Peter,
I don't disagree with you.
But this is a different problem than saying: Let's stop using nuclear power.
Stopping its use won't fix the organizational problems, though it may
hide them for long enough to let some smarmy politicians get
re-elected.

Cheers.
Fil

On 18 March 2011 09:03, Peter Jones | Redesign
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Fil - I think Kari's point was one of perspective, not of problem-solving.
> He's pointing to a kind of reverse-engineering by way of critical incident
> analysis, that of a critical incident that would be well-known in Japanese
> culture. That he knows this critical incident (the 15th century tsunami) and
> he's Finnish suggests that this cultural awareness might be a deeply
> embedded piece of wisdom in Japanese culture that ought to have affected
> decision making.
>
> Kari's not saying this is the only point of reference. But what his
> retrieval of an ancient tsunami incident points to is the modern-day
> ignoring of deep understanding in their cultural-historical situation. When
> you suggest there are "many other factors that influence the process" that
> is always the case in a complex system. But what human systems research by
> David Woods (OSU), Gary Klein (Naturalistic decision making), Marc Gerstein
> (MIT, Flirting with Disaster) and others have tirelessly shown in other
> disasters is that the internal organizational system is almost always the
> root cause source.
>
> Our systems are only as resilient as the decision making processes involved
> in the original design and (in the case of the US shuttle incidents) the
> organizational continuity and maintenance of relevant internal knowledge.
> When the post-mortems are complete for the Fukushima plant incidents, there
> will very likely be a "story" about organizational decisions made based on
> efficiency principles where the engineering trade-offs were seemingly
> acceptable. In a culture of rationalization, it is almost impossible to be
> an effective whistleblower during these decision processes. There are often
> extremely rigid lines of communicative power that screen out minority
> reports, particularly in cultures where authority is followed and respected.
>
> Peter Jones
>
> Peter H. Jones, Ph.D.
> Senior Fellow, Strategic Innovation Lab
> Faculty, Strategic Foresight and Innovation
> OCAD University
>
> [...]

--
Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University
350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON
M5B 2K3, Canada
Tel: 416/979-5000 ext 7749
Fax: 416/979-5265
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/