There is a piece of history of the World War II (WWII) that most of us knew. Japan surrendered after their cities – Hiroshima and Nagasaki - were bombed (using atomic bombs) by the US. This gives Japan the (rather silly) reputation as the only nation that has “tasted” nuclear devastation.
History tends to repeat itself. 8.9 ritcher-scale earthquake and tsunami knocked out Japan – especially her nuclear energy facilities. As this blog post being written, Japan is griped by fear of the repeat of WWII nuclear disaster.
But let’s not talk about how to prevent nuclear plant meltdown. I have neither sufficient knowledge nor interest to talk about it. I would like to bring your attention to the leadership issue underneath the nuclear crisis. Strangely, the Japanese leaders don’t share adequate information about the nuclear crisis. Why is that so?
At the core of Japanese leaders’ failure to share adequate information, is concern about whether Japanese can take “the truth”. Not every Japanese can take “the truth”: the fact that nuclear energy poses a great risk to the country. Nuclear technology is both sensitive-and-controversial topic for the Japanese – they are constantly reminded of how nuclear energy was being used against their country during WWII. Unfortunately for Japan, in the context of exploiting nuclear energy, evoking the memories of WWII defeat can be bad.
Here comes the problem. To “manage” public perception of nuclear energy, Japanese leaders painted rosy pictures of how safe nuclear technology is. In fact, Japanese politicans and business leaders worked hand-in-hand to build the nuclear energy facilities in the country. Tepco, the operator of troubled nuclear plant, has history of cover-up. In 2002, Tepco was caught falsifying safety data.
Horrified? I think I can see why.
The Japanese leaders were caught in ”commitment trap”. Commitment trap is a decision-making bias where earlier decision sways your future decisions. The easiest way to explain this is when you have invested your money in a certain stock, you would tend to stick with it eventhough the stock price now is much lower than what you have bought. The Japanese leaders have invested too much time and effort to build the nuclear facilities and to shape the public perception. They can’t say that they shouldn’t have built the Fukushima complex (in which flawed design of nuclear reactor was used). It’s too late. For them, covering-up mistakes and justifying the need for nuclear technology make perfect sense.
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Notes:
I find that the leadership issue in Japan’s nuclear crisis, mirrors that of typical organisations. How many times your boss doesn’t tell you what’s really going on – whenever “management issue” crops up? The “cliche answers” that the top management usually gave are eerily similar to those given by the Japanese leaders: (i) “We don’t have enough information at the moment”, (ii) “the top management is looking at the issue”, (iii) “staff will be notified of the top management’s decisions”
Despite all the “feel-good” talks about the need for “open and honest communication”, the reality is the top business leaders don’t see how sharing “sensitive” information to staff could help solving the problem. This is rather peculiar. Let’s examine possible reasons.
An unacceptable reason would be, covering-up for mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes at some point of their careers. But if the mistake leads to a crisis, it makes no sense to cover it up. I know it’s easier said than done. Sometimes camaraderie takes precedence to common sense. To counter this, organisations could schedule independent audits, or create a clear whistle-blowing policy.
A valid reason would be the top management think the lower level staff, i.e. the rookies, are too inexperienced to give valuable contribution. Sharing “sensitive” information, to inexperienced staff, can create more panic and reputation-damaging rumours. Nevertheless, I’m sure there are some good rookies who can offer sound advice. The onus is on the top management to identify these quality people – although they are just rookies in the organisation – share “sensitive” information with them, and empower them if action is required. Again practising this is difficult. How would management assess their talents’ capability objectively? There is no easy answer, but I believe one possible answer is creating platform where staff can showcase their expertise and build their credibility, e.g. discussion forums / blogs, “how-to” video repository (such as howcast.com), zipcast.
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Recommended Readings:
Tabuchi, Belson, & Onichi (2011). Flaws in Japan’s Leadership Deepen Sense of Crisis. nytimes.com. URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/world/asia/17tokyo.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
Pilling, D. (2011). Patience wears thin at Tepco’s bungling. ft.com. URL: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7d73a59a-4f2a-11e0-9038-00144feab49a.html#axzz1GptK4HUe
