Beware Corporate Turtling

Copyright © 2004 by Don Blohowiak
Don@LeadWell.com | www.LeadWell.com

April 2004—It's a common corporate cultural phenomenon. Collective turtling.

That's when otherwise competent people withdraw from their responsibility to stand up, speak up, and tell truth to power.

Prominent examples from the U.S. federal government have been making headlines recently.

Embarrassing public testimony revealed that mid-level FBI managers failed to pass information "up the chain" about suspicious terrorist activities prior to the catastrophic September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Even the then acting director of the FBI, contended that his boss, the Attorney General, didn't want to be bothered.

A parallel example comes from NASA, the troubled space agency. Administrator Sean O’Keefe recently admitted a pervasive turtling mind-set that endangers safety.

He typified it as: “We’ve got things to do, we’ve got to get on with this, we don’t have time to listen to everybody moan and groan about every issue out there.”

The Associated Press concludes: "That very attitude contributed to the destruction of [the space shuttle] Columbia and the deaths of its seven astronauts on Feb. 1, 2003."

NASA brass contends the cultural problem lies in the way mid-level managers operate. Not the tone set at the top, of course.

“We have to work with that mid-management level to get them to embrace the changes that we want to make," said James Jennings, a deputy associate administrator.

"If at the end of the day, if we can’t change the people, then we’ve got to change the people,” he declared.

ACTION to Take

• Encourage healthy challenges and dissent by your associates.


• Ask your colleagues:
  • What's not working?
  • What danger signs do you see?
  • What do you know that you think I don't want to hear?
  
  
• Champion truth telling. Celebrate those with the guts to speak up and point to problems.


• Monitor your behavior; look for subtle (or overt) cues you're sending that contradict claims that you welcome critical input.

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Copyright © 2005, Don Blohowiak, Lead Well Institute

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