The Final Columbia Mission

In the past few class of Intro. to Organizational Comm. I have been on the Organizational Team that has been studying a Harvard Case Study about NASA and "Columbia's Final Mission". From the organizational perspective there were two main things (well maybe a lot but I can’t go into all of them) wrong that lead to the end of Columbia and its passengers.First of all, in the NASA organization was based on a hierarchy in a sense that all the “lowly subjects” were too scared to speak out against any mistakes of their superiors and it the lowly one did speak up, then they were snapped back in line or disregarded by the authorities. So an example would be the foam that would strike the ship at lift off. When someone said it was a problem their opinion, over time, slowly disregarded and nobody cared because nothing happened. So there was a huge portion of communication that could have stalled a lot of heartache. Nevertheless, the small opinion was thought worthless until it was too late.Second, there was the fact that people were too concerned with their reputation that the life of others was not even a part of thought in their mind. An example of this is when, the head Ham wanted to have everything on time and when there was a reported problem she didn’t care because if the mission was stalled she would be looked down upon so she just brushed the inconvenience under the rug.Because was the lack of getting the info. to the right person and who would disregard it and the lack of worry about other people in the organization, these components added to the disaster of the Columbia.

Okay, so this may look like a mess but I promise it will make sense if you read my bit of Yada Yada.

Why the Columbia disaster?

Well, to give an explanation of this pic I'll go from bottom to top. The blue squares at the bottom of the pic represent the small individual departments of NASA. The orange dots in the squares are bits of info. that each department contributes to the organization. Now the yellow lines are ways that the smaller departments talk to their managers in NASA which is the big massive glob that is hovering over the little departments. There is some definition of shapes but nothing is really for certain in that area.

If you draw your attention to the yellow lines there is really no rhyme or reason to the direction of those lines. Because there is no definition of where info. should go, that is why the Columbia disaster happened.

Okay now I am getting ahead of myself. Back to the drawing. Okay so the big glob is management and the big red triangle shape is the head dude of NASA.

I forgot to mention the big black spots and black lines that are following the communication lines. Those represent problems that were never taken care of because someone along the communication line did not think that info was important so thus the problem was never fixed. That is another reason why the disaster happened.

I hope it all made sense so if it didn't ask me -k-.

Adhoc/racy

1) When in an organization we need to share our info. so that in the organizaton everyone can share our talents with other to compensate for other weaknesses to make a company grow.
2) Adhoc/racy- people who need to move fluidity throught projects.
3) The Lord will take the slums out of people and then the people will take themselves out of the slums. When we help people to become better we need to start from the inside out

Last class was intense

The last class was full of all types of discussion. And the best part was how the gospel was related to our learning.
1) The first thing I remember was why do we not refer the "Plan" as the Donkey Theroy. Well, here on this earth we are given our agency and if the plan was to be beaten and rewarded there would be no purpose for making our own decisions.
2) Next was the importance of confilct and how it can help us arrive at truth which gives us light. A deep method of learning can happen when there is conflict and the deeper meaning of truth can be found when people in a group try to find and look at all the angles of a topic that has mysteries to it. A group of people that portay conflict without contention is the quorm of the 12. They are brilliant men with different veiws yet they are not trying to prove eachother wrong. All they are doing is trying to find truth.
3) Finally the next topic that was important was how we tied all this info. together. In short by not having to have the Donkey Theroy or Contention is by being ruthlessly compassionate which is the image of the Savior. That is how we want to be. So that is my blurb for that day.

Well, on the 4th class in the third week I learned ...

The thing that has stuck with me the most is the fact that I need to stop "thinging" people. And in these past two days I ahve tried to apply that principle.
Some other key things that stood out to me was the layers of communication. We need to solve our interpersonal communication to gain trust and then trustworthiness which builds a bond and unity therefore an organization is formed.
Then, there was the gird of win/lose. The best way to be effective in an organization is to have a win/win situation. In order to have that outcome one need to have high courage and high consideration.
After learning all this valuble info. we (as a class) applied these important priciples to our case study and how it would have improved the outcome of the study.

On the second week of class my teacher taught to me ...

The Five questions:
1) Was there any specific person pin-pointed for the tragedy?
2) Did families of the space-cadets sue?
3) How long did it take the people to find out the foam was part of the accident?
4)

The five discussed topics:
1) Well first of all, there was obviously a lack of communication and how important it is to have comm. from the little people in an organization to the big people. If there is that lack of unity there can be no organization.
2) The people at NASA that were lower in the hierarchy of the company needed to not fear their authorities well as the authorities needed to make that bond with the people they are over.
3) As discussed in class there needed to be someone that needed to stop passing the buck and everyone needed to accept their responsibility in not communicating with fellow co-workers.
4) Another thing is that the people at NASA needed to know the reason and functions for all their equipment. The foam coming from the craft needed to questioned and not put off to the side.
5) Outside authorities should not all be pointing fingers because it caused a lot of buck passing.

Stuff about me

1) The best lessons of leadership for me came from Advanced Leadership Practicum and I-Team. Their I learned the importance of carrying through with tasks and being organized.
2) The best lessons of communicting came from my home apartment and my home. In the home apartment I learn how to cope with people from different backgrounds. At home I learned how to play nice with others.
3) Organizations that I have been a part of are the following: Primary, YW, church, I-Team, Battleship, Star Valley Ranch Association, high school speech and debate, high school drama, high school musical, high school art club, Advanced Leadership Practicum, Relief Society, and BYU-I ticket office.
4) The traditional American Hot Dog is really good because it's cheap.
5) Acheivement I am proud of was the fact that I was able to participate in Advanced Leadership Practicum.
6) My goal in life is to go skydiving.
7) Places I have lived are the following: Utah, Mass., California, Wyoming.
8) The industry I am interested in is Franklin Covey. My father has alway been gun-ho on stuff like that.