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Let's take a look at some quaint ethereal-speak employed by a Frank McCoy, deputy manager of the Energy Department's Savannah River Operations Office, reporting on a safety evaluation of the Tokaimura plant...

"...Using the system in the right way was more difficult than anybody would have desired..."

According to the New York Times, three US Energy Department experts who toured the plant after the accident said the accident occurred "...largely because managers counted on workers to follow rules but never explained why the rules were important.."

If the explanation is correct, the three boffins might well have stumbled on a major problem with management in Japan, and indeed Asia. The "top down" formal systems of management employed by many Japanese companies encourage unquestioning subservience to authority. Bosses generally do not, and workers never really expect, to be given the reason for being asked to carry out a directive. As one Indonesian middle manager told me several years back, the greatest success skill of his compatriots was to be a "good guesser". Promotion depended on being able to guess the motives and direction of managers when explaining to subordinates the reasons for a decision is seen as a "waste of time" or to even risk "loss of face". Authority is the cornerstone of management, yet carried too far, means there is no bottom up participation or enquiry, workers can never learn management by example, and they end up alienated from the job, with external rewards such as pay and benefits becoming the raison detre of their working existence.

If employee's don't know the reason for their jobs, and how their jobs fit with others they become "trained robots". Unfortunately trained robots are not human, and humans will always make mistakes. Blindly following directives will work for a short time, but not knowing the reasons for actions, human beings will always look for shortcuts.

Others are skeptical of this diagnosis however. Many feel, according to the New York Times report, that "...the plant's workers routinely took dangerous shortcuts that violated rules and were encouraged to do so by plant managers in an effort to increase productivity..."

Yet again, we see a situation where safety takes a back seat to short term profits. Taiwan's recent earthquake demonstrated this tragically, where sub-standard buildings, often with old newspapers used as wall linings, collapsed when many should really have been able to stand such forces. Over three hundred engineers and development managers have now been barred from leaving the country while that enquiry goes on. The speed of Asia's recent development, and in incredible levels of staff turnover has encouraged laxity. Enormous fortunes were made overnight, and the results of one's professionalism was likely not to be evident until well after they moved on.

If you are quick you can access this weeks free article review, where we review many articles on disaster and safety management. The the full text of these reports are available for one week only, and cover land slides in Malaysia, earthquakes in Iran, floods in Bangladesh, and volcanos in New Zealand. Natural disasters for sure, but they are disasters that we always know are coming. Other articles look at crowd control at the Hong Kong Mass Transit and training aerospace engineers. The elevation of safety to an equal level with production, will only occur when Asia becomes a long- time place rather than a short-time place, and development returns to sustainable levels.

Also of interest may be our guide to "Building a winning team in Asia". The team concept encourages more transparency in management, an essential skill for a world that is becoming far too complex and dangerous to rely on top-down managers...

For managers may now blame the owners, but in the end we must take some responsibility for training our owners. If not we will ever remain "care takers" of leaky ships.