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Don’t Forget! You Saw it in the
May 2017 #10214 Page #24
Willful Blindness Culture Willful blindness is the common practice of knowing that something is wrong, but either pretending that the problem does not exist, or being unwilling to make a change or even discuss the issue. I was inspired by a TED talk video about the willful blindness of the town residents of Libby, Montana. Their willful blindness pertained to what they were experiencing after being contaminated with terrible, cancer-causing asbestos. This town’s major employer was a company that mined vermiculite, which is the toxic form of asbestos. Since the company was such an important employer of many of the town’s residents, the people in the area did not want to even contemplate the idea that their families were endangered in any way by the mining processes. What was noted by investigators was that the cancer death rate was higher there than anywhere else in North America. Too many people were dying at much earlier ages than they should have been. As it was, the vermiculite turned out to be everywhere, including playgrounds, schoolyards, and their homes. To this day, Libby, Montana is a major hazardous cleanup site for the U.S. government. To view the TED talk about this, see: (https://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_heffernan_the_dangers_of_willful_blindness).
I have discussed this hazardous cleanup site in Libby, Montana because it is an extreme example of the very common condition called “willful blindness.” Statistically, willful blindness happens in about 85% of all companies; therefore, the likelihood of it happening in your organization is very high. But what does this mean for you? It means that your company is doing things that are hindering profitability, but people are unwilling or unable to correct the bad practices. These practices can be both small and large, but they have one thing in common: They are practices that people know are wrong and the company should not be engaged in them. I have yet to perform a consultation and not find multiple examples of willful blindness within the companies. Why are people unable to correct the known problems, or at the very least, speak up and tell others about them? There are many reasons, but the two biggest reasons are a fear of retaliation and feelings of futility because such behavior is a part of corporate culture. When people do speak up about these problems, they are viewed as troublemakers because, as a result, someone else may no longer be looked at in a positive way. In other words, in doing so, these people are butting into someone else’s area of responsibility and authority, which leads them to be perceived as a threat in some way.
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