Arrogance

In his classic analysis of failure in organizations, Dr. Irving Janis found that failure often comes from the manner in which leaders perceive and think about their organization. Janis described one common manifestation of what he called “group think” as the “illusion of invulnerability” which may very well be labeled as a sense of arrogance. (1)

When arrogance dominates the thinking of an organization’s leadership, they are lulled into believing that because they have been successful in the past, they will not fail now or in the future.

Organizations that may have trouble with arrogance may be known to make statements such as, “Our organization is made up of the best minds in the field.” “We’ve graduated from the top universities.” “We have been in this business for over 100 years.” “We have the top level security clearances.” “We invented this technology.” “We hold more patents than any other company.” “We have the top scholars in the field.” “We ride in private jets.” “We have private boxes at big sporting events.” “We have better hardware than anyone else.”

If organizations use these types of observations to rationalize their decisions and actions, and to avoid consideration of uncomfortable facts or potential adverse consequences of decisions, they are creating a climate fueled by arrogance that will ultimately enable many types of problems with quality and its related areas of health, safety, and the environment to become manifest.

Some of the world’s biggest quality failures have been due to a climate of arrogance in important organizations. Arrogance has been shown to be the root cause in medical mistakes, the crash of airplanes, in major man-made environmental disasters, and the decline of corporate giants. (2) Any organizational culture that creates an environment in which the leadership cannot be questioned and is deemed to be incapable of making a mistake has embraced an arrogance that will ultimately lead to disasters. The ancients called this excessive pride or self-confidence “hubris.”

Arrogance often surfaces in the planning and decision-making process in an organization. Out of arrogance, leaders will over-extend sound planning by the mistaken belief that what they desire should necessarily come true. They react with hostility toward anyone who questions their judgement. This may be seen in offering too many product lines, opening too many stores, building too many residence halls, and spending too much on costly white elephants. In some organizations, where this routinely happens, employees become familiar with the phrase of having gone “a bridge too far” which was the summary of the arrogance that caused the failure of Operation Market Garden in the Second World War.

Does this mean organizations should not engage in “moon shots”? Not at all! Moon shots are a vital part of innovation, but they must be conducted using quality methods to be successful.

Arrogance can lead people to believe they can get away with deliberately concealing information, misleading regulators, committing all manner of fraud, and deceiving customers, as in the case of Enron. Through arrogance, a company may decide to not fully investigate major accidents involving aircraft, ships, oil spills, chemical releases, and fires. Through arrogance a company may decide to install software that falsifies reading on pollution-monitoring equipment. Through arrogance, a health care organization may ignore adverse events and cover up sentinel events. Through arrogance, leaders may ignore the evidence of quality problems found through audits and assessments. Through arrogance, leaders of an organization may tell themselves that they understand what their customers want better than the customers themselves know.

Radical quality promotes the antidote to a culture of arrogance through the recognition of the effects of entropy in all organizations and the continual use of assessment. No individual or organization can stay at the top of its game forever. Critical self-assessment is the antidote for arrogance. In particular, organizations need to sustain a commitment to ongoing high-level assessment using the best evaluation criteria possible, such as the criteria for performance excellence in the Baldrige Program. Self-assessments need to be comprehensive, such as the Baldrige Criteria, to maintain a sharpened awareness of the true conditions within the organization. Systematic benchmarking needs to provide evidence of the true competitive position of the organization. Likewise, organizations need robust internal auditing and surveillance programs that employ technical experts who are protected from retribution if they report a problem. Government agencies need Inspector Generals who are not fired for conducting an investigation and protection for employees who report evidence of dishonesty,  deception, fraud and abuse of power.

(1) Irving. Janis. Victims of Group Think. Houghton – Mifflin, 1972.

(2) Thomas Gryra and Ted Mann. Lights Out.