Tunnel Vision : Tunnel Vision

Jerry Mason, senior vice president and general manager at Morton-Thiokol, and Morton-Thiokol were on the brink of negotiating the booster’ rocket contract renewal with NASA. Although, it is not an acceptable reason, we could see how engineers and others below the authority of Jerry could be afraid to state something contrary to what he stood by. When someone’s self-interest and pride gets in the way of engineering, it can neglect the welfare of the public, and cause them harm. This case study highlights many irresponsible, and ethical failures in a professional work environment. Jerry Mason failed to abide by the following impediments for responsible action; self-interest, ignorance, and group thinking.

I define myself as a curious researcher and reflective practitioner who perceives legal education as a combination of passion and practicality. Whereas my idealistic side wants to thoroughly understand the development of global legal ethics, my pragmatic side asks what actions should be taken by lawyers to solve international legal problems. Hence, Penn Law’s core strengths in providing a remarkably interdisciplinary learning experience and the program of Legal Practice Skills will be the bridge to my academic and professional aspirations.

In the short story "Through the Tunnel", Doris Lessing describes the adventure of Jerry, a young English boy trying to swim through an underwater tunnel.  Throughout the story, the author uses the third person omniscient point of view to describe the boy's surroundings and to show us both what he and the other characters are thinking and what is happening around them.  By using this point of view, the author is able to describe the setting of the story, give a detailed description of the characters, and make the theme visible.

In 2011 head coach Joe Paterno of Pennsylvania State University was fired after a scandal involving Jerry Sandusky brought to light allegations of child sexual abuse that had been in the shadows for as many as 30 plus years without any discipline. After Sandusky was found guilty and sentenced to 30-60 years, some question whether this incident could have been prevented and why it was kept secret for so many years. The Sandusky scandal is a good example of a concept called Groupthink proposed by Irvan Janis (1982) “that describes a dysfunctional group process that can occur when group members focus on being cohesive, do not express disagreement or think critically, and as a result, make bad decisions”. In my paper I will highlight the concepts

In the book The Invisible Spotlight, Craig Wasserman and Doug Katz write that all managers work in the danger of an invisible spotlight, where actions are scrutinized by their own employees. What is more fascinating, the managers do not even suspect this is really happening. Consequently, future leaders underestimate the influence of the particular events that are in the core of the structure of the business. The book is easy to read and understand, as Wasserman and Katz present their own examples, which make the ideas clearer. The unrevealed spotlight of their weaknesses and strengths are revealed in the book. Every single situation may be found in the realities of management.

Consequently, this often creates an impression with the leader’s supervisors that he/she is the ‘irreplaceable element,’ or the ‘go to guy’ and can be justifiably depended upon to handle this area, thus creating an agency sponsored sense of expertise. Furthermore, this confirms to the toxic leader that the path they have chosen, and the method they have employed is the best choice; thus, actions taken in self-interest are now perceived by the toxic leader as serving the interest of the agency.

In the story “Through the Tunnel” by Doris Lessing the main character Jerry is young and sees a group boys do something that he finds interesting, Going through the tunnel. The problem is he is too young and too weak to do it. The boys were Judging and excluding him and it made him sad. Jerry used the negative actions of the french boys as motivation to set a goal of swimming through the tunnel before he leaves. Although Jerry is not physically strong or mature he has a large amount of mental strength and uses what should be his weakness be his strength.

The contingency theory (Browning, 2007, p. 190) suggests that leader’s effectiveness depends on how well the leader’s style fits the context. This means effective leaders in this era have the ability to distill their complex messages into accessible ones. In other words, an effective leader is aware of his/ her client’s informational needs and values and thus, creates information to suit their needs. Therefore, leaders tend to regulate and control expressive activity in and around the workplace from legal, managerial, and ethical perspectives (Barry B, 2007). This trend tends to work for organizations that try to cover massive change by creating as little impact on their employees as possible without doing anything ethically wrong in their business.

It takes some thought to distinguish the facts from your judgments, but the results are more meaningful to employees and more productive for you. Conversations based on evidence lead to employees owning the situation because they can focus on the evidence you have presented rather than your judgment” (Green, 2013). A good portion of the facts of the case study is based Kareem’s background information and the behaviors observed that caused the termination of Kareem. The information in between the reading and the reasonings given behind the termination results in it being judgment based. Although Thomas states that one of the key reasons that Kareem was terminated was due to his number declining subsequently of him being far from his work area, yet there is no solid evidence or pattern of behavior to back up his case. One of the first issues in this case was the lack of communication. As mentioned earlier, Thomas nor Janet took the time to provide feedback to Kareem (prior to the termination conversation) around his performance or the concerns that had been raised. It is imperative in a performance conversation, for there to be specific examples or data that can support the reasons behind the discussion taking

Recently, there have been situations where employees are feeling discriminated against, unethical behavior is taking place, trust is being severed, and the overall integrity of the organization is being compromised. Staff currently feels that their opinions will not matter because upper management does what they want, when they want to, and it does not matter who it affects. The snowball effect happens because people talk about things they overhear and they embellish a situation which makes it become bigger than it is. On the other hand, when there is truth to these accusations, it needs to be addressed so that trust can be rebuilt and the staff can see positive outcomes during negative times.

Procedural justice is determined on the basis of the quality of what is being communicated an employee. In other words, procedural justice is based on the extent to which an employee feels whether his employer communicated crucial decisions in a sensitive and ethical manner (Harvey & Haines III, 2005). In other words, how a decision is made and communicated is what counts most (Harvey & Haines III, 2005). Unfortunately, Reed’s behavior implied that he regarded Fred as someone worthy of respect. This was further attested when Reed felt that it was not important to let Fred know the dates when he saw Fred’s company car parked in his driveway during work hours. Moreover, the new performance evaluation system implemented by Reed showed that Fred was doing “very good”. However, Reed decided to focus more on the least desirable component of Fred’s evaluation and give Fred and overall “good”. The results of the evaluation were humiliating for Fred as it was his lowest ever rating and was certainly lower than all other new hires who were at least 20 years younger to him. The assigned case study does not tell us how exactly Reed communicated his evaluations of Fred’s performance to Fred, but it does tell us that he evaluated Fred the very same way the second time. This time he sent Fred a memo letting him know that he was capable of doing better. The procedures involved in decision-making and the method of communication used affect employee behavior at

Whenever someone accomplishes a huge achievement, they have stories of how hard they worked to earn it. In almost every single story of accomplishment, there are obstacles the hero has to overcome. Doris Lessing, a British novelist, had a very hard childhood, full of struggles to survive, and yet she published 86 novels and won a Nobel Prize in Literature. In Lessing’s short story “Through the Tunnel,” the main character Jerry faces the challenge of swimming through a long underwater passage. A close examination of the story shows dark objects represent setbacks while the light represents achievement. Thus, the initial darkness of the tunnel’s appearance, the luminous color of the ocean, and the changing of light during Jerry’s passage through

Jackson and Raftos (1997) referred to whistle blowing as an avenue of last resort. Employees find themselves in these situations when the authorities at their organisations have failed to take actions on reported issues affecting that organisation. Wimot (2000) likened whistleblowing to a spectrum. At one end of this spectrum whistleblowing would only cause minimal pain and scars on the stakeholders and organisation while on the other end is the worst scenario where the whistleblowing effects are turbulent and often experienced to be negative to all those involved (ibid).

Often, unethical human behavior is not intentional, but is coincidentally based on boundaries such as individual knowledge, organizational unanimity, and societal acceptance of policy. On an individual level, although unbeknownst to the individual, humans make decisions based on the best outcomes for themselves, which may result in unintentional and unethical degradation of a fellow human. Further, an organizational setting will compound individual ethical dilemmas as internal groups working together seek acceptance through groupthink, which is the tendency of a work group to come to an agreement

Knowing that the right action is to not let the issue slide, the next challenge is deciphering how to accomplish that right action. Given that my knowledge of the situation was delivered through the grapevine and I have no definitive proof, I would like more evidence of the inappropriate actions before I raise the issue with higher leadership. However, after discussing it with the LRS commander, his negative reaction clearly confirms that impropriety exists and AFI 1-1 says that even the appearance of favoritism is inappropriate.2