Cultural Tsunami Hits Engagement

Fukushima nuclear accident, the worst nuclear disaster after the Chernobyl accident was ‘man-made’! The findings of the commission probing the accident have elicited shock and fear amongst people all over the world. The enquiry report points to typical ‘reflexive obedience’ behavior amongst Japanese behind the accident. Reflexive obedience simply means a lack of questioning emerging out of strong bureaucracy and collusion of selfish interest. The result - People at Tokyo Electric Power put the interest of the organization before that of the consumers and let the safety slip. I look upon this case as a huge HR failure and more specifically a cultural failure. A culture of ‘reflexive obedience’ meant questioning was blasphemous & conveniently kept people so disengaged that no one cared while the plant condition deteriorated progressively. The leaders and the HR function of the organization were unable and unwilling to change the culture and the rot set-in deeper & deeper. In the end, the cultural tsunami was stronger than the natural tsunami.


But such culture of ‘reflexive obedience’ is not only limited to Japan or Tokyo Electric Power. Take the case of the Florida lifeguard at the Hallandale Beach who was fired after leaving his post to help rescue a swimmer outside his zone. How funny and ridiculous at the same time. When a lifeguard sees a person drowning outside his zone, what should he do? Stay in his zone and watch him drown, simply because the swimmer is not drowning in his zone? The head of the company later realizing the mistake put the blame on the haste of the supervisors and offered the job back to fired lifeguard. However the lifeguard refused the offer and instead decided to search opportunities elsewhere. If such things continue then it would not be long before which the lifeguard services company shall require life-support itself before it can save lives of swimmers in distress.

Culture of an organization is the basic fabric on which engagement of stakeholder, including that of employees rests on. And this is why engagement efforts do not sustain in organizations that do not have the right culture. Many such organizations see engagement in individual events and bashes. All of these do not work since in the first place they didn’t get the culture right. It’s easy to copy an engaged organization’s engagement practice but hard to replicate the culture that they built over years.