“Beware the perils of groupthink…” These are the wise words of Michael Ocock, the British chartered surveyor and project risk management expert with strong Irish connections who died last month at the age of 81.
Ocock was keenly interested in mistakes made in the handling of the Corrib gas refinery, and other infrastructural projects that ran foul of local communities in both Ireland and Britain.
Developers of onshore and offshore wind farms should heed the mistakes of the past, he believed.
“Some promoters of infrastructure schemes are arrogant enough to think they know what’s best for everyone,” Ocock told Afloat in a Wavelengths podcast last year.
“They’re convinced they have sufficient power and more than enough influence to override objections to their plans - and they act accordingly,” he said.
“This is the notorious ‘decide-announce-defend’ or ‘bulldozer’ approach to infrastructure projects,” he said, resulting in opposition and cost overruns.
“Maybe it’s an approach just about acceptable in an emergency - but otherwise, it can be unwise, and any consultation process employed is almost certainly going to be a sham,” he warned.
Ocock, joint author with Barry Trebes of Making Sense of Challenging Projects: Things to Know, Questions to Ask, spent most of his career managing, overseeing and advising on infrastructure, and was acutely aware of how inconvenient truths are often handled.
During the past two decades, he worked with psychologists to develop ways of making it easier for infrastructure project teams to understand and engage with local communities, and to identify “rogue stakeholders” who may have no one’s interest at heart apart from their own.
He ran training courses on risk in relation to project management and strategic planning, and he contributed to many publications, including the training manual for “GRASP” or “Global Risk Assessment for Strategic Planning”.
His argument, as articulated in his interview with Wavelengths, was that it makes economic sense for developers to engage properly with stakeholders at an early stage – not just at a “box-ticking” stage of public consultation as required by legislation.
“Why, when major infrastructure developments are announced, are we always surprised at the degree of public opposition?” he asked.
“ For any community facing the prospect of new infrastructure on its doorstep, it’s surely the shock of the “new” that triggers their protests - coupled with a stubborn belief that most of the pain stays local, whilst most of the gain goes elsewhere,” Ocock said.
“To get their voices heard - communities have little option but to object and object furiously. But immediately they do that - they’re accused of being negative and deserving of a label such as NIMBY (not in my back yard) or banana (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone),” he observed.
“What they’re being forced to oppose has become, for them, a LULU (locally unwanted land use), or with offshore wind turbines, for example, perhaps a LUSU (locally unwanted sea use),” he said.
Engagement, rather than consultation, should kick in before options or considered or ideas are put to paper, he suggested.
“Too often we’re told ‘This is the scheme we’ve spent months (sometimes it’s years) perfecting – what do you think of it? Please leave your comments on a piece of paper at the back of the room or tick a box on the computer feedback form...’,” he noted.
“Communities deserve to be invited to take part in a genuine dialogue with the promoters of projects that affect them – better still, they deserve to take part in negotiations to find ways of creating working relationships between them as local communities and the teams tasked with designing and delivering the projects,” he said.
Mike Ocock was born in Maidstone, Kent on May 24th 1941, and developed a lifelong interest in archaeology when at Maidstone Grammar school. After school, he worked for Kent County Council and trained to be a quantity surveyor.
His second wife, Janet, recalls he told her that he spent most of his time “measuring school playgrounds”.
He qualified as a chartered surveyor and became a member of and fellow of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors.
In his spare time, he participated in a local archaeological group in Kent with his first wife Wendy. In 1962, he photographed some interesting crop marks from a light aeroplane above some fields in Eccles in Kent.
He was delighted to learn - upon excavation of the area - that a Roman villa, a bathhouse complex and an Anglo Saxon cemetery were identified. The 60th anniversary of that discovery is due to be marked this year.
Ocock worked for WS Atkins design, engineering and project management consultancy, and handled power station projects in both Britain and in Mexico. He was also involved in project management for several Debenham stores in Ipswich, Cardiff and Swansea.
After he and Wendy separated, he married Janet who had a son, Neil, and a daughter, Madelaine; in 1978 Tim was born. Neil studied physics at Liverpool and London, and Maddy became a doctor of psychology with consultant status.
Tim studied for a masters in engineering and computing at Lancaster followed by business management at Cambridge. Janet completed an Open University degree in 1984.
In the late 1970s, Ocock became involved with the extension to Guy’s Hospital in London – “not knowing that he would eventually become a long-serving patient of Guy’s himself,” Janet noted.
He founded Conspectus Project Management Ltd which ran from offices in Garrick Street, London.
“In 1994, the recession almost brought Conspectus to an end, but Mike managed to continue the operation from home in Orpington in Kent, and later still from Ambrosden in Oxfordshire, Janet recalled.
Family connections drew Mike and Janet Ocock to Cloonfad in Co Roscommon, where they bought and restored a 200- year- old cottage and formed a local archaeological group researching early Christian sites.
During his time in Ireland, he also provided advice to one of the survivor groups linked to the Tuam mother and babies home in Co Galway.
He and Janet took great delight in becoming grandparents to Maddy’s two daughters – Ruby, who was born in 2009, and Scarlett in 2012. As a lifelong cyclist, he took great pleasure in teaching each of them how to ride a bicycle.
His son, Tim, has collated links to some of his father’s publications, including the podcast for Afloat.
“I would therefore like to invite anyone here who might have a passing interest in any work that involves avoiding the perils of groupthink, in surfacing inconvenient truths, and engaging disenfranchised stakeholders, or reconciling conflicting vested interests to check it out, which you can do at these links,”Tim Ocock says.
More from Mike Ocock
It Makes Economic Sense for Marine Developers to Earn the Trust of Stakeholders (Podcast)
Read Mike Ocock’s recent eBook here
Read his methodology textbook here
Read his British Standard on project risk management here
