For this assignment we have read and analyzed a case of Lee Clarcke and Charles Perrow “Prosaic organizational failures”. In this article the case of Shoreham Nuclear Power station is presented. The power station was supposed to be located on Long Island. When in late 1970-ies the idea that nuclear power might be dangerous began to spread up, Long Island Lightning Company (LILCO) to ensure authorities and general public in safety of this plant, claimed to develop big evacuation plan that covers 10 miles around the nuclear station. LILCO was given almost 20 years to proceed with the plan. The success of this project would ensure great investment in Long Island budget as cost of the plant was about $5.5 billion. And yet, this project became an example of great organizational failure, after its real-time evacuation exercise in 1986. Follow-ups of this exercise allow us to define few major reasons of the organizational failure.
Research made on human`s behavior during emergencies was far from reality (4). According to it, every employee would continue to fulfill its tasks at normal level. This research completely ignored the family bounds. It was expected that employees would put other people, strangers prior to the loved ones. What is more, the report ensures that every citizen would be calm while hearing about evacuation.
Simulations were unreal and way too scripted. At the day of exercise, the weather conditions were ideal ( no storm or rain or hot sun). The traffic was alright on evacuation routes. The timing of reactor meltdown was set long before. Important parts of evacuation plan were not exercised as decision makers assumed it would go smoothly by default. Even the smallest change of those “perfect” conditions would ruin the whole operation.
Proper communication lines were not established. There were gaps in communication Emergency center – General Public. Messages for emergency broadcast were very long and contained contradictory information. Span of control for excecutives was not followed. Superiors who managed people with different tasks had more than 20 people under control (when appropriate number is 5). That caused a delay in communication links between field operators and managers at emergency center. Also people calling to inquire about situation received late reply in the best case. Bureaucratic organizational structure slowed down decision making process. The good example of it is “freeplay” situations. It took chain of command almost 3 hours to reroute all cars and inform lower level employees that the road is blocked, while properly managed it could take up to 20 minutes.
Not learning from previous mistakes. This concerns situations with broken buses and drivers unwilling to drive. LILCO experienced similar issues on smaller simulations, but instead of working it out, just assumed than in case of real danger everything and everyone will work properly. Above all, the exercise showed that only people with sufficient amount of trainings (3-5 years) can cope with their tasks in timely manner, while new employees failed to do so.
As today technology became bigger part of our lives and it is harder to control the process, managers came up with idea of making plans, which authors refer to as a “fantasy documents”. These plans are designed to make authorities, general public and managers of the companies themselves to believe they can handle the emergency situations (15). Such documents lack of historical data to prove they trustworthy.
Questions for discussion:
One of the most fundamental problem of LILCO`s case was miscommunication between different levels of organization. What would you do to avoid this situation?
Works cited
Clarcke, Lee and Perrow, Charles. “Prosaic Organizational Failure”. American behavioral scientist. 1996. 39:1040. DOI:10.1177/0002764296039008008
