New Version of Columbia Multimedia Case Study

I'm pleased to announce that Harvard Business Publishing has released a completely updated version of the award-winning multimedia case study about the Columbia space shuttle accident that Amy Edmondson, Richard Bohmer, and I created, along with our research associates Erika Ferlins and Laura Feldman.  The updated technology provides a much better experience for students and instructors, while maintaining the rich detail about the communications and information flow among managers and engineers during the shuttle mission.  The case offers important lessons about how to manage ambiguous risks and threats, create a culture where people feel comfortable speaking up and sharing bad news, make timely and effective high-stakes decisions, and build high performing teams.  Thank you to the entire technology team at HBS for working so hard to design this updated multimedia experience!  

Asking Engineers the Right Questions

In our extensive study of the Columbia space shuttle accident, Amy Edmondson, Richard Bohmer, and I examined the culture and leadership at NASA. Specifically, we analyzed the forces that made it difficult for engineers such as Rodney Rocha to speak up regarding their safety concerns, and we looked at how leaders did not ask probing questions to elicit dissenting views. 

When I teach the case to engineers and other technical experts, I often hear them say that management needs to understand how to ask engineers the right questions, and how to interpret their results. They argue that engineers were not going to scream, "There is a safety-of-flight risk!" unless they had conclusive evidence. The engineers' lack of complete certainty might lead to them to give answers that that are interpreted incorrectly by management. Organizational leaders might be looking for a definitive statement expressing alarm and grave concern, but they won't get it if there is scientific uncertainty. 

Today, I ran across a good quote (in Fast Company) from Google's long-time Chairman and CEO, Eric Schmidt, regarding this issue. Scmidt explains how you have to ask multiple questions, in different ways, to make sure you are getting the whole picture when working with technical experts: 

They are taught to think logically. If you ask engineers a precise question, they will give you a precisely truthful answer. That also tends to mean that they’ll only answer the question that you asked them. If you don’t ask them exactly the right question, sometimes they’ll evade you — not because they’re lying but because they’re being so scrupulously truthful.”

Lessons from the Columbia Accident

10 years ago tomorrow (February 1st, 2003), the Columbia shuttle accident occurred.  After the tragedy occurred, my colleagues and I embarked upon a lengthy research project culminating in the creation of an award-winning multi-media case study, a book chapter, a Harvard Business Review article, and other materials.  What lessons did we derive from this tragedy?

1.   NASA had a culture in which many people did not feel safe speaking up.  As a result, people downplayed their concerns about the foam strike, rather than sharing them openly.   Leaders did not do enough to cultivate dialogue and dissent.  They tended to be very passive, assuming that bad news would surface on its own.  It rarely does.  Leaders need to draw out the bad news, as it does not usually rise to the top.  

2.  Framing the shuttle program, from the very beginning in the 1970s, as a routine, operational endeavor turned out to have long-lasting detrimental effects.   The shuttle program should have been framed as an experimental initiative.  Promising dozens of flights per year, naming the vehicle a "shuttle" and describing space travel as "routinized" pushed the organization away from its roots during Mercury and Apollo as a laboratory of exploration.   The adoption of the production/routine mindset contributed to an obsession with schedules and deadlines, the creation of rigid organizational processes and protocols, and an insufficient emphasis on the imperfect state of knowledge in the organization. In short, it meant that the organization did not have a sufficient learning orientation. 

3.  Managers at NASA exhibited what Rebecca Wohlstetter has described as a "stubborn attachment to existing beliefs."  They had become convinced that foam strikes could not damage the shuttle.   The confirmation bias exacerbated the problem.   They tended to look for data that confirmed this pre-existing belief, and they discounted signs that contradicted the conventional wisdom about foam.