Ontario Power Generation Failure

Power Failure Assignment

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Sami Attiq

213472733

Greg Milavsky

ORGS 1000

Jan 26th, 2014

        The former CEO of Ontario Power Generation, Ron Osborne could have been voted as "least likely to screw up" by the corporate world, but clearly effective leadership goes beyond publicly praised reputation and charisma. A report released by Jake Epp, a former energy minister, clearly states that the project to refurbish the Pickering A nuclear Plant, was terribly mismanaged and failure was pervasive at all three levels, starting off with Ron Osborne, Farlinger and the rest of the executive committee.[1] But most importantly, Ron Osborne, whom after some investigation is proven as an ineffective leader at OPG.

        Ron Osborne's leadership style and behaviour as the CEO of OPG was a chronic problem, which led to his downfall. The renovation failures of the Pickering Nuclear Plants evidently reflect his ineffective leadership. There seemed to be no formal communication between Osborne and the Dream team. Despite his leadership traits and characteristics, Osborne's leader decision making style is what backfired on him. His delegative  leadership style  proved to be ineffective, using lack of knowledge as an excuse, he left all the important decisions to be made by the employees, rather than contributing or giving feedback. Even after finding out that the Pickering fix-up was in trouble, he refused to question the decision of the "experts" This can be seen by his statement,  “I was not likely to second guess them on refurbishment, They were the experts (Scott, Sarah).”In this situation, Osborne should have relied on a more facilitative leadership style as by taking matters into his own hands and giving feedback, the Dream team would have been accountable for their recent progress. His lack of interest of the Dream team's actions, reflected to his lack of commitment. His decisions had no significance, as he failed to step up and take action against the growing problems at the Pickering fix-up. His overdependence on the employee expertise resulted in the mismanagement of the Dream team at the Candu reactors which in turn  led to Osborne's collapse and a $3 Billion cost on the renovations (Scott, Sarah)

        Ron Osborne was hired for his renowned ability to spot problems of a thickest corporate paper (Scott, Sarah), but failed to assess the kind of oversight OPG needed at that given time. This is clearly evident through the delays of the Atomic Energy of Canada and CANEC. It's surprising how Osborne failed to take note of the growing mismanagement at the Pickering fix-up, considering, thousands of assigned tasks were delayed or cancelled along the way. Osborne's day to day ineffective leadership behaviour added to his decline. He was not high on initiative structure, considering his inactive role in directing and planning the ongoing projects at OPG. (Colquitt, 341). Osborne didn't stress enough emphasis on the formalized procedures of reporting, scheduling and meeting deadline (Colquitt, 321). He blindly entrusted Preston, who had never worked in a nuclear rehab, with the crucial role of chief nuclear officer. If Osborne had focused on proper communication and consideration, Preston would have been honest about the project's actual situation rather than cultivating false assurance. A closer look at the life cycle of leadership sheds light on the fact that the employees had the ability and willingness to accomplish the task, but Osborne's delagative, rather than "telling" attitude towards them resulted in mistakes and delays (Colquitt, 344). The Dream team had provided no independent oversight of their plan. Osborne lacked readiness and participation with regards to these plans as there was no implementation of adequate cost and progress reporting systems that would result in consistently reliable projections. [pic 1]

        The failure of CANEC to provide the engineering designs in time and delayed shipments was due to the absence of a project execution plan.  Osborne's career as a manager should have opened his eyes to the absence of proper and adequate formal industry practices for a project of such size and complexity.  Osborne realizes that his lack of recognition and communication led to the ineffectiveness of his leadership. He says," I'd put a independent monitor on .the job at the start...I should have had a group like that right from the start. I didn’t know enough to know that (Scott, Sarah).  Considering his lack of experience and knowledge about nuclear rehabs, Osborne should have consulted and communicated with the managers experienced in this field about specific formalized execution plans, before undertaking a strong delegative style of leadership towards the Dream team and his employees.