A core idea behind the Preventable Surprises project is that they aren’t surprises. Someone generally knows but is often too frightened to raise their concerns.
Our focus is on the investment community but clearly the problem goes much wider as this short but powerful video shows.
It’s an interview with an author who has done some great books including Wilful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious. Her latest, A Bigger Prize: Why Competition Isnt Everything and How We Do Better) is about the importance of collaboration, which she considers the best solution to dealing with Preventable Surprises (we are delighted to say Margaret Heffernan is one of our advisers).
The whole thing is worth watching but if you don’t have time go to 7:30 for her comments about self censorship. It’s prompted by a question about the fear amongst the senior women execs in corporation/financial institutions in the UK. Margaret makes the link to a much bigger issue: “we have relly under-estimated how frightened people are” and “we have freedom and we need not to be afraid not to use it”.