85. Filters between information reception and management

Any complex, breakable system will have safeguards and detection apparatus to listen to signs of trouble. Value of information is defined by its novelty and the ability of the whole system to react to it. There are several filters in the way between reception of possible danger signs and management with the authority to act on it.

The first filter is what the monitoring system is designed to detect. This will be based on past events, and may not pick up sudden or unanticipated changes. The second filter is psychological, which consists of an aversion by technicians and management to information owing to its strategic novelty or ambiguity. The third filter has to do with limitations inherent in any hierarchical system; an officer that receives certain information may lack sufficient power to officially recognize the urgency of the situation or compel a superior to do anything about it. The fourth filter is filter has to do with a connection between the warning signal and what superiors are psychologically capable of recognizing as danger; it must bear sufficient similarity to past signals or training on danger signals to be recognized as worth taking action on.