CHRO.nl
September 18, 2024
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Nuclear missile attack
It is September 26, 1983. The Cold War is at its peak of tension, just three weeks after Soviet forces shot down Korean Air Flight 007. In a bunker near Moscow, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov of the Soviet Armed Forces is on duty, monitoring Soviet airspace for possible threats.
Suddenly, the early-warning system sounds an alarm. The screen shows that the United States has launched a nuclear missile. Moments later, a second alarm goes off, then a third, and a fourth. The sirens blare. Petrov has only seconds to decide how to respond.
He faces an impossible choice. If he follows protocol and reports an incoming attack to his superiors, the Soviets will launch a counterstrike, almost certainly triggering a full-scale nuclear war. But his instincts tell him the alarms may be false. Yet if he reports it as a false alarm and is wrong, the consequences will be catastrophic.
A courageous decision
Trusting his intuition, Petrov defies procedure and reports a false alarm. He is right. The system had mistaken the reflection of sunlight on high-altitude clouds for missile launches. His moral compass and willingness to act on it may well have prevented nuclear war.
People who dare to question procedures rarely do so out of rebellion. More often, it is because they care deeply. Yet organisations frequently misinterpret such behaviour as disruptive and treat these individuals as troublemakers. When this happens repeatedly, even the most engaged employees can become discouraged. Over time, they withdraw; not because they no longer care, but because they are protecting themselves from further disappointment.
The misreading of disengagement
This is where the real danger lies. Disengaged behaviour is often mistaken for indifference, but there is a crucial difference between someone who no longer feels involved and someone who truly doesn’t care. When indifferent individuals see that something is wrong, they just go along with the crowd and say nothing. Their silence allows problems to grow unchecked.
From a distance, disengagement and indifference may look similar. But one simple question can reveal the difference: “What are you so worried about?”. If the person responds with frustration or anger, that is a sign of engagement. If they show no emotion at all, that is indifference.
Disengagement can often be addressed by treating people with respect, listening to them, and ensuring they are meaningfully involved in the team and the organisation. Indifference, however, is much harder to overcome, because those who are indifferent are emotionally unreachable.
This is why not disengagement but indifference is the true opposite of engagement.
Constructive rebellion
To challenge procedures requires courage. Often, it comes at a personal cost. Petrov was no exception: despite having made the right call and potentially preventing a global disaster, he was held accountable for disobeying protocol.
We should value those who are deeply committed to their work, those who speak up when something is wrong and refuse to follow the rules blindly. They do not act out of defiance, but out of responsibility and care. After all, what kind of world might we be living in today if Stanislav Petrov had chosen to simply follow the rules?
This article was originally published in Dutch on CHRO.nl – the platform for HR executives.
MT/Sprout
April 1, 2023
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