The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster was a preventable disaster that NASA
tried to cover up by calling it a mysterious accident. However, two men had the
courage to bring the real true story to the eyes of the public and it is to
Richard Cook and Roger Boisjoly to whom we are thankful. Many lessons can be
learned from this disaster to help prevent further disasters and to improve on
organizations ethics. One of the many key topics behind the Challenger disaster
is the organizational culture. One of the aspects of an organizational culture
is the observable culture of an organization that is what one sees and hears
when walking around an organization. There are four parts to the observable
culture, stories, heroes, rites and rituals and symbols. The first one is
stories, which is tales told among an organization’s members. In the Challenger
Space Shuttle incident there were mainly four organizations thrown together to
form one, Morton Thiokol, Marshall Space Flight Center, Johnson Space Center and
NASA Headquarters. All of these organizations had the same type of stories to be
told. At Morton Thiokol, they talked about their product and their big deal,
which they received from NASA. At NASA, it’s members retold stories of the
previous space missions and being the first people to have landed on the moon.
Second are their heroes. At Morton Thiokol, their heroes might have been the
founders of the organization or it’s top executives like Charles Locke or Jerry
Mason.
At NASA, their heroes might have been Neil Armstrong, staff or any members of
the organization. All of these people that were chosen to be heroes set the
standards for that organization and conducted themselves for others to follow.
Third are the rites and rituals those members of an organization conduct. Since
both of these organizations work together to attain the same goal, a ritual for
the organization is the celebration after each successful launch and landing of
a space shuttle. A rite or ritual shows a since of group unity and friendship
among the organization’s members. Finally there are symbols that the
organization uses, which has may carry a special meaning through its
communication. Symbols in these organizations are very important because with
these organizations line of work, symbols could mean the difference between life
and death. For example, in the space shuttle there are different symbols on
their controls. If an emergency light goes on they must know these symbols in
order to fix the problem or abort the shuttle. All of these four aspects are
centered on the organizations core culture. An organizations core culture is the
beliefs about the right ways to behave. When Thiokol and NASA first started to
plan for Challenger’s mission, it was part of their core culture, which
ultimately caused the Challenger disaster. To an observer at both of these
organizations dealing with the Challenger mission was that everything was
perfect and right on schedule. The top executives in these organizations told
their employees to be quite and act as if everything was fine. They did this so
that the media and the people of the United States would believe and have great
admiration for NASA. The Challenger was different then the previous missions
because it was the first time a citizen would be going into outer space.
