It’s a conversation I have frequently: when someone knows that something is off in their organization but isn’t quite sure what to do about it. It may be a big issue—safety, fraud, harassment—but more frequently it’s a smaller one: a poorly written contract, a bad deal for a client or a design that could be improved. But in cases large and small, a pattern repeats itself: a sense that there are ethical, legal, safety or behavioural expectations that aren not being met. A desire to act is too swiftly followed by a fear of action: what if I’m wrong? What if I’m right? Will I get fired? Will everyone think I’m a troublemaker?
This misery can go on for weeks, months, even years. Doubt. Distraction. A gradual disheartening and alienation: why does everyone act as if all’s well? Paralysis. I’ve known more than one senior executive to exit, because he was afraid of arguments but just as afraid of what he would become if he stayed amidst offensive behaviour and disgusting standards.
So what should you do? Most people see just two options: stand on the desk and scream, or say nothing. The reality is more nuanced and pragmatic.
The first crucial step is to check your facts. You might be wrong, there could be something important you’re unaware of. It could be context, it could be better information. In any event, be sure of your ground. Do some research. Brain up, for sure. But you might have the wrong end of the stick. Make sure your observations and inferences are correct.
Next: seek out a colleague whom you trust and ask for their observation and advice. Do they see what you see? Does your interpretation strike them as rational or crazy?
In most cases of institutional failures, large or small, its origin isn’t identified by somebody at the top but by lots of people, at varying levels, who see and wonder at anomalies, contradications, things that just don’t make sense or let the organization down. They feel something is awry, but can’t do anything alone. So the entire organization remains stuck, or it gets worse. Momentum begins when information connects. This is one reason why, although some baulk at the idea of making friends at work, it is vital. Not just because it makes a working life a great deal more enjoyable, but because moments like this will arise, even in the finest companies. Everyone needs allies if they want to know what’s going on.
If your friend confirms your fears, reach out to others. How widespread is the concern? How do others see it? The more you can share experiences and knowhow, the more ideas for action will start to emerge: more allies, better information. It is safer and wiser to explore this with others than to try to triangulate all the possibilities in your head alone. Who are the key players? Who might be most open to a discussion? What do they care about, that you also care about, that provides common ground? With collective intelligence (even if the collective is just three people) you will know and see more.
When you and your allies decide to articulate their concerns, don’t go to the meeting alone. Initiate it with at least one of your allies. It is far more powerful to talk about concerns that we have than concerns that I have. The first sounds collegiate while the other risks sounding self-centred or whiney. Acting on behalf of a greater good will help you to be taken seriously. Use your judgement about how many is too many; you might feel powerless but intimidating others is a poor way to gain their support.
Prepare for this meeting. Mary Gentile’s curriculum Giving Voice to Values (which I teach in companies and at the University of Bath’s School of Management) provides an excellent framework for this. Consider, for example, what is at stake, not just for you, but for all stakeholders: the business, investors, customers, employees. If something is going wrong, it’s rare that it will damage just one of these groups; spillover effects from ethical errors tend to flow wide. How does the problem impact others? It is always more powerful to be arguing for more than yourself. Ethics is always about other people.
Anticipate the formulaic pushbacks: Everybody does it. Nobody is getting hurt. Shareholder value is a common alibi, as is the market. Diffusing responsibility so broadly that the problem attaches to no one in particular (also known as bystander behaviour) is common, especially in larger organizations: sure it’s bad, but it’s not my call.
You will be in a stronger negotiating position if you have considered those counter-arguments in advance. If everybody does it, that means we have an opportunity to do better. Know who gets hurt and how, not forgetting that reputation and trust are built over time but can be lost overnight. In this context, shareholder value is a weasel formulation; as the late, great scholar Lynn Stout pointed out, there is no such creature as The Shareholder. Each individual has different values and ambitions for their investments: long or short term, safe or rapacious, fair or brutal, fast or slow. Which shareholders would side with you? As for the market, well it is fickle, celebrating companies like Enron, Royal Bank of Scotland or Boeing one moment and punishing them the next. And if it’s not your call, whose is it?
Before you initiate what will be a negotiation, rehearse these conversations: with your colleague(s), with your dog or in front of a mirror if need be. But do not go in unprepared, without at least one idea of what a next step might be. It need not be perfect. But the best way to reduce the stress of what will be a very difficult conversation is to prepare for it.
There are no guarantees that any of these approaches will work.
There is only the guarantee that doing nothing will change nothing.
Since writing the first edition of Wilful Blindness, I’ve met more people than I can remember who have been able not just to conduct these conversations, but have stuck with them, over time, as the issue escalated until it was fully addressed. They’ve held their ground and succeeded.
Why don’t we hear more of these cases? Because most organizations don’t want to acknowledged how bad things got. There is profound narrative asymmetry here. The story where the whistleblower is harassed, abused, excluded and destroyed: this produces exciting and memorable drama that leaves us us simultaneously rooting for the good guy while absorbing the lesson that action is futile. The story where a few good people address a concern and it is fixed: well that’s no drama at all; it’s what should happen.
So here is one, true example of a happy ending. As you’d expect, all the names have been changed.
A senior executive is increasingly demoralized because one of his Exco peers is widely known to be a serial sexual harasser. He hates what he sees and, over time, he loses confidence in his peers who seem to tolerate abhorrent behaviour. He decides to leave. We meet and, while I respect his point of view, I challenge him. He’s a powerful person in the organization, widely respected: what has he done to try to change things? He admits the answer is: nothing. I recommend that he take some quiet time, work through all the options and see which (if any) he might try.
The next time I met him, his mood had changed. The offending peer had been fired, he himself had been promoted. And not just that. Around him, the mood had changed. Everyone had seen the problem—and everyone now saw that change was possible. And that inside the company was at least one genuine leader
If You Want to Go Deeper
Read Wilful Blindness or Mary Gentile’s book, Giving Voice to Values. There is a treasure house of case studies available online if you are teaching the subject. And in an act of civic generosity, these are free.
And if you are as fascinated by this subject as I am, read true histories of Enron, of Theranos, of Boeing, of Purdue Chemicals, all the wonderful, well researched stories that make up a genre I call Car Crash Business Books. There is a world of insights in them from which to learn unforgettably.
For the Joy of It
More London street graffiti. It’s incredible how much there is at your feet, when you stop looking at your phone….
And last but not least: thanks to Chris Kutana and Rob Poynton who suggested that I write this piece. It isn’t always easy to spot what people want to understand better.