After a major disaster, when investigators are piecing together the story of what happened, a striking fact often emerges: before disaster struck, some people in the organization involved were aware of dangerous conditions that had the potential to escalate to a critical level. But for a variety of reasons, this crucial information did not reach decision-makers. So, the organization moved ever closer to catastrophe, effectively unaware of the possible threat - despite the fact that some of its employees could see it coming.

Dr. Dmitry Chernov conducts research aiming at overcoming the challenges of intra-organizational risk information transmission within large technological companies before industrial accidents.
A number of intra-organizational factors can discourage or prevent proper and timely risk reporting:
TOP 10 REASONS WHY LEADERS DO NOT WANT TO HEAR ABOUT RISKS AND PROBLEMS FROM THEIR SUBORDINATES:
  • Tackling reported problems will be costly, and owners and shareholders are imposing strict financial and production targets
  • Managers are afraid of being seen as incompetent if they take responsibility for previous bad decisions that have created current problems
  • Senior managers expect employees to solve problems independently in their area of responsibility
  • Senior management prefer not to know about risks, in order to avoid being held responsible (including legal responsibility) if things go wrong
  • Leaders do not want to step out of their comfort zone to solve complex questions
  • Leaders are people too - like anyone, they would rather hear good news than bad ones
  • Managers see issues reported by employees as unimportant
  • Short-term contracts for managers
  • A common corporate leadership culture pervades the entire company and industry
TOP 10 REASONS WHY EMPLOYEES ARE RELUCTANT TO DISCLOSE RISKS TO THEIR SUPERVISORS:
  • Fear of blame and punishment from executives: subordinates assume that they will be held responsible for the occurrence of any problem they report to their managers
  • Employees are afraid of losing income and ruining their career prospects by looking incompetent in the eyes of their bosses
  • Inertia of corporate culture
  • Fear of destroying relationships with colleagues or line managers
  • Fear that employees will be expected to solve any problem they report
  • Employees do not fully understand the risks they are running, and lack the training or experience to assess their criticality
  • Employees feel it is pointless to report risk information because managers failed to respond to similar messages in the past
  • Fear of being seen as disloyal to a company, as a rebel who wants to "rock the boat" or as a "bad news guy"
  • Industrial safety performance indicators and reward systems encourage concealment
  • Some employees are confident that they can solve the problem on their own
TOP 10 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR OWNERS AND SENIOR MANAGEMENT HOW TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY AND SPEED OF RISK INFORMATION TRANSMISSION WITHIN CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE ORGANIZATIONS:
  • Owners and senior management should be willing to give up short-term profits in exchange for the long-term stability of critical infrastructure
  • Senior management should be approachable about problems, and have the desire and resources to control and mitigate identified risks
  • Risks must be prioritized, as it is impossible to manage every risk within an organization simultaneously
  • Senior managers must be leaders in safety
  • Senior management should build an atmosphere of trust and security, so that employees feel safe to disclose risk-related information
  • Middle management are allies of senior management in building an organization where active dialogue between superiors and subordinates is welcomed
  • Use different upward risk transmission channels
  • The words of leaders should be supported by their actions: problems once identified need to be solved
  • Do not penalize specific employees: look for systemic defects within the organization
  • Reward employees for disclosure of safety and technological risks
Another direction of Dr. Dmitry Chernov's research is the development of effective solutions regarding managerial decisions and crisis information response measures after industrial accidents:
MOST COMMON MANAGERIAL MISTAKES
DURING A DEVELOPING CRISIS SITUATION:
  • Underplaying the scale of an emergency or otherwise hiding information about the real situation on the ground in reports to company headquarters and state representatives
  • Delayed response to a crisis
  • Attempts to evade responsibility
  • Absence of executives at the site of an accident
  • Rejection of outside help
  • Information vacuum about an accident, which generates rumors and panic
  • Unwillingness to take responsibility for dealing with the consequences of an accident
PRIORITY ACTIONS FOR SENIOR MANAGEMENT
IN THE FIRST HOURS AFTER AN INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT:
  • Obtaining reliable information from the affected industrial site
  • Remote control over the implementation of contingency plans
  • Timely release of the first official comment from the organization
  • Immediate arrival of senior management at the affected site
  • Deployment of crisis response headquarters
  • Cooperation with different government officials at the affected site
  • Care and treatment of victims of an accident
  • Preliminary forecast of the recovery of the affected site
CRISIS INFORMATION RESPONSE MEASURES:
  • Releasing official information about an accident to the public
  • Gathering detailed information about an accident within an organization
  • Agreeing on a united official position within an organization about an accident
  • Interaction with media in the first hours and days after an accident
  • Media management from the first week to one year after an accident
  • Information support for any litigation following an accident