Henri Proglio, the future CEO of EDF,  just made a blunt statement in the press  - les Echos today . According to him, the nuclear industry in France “lacks coherence and efficiency” and should be redesigned.
 
I agree. It should be redesigned, but probably in a very different way than he might think.
 
Though I am not surprised that the richest stakeholder of the French nuclear industry, namely EDF, now adopts the famous 800 pounds gorilla behavior with a weakened AREVA, CEA and Safety Authorities – cash is king…- , I believe that reorganizing again misses the point. If collaboration can indeed be made easier by good formal structures, it will not make collaboration happen. Collaboration cannot result from a pissing contests of top brass people, just because collaboration is about personal commitment, and not just compliance. If we want the French nuclear community to coalesce in something that makes more sense because it shares a common vision and situation awareness, we’d better really start walking the talk. If stakeholders of this industry have taken the habit of “cooking their little soup on a little fire in their little corner” as de Gaulle used to say about the 4th Republic, the last thing they need is a cost-cutting boss who will prevent them from meeting each other.
 
There is indeed a huge need for collaboration in the global nuclear industry, and in the French industry in particular, because the world needs it.  Henri Proglio says that we have 300 engineers knowledgeable about EPR technology, and that we would need 3000 to face demand. If this is true, and if knowledge about EPR is so important, where is the much needed joint EDF-AREVA project for a “EPR University”?
 
There are many examples of failed attempts at restructuring an industry when it is considered as a board issue and driven exclusively from the top down, because it always ends up as a clash of egos between top brass people with employees taken as hostages. But if top leaders take the time to build bridges across organizations through a joint LEARNING program (standardization bodies, training centers, communities of practice etc.), it is likely to take a little more time, but IT WORKS.
 
Good structures - such as AREVA’s integrated model - make collaboration possible, but only communities and teams make it happen. But do we really care about investing in communities and teams? Not much glamour there…

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