Why Intelligence Fails

Yesterday, Atlanta had a much needed downpour. It was a wonderful day for watching TV and/or reading. I became enthralled with a Discovery Channel (on extended channels rather than the main Discovery channel) line-up: Why intelligence fails? Yes, they talked about 911 but also the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Egyptian 1973 Yom Kippur invasion of Israel. In each instance, there was significant intelligence indicating that these events would happen. But the powers in charge chose to ignore the intelligence. Why? Because their world view was already set in concrete. They thought they knew what was going to happen and were loathe to change their opinion(s). I’m writing about this not because of the inherent politics of each of these situations but because of that last part…..the inability of smart people to change the way they see things.

It seems that in each case, there was a steady stream of incremental changes in available knowledge. This “new” knowledge challenged dominant perceptions of reality, beliefs, and prejudices. But as the changes WERE incremental, it was kind of like the frog in the pot story—the frog is placed in a pot of water which is warmed so slowly that the frog ignores it and simply dies. It takes a catastrophic event (i.e. putting the frog into a pot of water that is already boiling), to change fixed perceptions of reality.

At least to me, this goes to the heart of almost every issue from the social security crisis, to the energy crisis, to global warming, to nuclear threats (alive and well), to the sewer failure in Atlanta, to my clients who insists that everything is going to “be alright,” evidence to the contrary. We can talk about all of this until the cows come home. But until someone smarter than me figures out a way to impact human perception short of a catastrophe, we will continue to experience catastrophes….many of our own making.

Remember, we are talking about SMART people, smart people who are over-confident in their own world view. I can’t help but think that, in a world where adept advertisers constantly impact individual perception, there already aren’t some answers out there. Maybe not the needed money but surely some answers. Are we doomed to be reactive rather than proactive? Can a more effective use of psychology create a better tomorrow? Any thoughts?

Of all of those impacted by the tragedies I started with, the Israelis were the only ones to develop a long-term effort (if not solution) to combat the intelligence failure. They created a “Devils Advocate” department that is still in existence today. It reviews the currently accepted dogma and comes up with a variety of scenarios to challenge it. In a sense, that is what I do for many of my clients. I just wish that those of us in our profession, in our cities, in our country, and in our world would incorporate similar strategies.