Case study of the Challenger disaster and sustaining organizational change

NASA

After the Challenger disaster, NASA was required to make changes in the way it managed its operations. There was to be more communication and more centralization, as well as better consultation with experts in order to make sure that the shuttle did not launch when it was not safe to do so. Despite all of the alleged changes, though, further disaster occurred. This was believed to be a product of the fact that NASA only made some of the proposed changes after Challenger failed. Even then, most of the changes that were made were undone over time, so they did not provide any significant improvement in the agency overall. Change not only has to come from within, but it has to be something that becomes the "new normal" (Evans, 2007; Palmer, Dunford, & Akin, 2009). If the changes that are made are seen as too different, or they are not continually reinforced over time, they will not remain with the organization, and it will revert to the way it was before changes were made (Kotter, 1996; Palmer). With NASA, the organization already had a lot of infighting and other problems, along with management and other facets that were too widely spread out geographically to work effectively with one another on making changes.

2. In the aftermath of Columbia, it was determined that many of the changes that should have been completed at NASA were either overlooked or had reverted back to the way things were done originally. The most notable of those was the way in which the majority of engineers and other consultants were either ignored or not even asked regarding the safety of a particular component or the shuttle's readiness for launch. Additionally, NASA assumed that, because something had happened before, it would happen again and that was not a safety-of-flight issue. Unfortunately, that lead them to avoid studying serious problems that were occurring with the shuttle each time it went on a flight. If they would have paid more attention to the damage the shuttle was taking, and not just assumed there was nothing to worry about, it is possible that the Columbia disaster could have been more easily prevented. Change in any organization must be sincere, and must move throughout all of the levels (Evans, 2007). Just saying that change can or should be made is never enough.

3. Redesigning roles in the organization is very important (Palmer, Dunford, & Akin, 2009). The reward systems also had to be redesigned, because people need rewards that they can accept and appreciate. In other words, it is very difficult to reward someone with something they do not really want - but rewarding people for behaviors that are part of the needed change is a highly valuable thing to do in any organization (Evans, 2007). If the change objectives were created properly and linked to the selection decisions, the changes could have been sustained by NASA. The bottom line appears to be that no one really wanted to make changes badly enough to allow them to continue to evolve. The status quo had already been established, and that meant that people really did not want to change. Changing would require the individuals working for NASA to give up power and control in many instances, and that can be a very difficult thing for anyone in a power position to do.

4. Progress was not clearly measured at NASA, and because the progress was not measured and steadily addressed, change was not sustained. Even when change is created, work is required to sustain it (Palmer, Dunford, & Akin, 2009). That is true of any organization, and it is something that must be carefully considered where implementing change. Celebrating en route was also not done at NASA, further leading to the decay of the ideas surrounding much-needed change. When a company celebrates en route, it does not wait for the entire change to take place before recognizing the small steps (Palmer, Dunford, & Akin, 2009). That keeps people on the right track, reinforces what matters, and helps to ensure that the change will "stick" and that it will keep moving forward. When an organization fine-tunes the changes it is making, change can be better than it would if the organization had not been willing to make adjustments to its changes. Change is a process, not a destination (Evans, 2007; Kotter, 1996; Palmer, Dunford, & Akin, 2009).