Page 69 - Beyond Decommissioning

50 Beyond Decommissioning

aggressivity—often undirected;
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control becomes a major issue; and
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conflict increases—especially between groups.
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Culture is a social control system. We should consider here the role of culture in pro-
moting and reinforcing “right” thinking and behaving (for our purposes, “adaptive”
and constructive), and sanctioning “wrong” thinking and behaving (for our purposes,
passive and destructive). Key in this definition of culture is the idea of behavioral
norms that must be upheld. Implicit in these views is the idea that “frozen” cultures
can become impediments to survival when substantial environmental changes are at
the horizon.
Actually, redevelopment is—by its own nature—dynamic, creative, surprising, and
imaginative (by contrast, nuclear operation is static, routine, and repetitive).
The cultures of organizations and communities are never monolithic. There are
many factors that drive internal variations in the culture of business functions (e.g.,
generating energy vs demolishing buildings) and organizational teams (e.g., the for-
mer reactor operations staff vs contractors doing demolition of a reactor). Communi-
ties can be forced to react to a massive post-decommissioning loss of jobs, but they
may be slow, loath, or incapable to look for solutions. Depending on how changes and
integration are managed, the legacy culture (e.g., idleness) can persist and imperil
cooperation—whereas cooperation is crucial to the success of a redevelopment project.
On the other hand, opposition is a part of the change process, so the redevelopment
agents should be aware and work with it.
Cultures are dynamic. They shift, gradually and constantly, in response to external
and internal changes. So, to assess organizational and communal culture is compli-
cated by the fact that you are trying to hit a moving target. But it also highlights
the possibility that cultural change can be managed as a continuous process rather than
through sudden shifts (often in response to crises). Likewise, it highlights the idea that
a final status is far ahead, remote in time. By contrast, organizational and communal
cultures should always be learning and evolving.
After decommissioning, drastic changes will inevitably occur in jobs and the use of
individual expertise. With new job requirements emerging, a number of respected
competences may turn out to be irrelevant: a former health physicist may find a
job as an environmental specialist and be trained for the new profession, with little
regard being given to his hard-gained prestige. Besides, some workers may have
angrily viewed the plant shutdown and decommissioning as premature, politically
driven, and a waste of money. This animosity can make them reluctant to look for
new jobs and to cooperate in site redevelopment.
Redevelopment is a change process and requires a range of attitudes and skills asso-
ciated with managing complex, participative, and transformative changes. Human
factors (both for workers and communities) such as motivation, aptitude to changes,
a flexible mindset, and others, are vital to the success of a redevelopment project. The
following recommendations—addressed to all parties and all levels of responsibility,
and both of a personal and collective concern—are the most important in order to
embed human factors in the project: