders still if Challanger contributed to the breakup of his marriage. From the investigations of the Challanger explosion placed much of the blame on NASA’s George Hardy, a senior engineering manager. By saying he was “appalled” by Thiokol’s fears of flying in cold weather, critics charged, Hardy pressured Thiokol into approving the launch.

Discussion Elaborator is promotes greater understanding through examples or exploration of implications.Thiokol engineers, Boisoly and Thompson should be more persistent and more convincing with their presentation about data that O-rings perform worse at lower temperatures and that the worst leak of hot gases came in January 1985, when a shuttle launched with the temperature at 53 degrees. They should give more understanding about how big is the risk they’re taking by launching in cold weather. Evaluator is tests group’s accomplishments with various criteria such as logic and practically.

Joe Kilminster should have evaluate about the risk.He should consider all possibilities in logic and practical ways. He shouldn’t have just decided on his own about launching Challanger. Encourager is fosters group solidarity by accepting and praising various points of view.

Other members of that conference call

should stand up and pushed Thiokol to listen to other opinion. Gatekeeper is encourages all group members to participate. Anyone can be gatekeeper, although it’s best for managers to be encourager cause they know their subordinate and understand how to make his subordinate cooperate and involve in a discussion. 2.Invulnerability : An illusion that breeds excessive optimism and risk taking.

Joe Kilminster are taking risk by launching Challanger because he knew about the risk launching Challanger in cold weather. Illusion of unanimity: silence interpreted to mean consent. Silence from Boisjoly, Thompson, and other members were interpreted as an agreement to launch Challanger. Because they didn’t speak up their protest, the launch keep going. Solution:  Each member of the group should be assigned the role of critical evaluator.

This role involves actively voicing objections and doubts. Different groups with different leaders should explore the same policy questions. Top level executives should not use policy committees to rubber-stamp decisons that have alredy been made. Conclution & Suggestions The task and maintenance roles such as elaborator, evaluator, encourager, gatekeeper etc, should perform better and better by each of the group members so that the group can work to their fully potential and can minimize the chance of taking bad decisions like we can see in the case.

Top level executives should not use policy committees to rubber-stamp decisons that have alredy been made.