When Steve’s boss Tom wrongly sacked the head of IT, it had a devastating effect. Some of the firm’s most capable IT people walked out, forcing a temporary lockdown of operations.
Despite the upheaval, Tom denied he had made a mistake. There had been problems in IT, but everyone knew the responsibility lay with one of the company’s subcontractors – a consulting firm hired by Tom.
Steve’s plea not to let the IT head go fell on deaf ears. Tom refused to listen and insisted his decision was the right one.
On reflection, Steve realised there was a pattern to Tom’s behaviour. There had been other decisions where he had been clearly wrong but, when faced with the facts, would deny them. On one occasion Steve said it was time to transform a company plant that was producing pollutants. Tom insisted the case against greenhouse gasses was far from proven.
Tom’s denialism came to a head at a specially convened board meeting. The original reason for the meeting was the IT debacle, but the bad press over the pollution concerns created a tipping point. Board members passed a motion of no confidence, forcing Tom to quit. He later accused a number of the firm’s directors of forming a cabal against him. Tom’s refusal to acknowledge and to reject overwhelming evidence is a well-known tactic of people described as denialists. According to the Oxford Dictionary, denialists are people “who refuse to admit the truth of a concept or proposition that is supported by the majority of scientific or historical evidence”. They include chief executives of cigarette companies (“there is no relationship between cigarette smoking and lung cancer”) and banks (“we had no idea that rogue trading took place”).
What blinds denialists to reality and compels them to stick to specific belief systems? The answer is a formidable, ingrained defence mechanism.
Defence mechanisms are complex cognitive processes triggered during disturbing situations to protect our psychological equilibrium from conflict. To legitimise their position, denialists may resort to distortions or misrepresentation of their opponents’ positions and false logic.
Most frequently, we recognise denialism at an individual level, but the problem can also occur within a societal context. Denialism on a larger scale is humankind’s tendency to subscribe to alternative narratives instead of to what is true.
Denialism on a macro scale also occurs when a certain issue is also perceived as a moral stain in a country’s history – when an entire segment of society struggles with a specific trauma. The need for gun control in the US is an example.
We could hypothesise that Tom was trying to protect himself by refusing to accept the truth about what had happened in the company. His refusal to face facts, even after having been sacked, shows he couldn’t face reality.
The tendency to blame others highlights another characteristic of denialists – their suspicion of others and belief in conspiracies. We know that suspicion is the central feature of the paranoid personality. Both the denialist and the suspicious person distort reality.
Denialists are very talented in using figures selectively to disseminate half-truths.
The question becomes how to deal with such deep-seated forces of denialism? The first step is to acknowledge when this defence mechanism is at work. Warning signs are recurring negative experiences.
But getting denialists to confront these signs may be difficult. Using open-ended questions is a good start. They may help denialists explore what they are running from, and to arrive at self-understanding instead of having it.
From the outset, make it clear that nobody has all the answers. Find ways to ease and encourage dialogue about the validity of their logic. A group approach may be more productive. The dynamics of the group may provide the collective push to help the denialist arrive at a clearer picture. Whatever we try to do, however, only denialists can take themselves off the path of denial.
Preventing denialism from occurring can be achieved by surrounding ourselves with people who challenge our assumptions. The question remains, however, whether a person such as Tom would be willing to accept the challenge of alternative points of view.
Manfred Kets De Vries is a professor of leadership development and organisational change at Insead. This column is courtesy of Insead Knowledge.
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