Dorothy Winsor, “Communication Failures Contributing to the Challenger Accident: An Example for Technical Communicators”

Dorothy Winsor thinks there were two reasons why communication failed or why the engineers were not able to convince the managers:
a. Managers and engineers viewing the same facts from different perspectives
b. The general difficulty of either sending or receiving bad news, particularly when it must be passed to superiors or outsiders
Knowledge is not simply getting facts but interpreting facts which varies in terms of the vantage points through which the same facts are seen. “Communication is not just a shared information but a shared interpretation.” In the world of technical communication, many of the times, people do not have same culture and same way of interpreting. The second reason is that bad news is not that easily shared with people from upper level or the outsiders. So, the NASA engineers and later managers were reluctant to share their bad image or failure to other organizations like Marshall or MTI.
Physical Cause of the Accident
a. a rubber seal in the solid rocket booster failed to seal
b. there were similar failures before too
Early Responses to Bad News: Disbelief and Failure to Send Upward
There was a tendency to hide or not to expose the problem to the upper level or to the other organizations. MTI did not communicate that the problem was serious and Marshall knew that the problems were serious but did not communicate that to NASA as long as it was MTI’s fault. Both showed optimism instead of highlighting weakness.
Continued Bad New Rejection Despite Contradictory Evidence
Even if the engineers had found that significant erosion had taken place on the secondary ring too, they ignored it blaming it on the cold flights. Then tendency to keep the bad news was there in all levels.
Internal vs. External Communication of Concern From MTI Engineers
MTI engineer Roger Boisjoly found a serious problem. He communicated it to the management that the problem may be disastrous. However, it was kept private and was not brought out. However, when the same message was sent to Marshall, its tone was completely different, it was more objective and so confusing.
• The Split Between Managers and Engineers
Though the engineers have different views from that of the managers, they have difficult time communicating their views to the managers. And different goals of the managers and engineer may have been the problem. And the Challenger event shows that if the managers don’t listen to their employees, they could be in serious trouble.
Conclusion
So, this shows that the major problem behind the disaster was that of effectively communicating the “problem” or the bad news. Neither those in MTI nor those in Marshall could wanted to communicate the seriousness of the problem to the other organizations. The engineers at MTI identified the problem and its seriousness. But they failed to effectively communicate it to the upper level. Major problem was that they did not want to give bad news to outsiders.

How to Lie with Statistics—Darrell Huff
• The sample with the built-in bias: The nature of sampling determines whether the researchers present facts with honesty or not. It’s very easy to manipulate statistics through sampling bias.
• The truncated, or gee-whiz, graph
• The souped-up graph
• The well-chosen average
• The insignificant difference or the elusive error
• The one-dimensional picture
• The ever-impressive decimal
• The semiattached figure
• The unwarranted assumption, or post hoc rides again
• Comparative advertising: Two KFC chicken breasts are “healthier” than a BK Whopper?