tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170623839736191950.post1426526113385011311..comments2022-12-03T19:22:46.911-08:00Comments on Safetymatters: Safety culture information, analysis and management: The Safety Culture Common Language Path Forward (Update)Bob Cudlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08502712287881656493noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4170623839736191950.post-62209585494543579522013-02-28T17:18:50.210-08:002013-02-28T17:18:50.210-08:00From the NSC Policy statement: “Nuclear Safety Cul...From the NSC Policy statement: “Nuclear Safety Culture is defined as the core values and behaviors resulting from a collective commitment by leaders and individuals to emphasize safety over competing goals to ensure protection of people and the environment.”<br /><br />In the elaborated discussion on Leadership Safety Values and Actions, items LA.3, LA. 4, and LA 5 contain the phrase “…nuclear safety remains the overriding priority.”<br /> <br />If one reads these two expressions and has no difficulty connecting them together then what’s all the fuss about – surely everyone knows what nuclear safety is and how important it is; so as long as it “remains the overriding priority” then all is good. Remind me, the definition of “nuclear safety” is where again?<br /><br />But wait, what if a responsible manager or an executive with a publicly owned firm comes up to a situation in which goal conflicts have emerged from different staff analyses starting with different technical and financial assumptions (those do occur in large capital intensive organizations)? Who’s to say if the goal conflict constitutes an instance of competing priorities, or just a misalignment of methods and sources?<br /><br />Likewise when it comes to assessment and action on feedback of all kinds from operations or from independent assessments, or internal quality reviews, or external events, presumably the thresholds of significance and the criteria of legitimate and authentic (they’re not the same attribute) evidence for responsiveness to the NRC’s “expectations” are transparently clear – its only me that’s not seeing it!<br /><br />In the idyllic world imagined by the searchers for “safety culture common language” such ambiguities probably do not arise. Reading these descriptions it is not hard to imagine that an “expert system” computer program is being crafted that future staff (from corporate HR and office tower security, to the most recently hired auxiliary operator – and of course all those pesky contractors) can carry on their mobile computers to be consulted whenever doubt might arise concerning “overriding priorities.”<br /><br />There is an inescapable flaw in this utopian and more than a little puritanical exercise – it has no halting rule – the potential for regression is nearly infinite on: “How much is enough?” Does no one wonder if the benefit of all this hair-splitting is really to promote better sense-making in complex circumstances?<br /><br />If one wonders what such an arc to permanent dissatisfaction with Nuclear Safety Culture looks like review the extended oversight for Safety Culture inadequacies accorded the Palisades plant described elsewhere in Safety Matters.<br /><br />And does anyone notice that at some point this elaboration begins to duplicate the content of the best practices performance objectives and measurement criteria contained in an entire generation of guidance developed by INPO and another developed by IAEA. This is a mass search for the “golden rivet;” doubtlessly it will continue apace for what is to stop a crew with the license of an “overriding priority?” <br /><br />From any social science or neuro-cognitive perspective we look the amateurish at best and psychologically dysfunctional at worst. And how, in any way at all would this “common language” have overcome the collected anxiety (it nurtured by decades of experience with hostile stakeholders) of TEPCO, the Nuclear Industry Owners group, and the responsible Ministry (METI) that the public was not to be trusted with information indicating an increase in risk from tsunami events?<br />Bill Mullinsnoreply@blogger.com