- What can we learn about effective or ineffective strategic leadership from the Challenger case?
In the case of Nasa and the
shocking explosion of challenger we learn that the leadership of Nasa followed
the common mistake of over prioritising productivity and in the process
compromising quality or ethics which when one looks at it deeper will realise
there no point or profit for organizations to press ahead with quantity only. It
always results greater damage to the reputation of the company and the revenues.
For example Nasa’s operations were suspended for years as the result of the challenger
explosion not to mention the irreversible of loss of life and reputation. Therefore
we learn good strategy must be synonymous
with balance which plays crucial role in
the long term success and survival of any organizations ‘balance of
productivity and quality’ in the case of Nasa it is safety. Another example of
this rather routine mistake can be seen in the clothing giant Gap as they
outsourced their production to Chinese and Indian manufacturers whose human
rights record is low and practice child labour and eventually stained their reputation
to ever literate consumer in this information age.
- What are the underlying reasons why the mission went ahead? Who or what was to blame?
Indeed there are factors that pressure
the administration of organization like Nasa such as datelines, gov’t expectations,
public expectations and even world expectations that Nasa is the world leader
in astronomy, hover the leadership knew very well what they compromised in
their secluded meeting when they said “ put managerial hat on and take off
engineering hat” meaning lets prioritise
and expedite production and assume or hope the best whether the rocket is
actually fit for mission despite clear and dangerous warnings from the engineers
who has first knowledge of the subject matter, which is complacency as well as
lack of transparency from the Nasa’s management.
- What else should the engineers have done to stop the mission?
Where there is
evidence or high probability of loss of life such as the case of challenger
with major safety issues the employees or the engineers in this case should
stop the catastrophe from occurring by all means available including leaking
the fault to safety agencies like the FDA in the US, the press and/or even the
police.
It is matter of training /informing employees
in their inductions preserving the right to life outweighs any management decision
which was clearly gambled with when the engineering hat was disposed, consequently
the safety of the shuttle crew was disposed and the engineers knew the magnitude
and the repercussion of the information withheld from the knowledge of the public
and those whose lives were directly involved and did not do enough to stop it.
- How are the sort of issues that Carrefour or the NHS or Madonna face similar or different to the Challenger case? (Is it possible to compare them at all?)
There are similarities
in the NHS and Carrefour, in the case of NHS there were no legitimate communication
between management consultants and nurses as a result management does not have
any power to lead the company to satisfy the need of patents which again is
issues of lack of transparency, which again involves health and life of people.
In the case of
Carrefour the company’s goals and strategies were trapped in short term circle
as it was giving in to the pressures of creditors just as Nasa’s strategies were driven by the issues of
satisfying the publicity and expectations resulted by the external environment
which driven both strategies of these companies to be overwhelmed in short term
goals hence compromise the ultimate vision.
Good level of detail
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