Don Ledingham’s Post

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Founder at Ceannas; writer, speaker.

This week’s Leadership Unlocked Newsletter explores how the introduction of a NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration strapline “Faster, Better, Cheaper’ contributed to the 2003 Columbia Space Shuttle disaster. It describes three critical factors which had a cumulative unintended consequence. These were: 1. Organisational Drift is the gradual, and apparently imperceptible, degradation of standards. This often happens after an extended run of positive results which creates an impression of invulnerability. This was the case after 88 successful shuttle flights prior to the Columbia tragedy. 2. Cultural Fences are the barriers to communication which can exist between different levels in a hierarchy. They create blindspots and prevent the necessary candour that keeps an organisation healthy. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board highlighted this in their findings. 3. Organisational unlearning refers to the discarding of old routines to make way for new ones, if any. Many of these old routines served to keep the organisation safe but their importance has been forgotten. Discarding people with organisational memory compounds this problem. Each of these phenomena can take place in any organisation.

'Faster, Better, Cheaper' – how a management strap-line contributed to the Columbia Space Shuttle Disaster

'Faster, Better, Cheaper' – how a management strap-line contributed to the Columbia Space Shuttle Disaster

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