MRO’s annual HERO Award is a peer recognition program for individuals that have set a standard of excellence aligned with the theory and principles of high reliability organizations (HROs). MRO uses the HRO framework to advance its mission “to identify, prioritize and assure effective and efficient mitigation of risks to the reliability and security of the North American bulk power system by promoting Highly Effective Reliability Organizations® (HEROs).”
Highly Effective Reliability Organizations remain resilient in complex, interdependent and high-risk environments — like bulk power system operations — by avoiding large scale, cascading events. The HERO Award recognizes industry leaders who aspire to shape the future of a highly reliable, secure, and resilient power grid.
HERO Award Qualifications
HERO Award candidates should demonstrate one or more of the following five HRO principles:
1. Preoccupation with Failure and Risk: Focus on failures by looking twice at repeat problems; imagine what could fail, even if it hasn’t yet; ask tough questions, and seek out and encourage bad news.
2. Reluctance to Simplify Interpretation: Embrace complexity of the bulk power system by investigating facts and rejecting overly simple diagnoses; be a skeptic and value other skeptics; commit to challenging the status quo.
3. Sensitivity to Operations: Seek to fully understand how things work, not just how they are supposed to work; identify (and share) opportunities for improvement; don’t assign blame but rather empower others to speak up; promote teamwork and awareness through cross-functional collaboration.
4. Commitment to Resilience: Promote awareness of risks and identify (and share) resilient behaviors for our industry; determine and train others on appropriate mitigation efforts; continually assess mitigation efforts for effectiveness and promote ongoing training.
5. Deference to Expertise: Listen to (and leverage) the boots on the ground so decisions are informed by experts; develop communication tools for sharing information.
You can read about past award winners, and the reasons they were selected as recipients, on the HERO Award page of our website. There are also several articles on our website about applying the HRO principles to electric utility industry operations.
Please consider nominating someone you know today!
Nominations can be submitted online here or through below QR code through September 20, 2024.
The award winner will be selected by the board’s Organizational Group Oversight Committee and will be honored during MRO’s Annual Member and Board Meeting on November 7, 2024.
Questions on the HERO Award should be directed to [email protected].