Executive summary: Communication failures - Essay Example

1. Specific communication failures that led to the Challenger disaster a. Managers and engineers viewing the same facts from different perspectives. People see things differently. This is very much applicable to what happened to the Challenger disaster. Managers and engineers view the facts they have from different perspectives. In this case, we can infer that knowledge is not simply seeing facts but rather interpreting them and that communication is not just shared-in information but also shared interpretation.

Interpretation of facts can be affected by the role or position of a person in the organization. Managers, being in the administrative position can interpret the facts they received differently from the point of view of an engineer, being in the technical department. b. The general difficulty of either sending or receiving bad news, particularly when it must be passed to superiors or outsiders.Relaying something bad is not an easy task. It is difficult both to the sender and receiver to convey something that is not so pleasure to hear.

It was shown in the research that bad news is often not passed up in organizations (4, 51). And even the bad news is sent, people are less likely to believe it than good news (6, 71). This failure also contributed to the Challenger disaster. The bad news about the solid rocket booster joint that failed moved up slowly from the working engineers to the management within NASA; Marshall Space Center, where the shuttle program was headquartered; and Morton Thiokol International (MTI), the contractor responsible for the solid rocket boosters. 2. Failures unique to the Challenger disasterThe following incidents contributed to the difficulty of transmitting bad news within the organization.a. Disbelief and failure to send bad news upwardThe mere fact that people concerned don’t believe what they see because it is bad news is not a good response to it.

And failure to send the bad news to higher officials can cause disaster. b. Continued rejection of bad newsRejection of bad news should be the initial reaction to it but continued rejection even if evidences gathered are contradictory causes more failures and will bring worse news.c. Internal versus external communicationWhat becomes unique here is how the concerned agencies and offices are treating each other. In an organization, some agencies are working in line with other agencies to bring better results.

But viewing one another as outsiders will add up to the transmission of the bad news. 3. Applicable to any organizationThe split between the managers and the engineers is a failure applicable to any organization regardless of its size and/or function. To work in an organization is to work for the same goals. This should be the guiding principle of all the members of an organization. It is apparent that the exchange of information in communication must be exhausted to ensure that all are within the same page.

This is the value that must be observed to ensure there are no organization failures.