Why every technical leader should heed the warnings of Chernobyl

I have just finished watching the HBO documentary miniseries Chernobyl released in 2019. While it is a dramatized historical account rather than a documentary, I was astonished by the representation of the real decisions of real characters and processes that were followed. I have worked on a mine site for 10 years and of those the last 5 have been spent in a maintenance leadership role. What I saw in this show shocked and appalled me. So many actions by individuals, corporations and government officials made me sad for the people unfortunate enough to report to them. Following is my view on several key moments of the disaster and how a technical leader should act instead of the abhorrent display of ineptitude. This is why every technical leader should heed the warnings of Chernobyl. Note, spoilers will follow.

Anatoly Dyatlov storms into the control room, starting a split shift that was decided on very late in the plan. There is a safety function test required to be completed, that should have been executed 3 years prior, to finalise plant commissioning. Dyatlov claims he is the only one who can complete the test. He announces to the control room that they will be performing a safety function test in the facility and that the power will need to be lowered to 700MW to perform the function. One of the technicians has a manual thrown at him when he is unsure of the process. Dyatlov exclaims that he will perform the task himself if the technician cannot. This highlights a serious lack of trust by Dyatlov and the organisation of the team, both in his statement and mannerisms but also in the simple fact that he came in on night shift at all to oversee the work. Much like a mine site, a power plant is a 24-hour operation. As such, it needs to be fully capable of operating 24 hours a day regardless of who is on shift. This was a safety function test, in which there could be real need to operate this function on a night shift. You must have trust in your team to ensure safe and productive operations. I always begin from a place of trust with my team members, trust to within their limits – an electrician with a lifetime of experience compared to a newly licensed electrician earns different levels of trust.

Trust, as I have mentioned, only goes as far as the ability of the team. The Senior Nuclear Engineer on night shift at the time of the safety test is Leonid Toptunov, a 24 year-old man who clearly hasn’t got the world of experience that some of the older team members have. He is asked to bring the output of the power plant down to the 700MW required for the test. He consults Alexandr Akimov expressing how ill-equipped he is to be able to perform the task. Akimov assures they will work together to safely achieve what they need to do. They pull out the work instruction, which contains handwritten scribble and crossed out lines. When they contact the day shift ‘expert’, they are told to just follow every step. Here, we have a red flag; using an outdated work instruction. This represents an organisational factor where the power plant has let the team member down. As leaders, we want to be able to trust team members who we put in charge of critical tasks, but then we don’t set them up for success with the how-to of said tasks? How is someone with such little experience expected to complete this task, which is performed so infrequently, competently and safely? Setting our teams up for success with the right work instructions and detailed safety procedures is the foundation of success. We come from a culture in the maintenance world of ‘expected’ knowledge versus ‘confirmed’ knowledge. Because our maintenance specialists have done a trade to get their job, we expect them to know everything required for the job without confirming that knowledge. That is tantamount to negligence. I’ll tell anyone plain as day, I walked out of an engineering degree from a top rated university and knew next to nothing. It took years of experiences and guidance to be competent at my job.

As a technical leader, you may not have all the experience in the world but you sure as hell ensure you surround yourself with experience. The core explodes in one of the reactors at Chernobyl. Dyatlov gets reports from all around the plant confirming this has occurred. But Dyatlov believes he knows better, these reactors don’t explode, it is impossible – it has never happened before. Instead of using the data available to him to make sound decisions, he is stuck in the belief there has been no explosion and continues to make decisions to that effect. Not only does he make the situation worse, but he also continues to send people to their death. He ensures further assistance isn’t offered when he tells upper management there is simply a fire, there has been no explosion. As technical leaders our roles often mean making decisions whilst under the heat of incredible pressure. We can’t be experts in all things so we need to seek all information available to us. We have experts on the ground working with our machines, maintaining our power systems. We need to be able to accept this information to make the right decision. This comes with balance, waiting for all the information will often take too long – not seeking enough information will lead to the wrong decision. Lean on others around you, other leaders who have more experience – you are never alone. While you may be solely responsible, it is a mistake in arrogance to believe that you must make all decisions in isolation.?

The working environment in Chernobyl is not healthy. The failed safety test that ultimately causes the disaster was supposed to be carried out during day shift. In the office of the Viktor Bryukhanov, the head of the power plant, it is decided to shift the test to the evening due to external factors including the need for ongoing power supply during the day. By shifting the time whilst maintaining lowered output for 10 hours it put the reactor into an unbalanced chemical position. The reality is, he could have completely rescheduled the test, it is a perceived production pressure that causes Bryukhanov to proceed anyway. My view is that production pressure is real, KPIs need to be met for business to be profitable and sustainable. Perceived production pressure is a problem. This is when team members feel the need to go beyond safe working practice to meet needs of the business. Now, think about the wording of this. Is this not worded in a way to put responsibility on to the worker which allows a leader to be let off if something goes wrong? Our job is to foster an environment where perceived production pressure does not exist. One of my employees was notorious for working in a way that made you feel like he would hurt himself if he didn’t slow down. He was perceiving a production pressure from the work environment, not from his supervisor nor from me as much as we said otherwise. It wasn’t until he came to me and told me that he finally believed me about perceived production pressure that I started to feel better that he was going to go home safe every day. That moment came after a stop for safety I delivered. I ensured I personally delivered this to each crew myself, when one of my contractors worked on a cable without a positive isolation. Not only was this unsafe it was lazy. My stop for safety brought me to tears – how do you get across to workers that nothing means more to you as their leader than their lives? The dirt will always be there to dig out of the ground tomorrow, you might not be. Next time you hear from your team the phrase “perceived production pressure” you need to find out what that means, because it is just as risky as real production pressure.

More evidence of the unhealthy work environment is clear when Akimov confronts Dyatlov when he is asked to bring the reaction back online after the power output has dropped to nothing. Akimov is clear in stating that it isn’t safe to do, that he can’t perform this task – it is simply against the rules. Dyatlov in all his wisdom knows better, he forces Akimov to perform the task anyway. He threatens his livelihood, not only will he be fired if he doesn’t comply but Dyatlov will use his extensive contacts to ensure he never works in another reactor again. With the hovering Big Brother, the KGB, Akimov believes his life is under threat also. Let’s do a thought experiment here, what if nothing went wrong and the reactor didn’t explode. Think about the rest of the people in the room witnessing this interaction. Do you think these people would bring up safety issues with Dyatlov after this? Fostering a culture where people feel safe in speaking up about safety issues is very important to being a good technical leader. Being aware of your title in the room is important. Being flippant with any safety issues that are raised by your team instantly ensures your team will be less likely to raise issues next time they arise. Think about the sustained organisational grievance with employees speaking their minds in Chernobyl, how brave then was Akimov to say anything at all in the heat of the moment?

Transparency is important to anyone wanting to be a good leader, in any field. In Chernobyl we saw so many instances when this wasn’t the case. Lyudmilla Ignatenko goes to see her fireman husband in Moscow after he has been taken there for radiation treatment. She is able to sneak and bribe and coerce her way in to seeing him. She is told 30 minutes maximum and no touching however, she ignores these rules and goes on to spend as much time as she pleases with him. At no point is she told why these rules are in place, and as a result she loses her baby not long after birth. Further to this, none of the plant workers are told about the safety function test that was being performed in the first place. When the chemistry of the core starts to run afoul the workers aren’t sure what they are seeing and are neither able to contribute with observation to the control room nor are they aware they should get out of there. One such employee is still lost in the wreckage of Chernobyl, his body never recovered. “Damage Control” is a distasteful corporate phrase, it is often meant to limit information that is released to relevant people. This is done so that businesses control interested parties to make the decisions they want them to make rather than empowering those affected to make decisions for themselves and their safety. As technical leaders we are often left wanting for more information from above that simply doesn’t filter down. Convincing our teams that we don’t know any more information than we have given them isn’t possible if we haven’t been totally transparent with them prior to that point.

My last point is to that of “Managing Up”. I’m not sure whether I got this phrase from somewhere or made it up myself, but it is the least attractive feature that a leader can have in my opinion. Managing up is when you make decisions to impress your superiors and it is often the characteristic found in leaders who are looking to move up the corporate ladder, looking to pad out their bonus and secure a pay rise. Look to examples of this in Chernobyl. Anatoly Dyatlov and Nikolai Fomin discuss what a successful test will mean for them and their careers. Their boss, Viktor Bryukhanov, will be promoted to the Kremlin and then subsequently they too will get promotions. In fact, with the Soviet overtone, most decisions made are done to enable promotion. Everyone seems more focussed on the opinion of their superior to those of their subordinates. If that is the distasteful “Managing Up”, what is managing down? Managing down ensures you are doing all you can to impress your team. Not by having a pizza night and a tea party, but by putting resources at their feet to do their job to the best of their ability. You do this by ensuring it is safe for them to do their jobs. You ensure that you are providing an environment where mental health isn’t met with an eye roll, an environment where everyone has a place, and everyone belongs. People perform better when you put them before your career.

Chernobyl is a great guide to what not to do as a technical leader. To be rated highly as a technical leader, the work needs to be put in. You need to develop trust with your team, you need to communicate, you need to build a healthy working environment and you need to put all the tools and resources your team could need at their disposal. My honest reflection is I am good at some of these things, not so good at some of the others – it takes work. Don’t be so eager for that next promotion, just be the best you can be in your role. It could be very easy to blame the Soviet Union for Chernobyl and feel comforted by the fact that this wouldn’t happen in your workplace. Watch Chernobyl, keep your eyes open, you will see examples where bad leaders have made bad calls that will force you to draw parallels with ineptitude in your own workplace, and even within yourself.??

N.B ?I have used the events of Chernobyl as depicted in the HBO 2019 miniseries. I don’t purport to be an expert in the Chernobyl incident, nor am I claiming to be any form of nuclear specialist.