ARPAGarrett / / March ATF RAID 2001 AND CHALLENGER DECISION THE WACO, TEXAS, ATF RAID AND CHALLENGER LAUNCH DECISION Management, Judgment, and the Knowledge Analytic TERENCE M. GARRETT University of Texas Pan American The author argues that the Challenger space shuttle launch disaster and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) raid on the Branch Davidian compound both offer insights for managers and orga- nization theorists as to how managers make judgments concerning their employees based on concep- tions of how the employees ought to do their work. Managers with a knowledge of “management as sci- ence” objectify the work of employees under them. Workers know their work as craft based on firsthand experience. The author argues that traditional management practice results in decision making that does not take into account the knowledge of all organizational participants, and this leads to catastro- phe. “Worker” knowledge and “management” knowledge, as well as other kinds of knowledge in orga- nizations, are frequently incompatible. This aspect is characteristic of modern organizations but tends to be accentuated during times of organizational crisis. These two cases illustrate well the problems involved in decision making within complex organizations. The Challenger space shuttle launch of January 28, 1986, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) raid in Waco, Texas, on February 28, 1993, are two infamous cases where managers made decisions that resulted in death and destruction in an arguably unnecessary fashion. To come to an understanding con- cerning the management practices of the Waco/ATF raid and Challenger launch decision case studies, I will apply Carnevale and Hummel’s “knowledge analytic.”1 In short, the knowledge analytic is concerned with multiple knowledges in modern organizations: 1. Idealism, two types: (a) the highly abstract and numerical knowledge of high-level managers and executives (pure reason), and (b) the idealism affiliated with investors and citizens; AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article was originally presented to the Issues in Policy Development and Administration Panel at the annual meeting of the Southwestern Political Science Association, San Antonio, Texas, 1999. Initial Submission: May 25, 1999 Accepted: June 25, 2000 AMERICAN REVIEW OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Vol. 31 No. 1, March 2001 66-86 © 2001 Sage Publications, Inc. 66 Garrett / ATF RAID AND CHALLENGER DECISION 67 2. The scientific knowledge of managers (application of executive directives to work- ers, or “public management” as it is now constituted); and 3. Realism, two types: (a) the knowledge of workers (experiential), and (b) the knowl- edge of the consumer (recipients who use the goods and service, etc., provided by the organization). The primary tension within most organizations exists within the incompatibility of knowledges based on management science and worker realism.2 Management science as idealism needs constant revision to overcome its tendency to capture itself within its own techniques, which are insensitive to human demands. The lived experience of workers frequently defies the rational constraints placed by managers on their work. When workers present work that is at odds with the “perfect” plans put forward by managers, they tend to be ignored, at best, and/or blamed, at worst, if managements’ plans go awry.3 No total knowledge system yet conceived by idealism can ever be perfect (Carnevale & Hummel, 1996, pp. 69- 70). Imperfection is an ever-present fact of human existence. With the Waco/ATF raid and Challenger launch incidents, I will be comparing two well-known examples of management failure to illuminate in a stark fashion the incompatibility of worker and management knowledges. The two cases were selected because they highlight the crucial nexus between “managers” and the “managed” (i.e., workers). Managers cannot isolate themselves from their work and their workers.4 Worker-manager separation has been promoted in both theory and practice by classic renditions of social science, especially through many analy- ses of the Challenger launch decision. The knowledge analytic transcends these two cases and is useful in beginning to understand the complexity of decision mak- ing in human organizations. The knowledge analytic is not the theory of human organizations, but is useful for practitioners engaged in the art of management to recognize the shortcomings of management science. Both cases share important similarities that provide us (public administrators and the public) with knowledge concerning decision making that is useful in future situations. I believe that the two cases illustrate problems that are faced in many modern organizations, even though the agencies under consideration here deal with missions that involve life- and-death situations, and most other public organizations do not share the same conditions. In the analysis of both cases, I will render a historical judgment of events leading to the ill-fated launch and raid. I examine the Challenger launch decision first. I then follow with the Waco/ATF raid case and conclude with a dis- cussion of the implications of the knowledge analytic. BACKGROUND OF THE CHALLENGER ACCIDENT Numerous interpretations and explanations of the causes of the ill-fated Chal- lenger launch decision have been offered by NASA administrators, the Rogers 68 ARPA / March 2001 Commission, Morton Thiokol engineers, and academicians. All assessments of the launch point to the fact that the launch took place when it was too cold for the O-rings to seat properly, thus allowing for hot gases to escape and ignite the solid rocket boosters (SRBs). The primary question surrounding the event for govern- ment investigators and scholars alike is: Why did the launch have to take place when there was ample evidence for postponement in order not to endanger the lives of the astronauts?5 Briefly and simply, explanations for the “pressure to launch” entail the following: 1. Political pressure. Two types: (a) The Reagan administration wanted to have a public relations coup for the president while the “teacher in space” (Christa McAuliffe) was orbiting, or (b) the Soviet Union might be perceived of as gaining a military advan- tage over the United States. 2. Economic pressure. Two types: (a) The launch delays were costing money and the goodwill of budget committee chairs in Congress, or (b) competition with scientists who believed that the space shuttle program was a waste of scarce resources that would be better spent on sending unmanned space vehicles into orbit. 3. Psychological pressure. The senior NASA executives and managers were either nar- cissistic or arrogant-vindictive, identifying their personal needs with those of the organization where pride and hubris interfered with proper judgment.6 Other theorists, notably risk management theorists,7 claim that the accident was inevitable and part of the problem of human beings operating in the intricate complexities of technology. The key events leading to the ill-fated launch decision include the activities between NASA and Morton Thiokol management and Morton Thiokol engineers. There was a series of meetings between the engineers and management to deter- mine whether the Challenger should be launched under adverse weather conditions occurring at the time. The “penultimate,” or fifth, meeting, which began at 8:45 p.m. (EST) on the evening before the launch, resulted in the presentation of numer- ous charts from Roger Boisjoly, a senior scientist and member of the Seal Task Force at Thiokol, consisting of information about the history of O-ring blow-by and erosion in the SRBs of previous flights and subscale testing an static tests on the O-rings (Charles, 1996, p. 116). Boisjoly opposed the launch, and most of the data he presented supported a no-launch decision. In particular, Boisjoly, an engineer with the Structures Section of Morton Thiokol, gave testimony to the Rogers Com- mission about the launch deliberation process on February 14, 1986: Mr. Boisjoly: I first heard of the cold temperatures prior to launch at 1:00 o’clock on the day before launch, and from past experience, namely the SRM-15 launch, of which I was on the inspection team at the Cape, it just concerned me terribly. And so we started in motion to question the feasibility of launching at such a low temperature, especially when it was going to be predicted to be colder than the SRM-15 [previous cold weather shuttle launch]. Garrett / ATF RAID AND CHALLENGER DECISION 69 So we spent the rest of the day raising these questions. ...Ifelt we were very successful up until early evening, because it culminated in the recommendation not to fly, and that was the initial conclusion. I was quite please with that. ...Iwasbasically con- cerned with how temperature, low temperature, affects the timing function and the ability of the seal to seal. Low temperature—and I stated this for over a year—is away from the direction of goodness. I cannot quantify it, but I know that it is away from the direction of goodness. During the course of the evening, I also produced photos of the SRM-15, and my col- league produced photos of SRM-22. And you could visually see the difference in the amount of soot, as characterized past the O-ring seal. I was asked then on the net to support my position with data, and I couldn’t support my position with data. I had been trying to get data since October on O-ring resiliency, and I did not have it in my hand. We have had tremendous problems in trying to get a function generator and a machine to actually operate and characterize this particular pressurization function rate. So the formal part of the presentation was finished. ...Ibasically had no direct input into the final recommendation to launch and I was not polled. I think Astronaut Crippen hit the tone of the meeting exactly right on the head when he said that, the opposite was true of the way the meetings were normally conducted.