Abstract
Public and private organizations are regularly criticized for being blindsided. Lodge explores what explains the existence of blind spots, and how blind spots differ from other kinds of phenomena that have been associated with unintended consequences. By defining the blind spot as ‘not seeing the not seeing’, the chapter highlights the centrality of the blind spot to organizational life. The chapter develops its argument by first distinguishing the blind spot from other types of unintended consequences, pointing to varieties of ways in which blind spots emerge, before discussing recipes to mitigate the effects of blind spots. Lodge argues that blind spots are intrinsic in any form of organizing and that therefore all organizational life is inherently shaped by blind spots.
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Notes
- 1.
Even self-driving cars suffer from problems of ambiguity in their environment, despite the claim that their ongoing processing of the environment reduces accidents by eliminating human error. For example, in the UK, trials of self-driving cars were conducted by insisting that such cars should remain unmarked, as it was feared that any identifiability would encourage ‘bullying’ by drivers of manual vehicles (Connor, 2016).
- 2.
A related example can be drawn from football. An Achilles’ heel is the equivalent of particular tactical choices (such as playing with a lone striker). In contrast, a blind spot refers to the inherent vulnerability of dealing with ambiguity .
- 3.
‘The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the originally false conception come true’ (Merton, 1948, p. 195, emphasis in original).
- 4.
The short-term, immediate effect is the equivalent of the car driver who fails to detect a car in their blind spot. The long-term effect is the equivalent of looking into a distorted mirror that continuously filters out certain information while the environment is changing.
- 5.
Similarly, in the 2002 Überlingen mid-air collision, one contributory factor was that the sole air traffic controller was unaware that the ground-based optical collision warning system had been switched off for maintenance.
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Lodge, M. (2019). Accounting for Blind Spots. In: Bach, T., Wegrich, K. (eds) The Blind Spots of Public Bureaucracy and the Politics of Non-Coordination. Executive Politics and Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76672-0_2
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