Chapter Twenty-FourSome Key Examples
of Knowledge Management
W. Warner Burke
At the time of this writing, the cause of NASA’s shuttle Columbia
tragedy, in which seven highly impressive astronauts died, was not
known. We now know that the spacecraft was fatally damaged dur-
ing the launch when a chunk of foam insulation that covered a strut
attach point on the external tank peeled off and shattered a thermal
protection panel on the left wing. The Columbiatragedy reminds us,
of course, of the Challengeraccident, a similar tragedy some seven-
teen years earlier. If you are like me, you know exactly where you
were and what you were doing on that fateful day in 1986 when you
heard the news. At that time, I was working with NASA as an
external consultant. Previously, I had helped put into place agency-
wide senior executive and manager development programs. These
programs covered a range of topics from leadership, motivation,
group dynamics, and managing change to interpersonal and
intergroup conflict. Each program had at its core individual feed-
back based on multiple raters—self, direct reports, peers, and boss.
The executive or manager practices on which individuals were rated
consisted of behavioral statements especially tailored for NASA.
There was a set of thirty-seven practices for mid- to upper-level
managers (GS levels 13, 14, and 15) and a set of forty practices for
the senior executive services (SES) level. The practices for the SES
individuals covered six primary executive domains:
Managing tasks—for example, “You are concerned about con-
trolling project or operating costs.”269