The Cassandra syndrome, the Columbia accident, and Corporate America

You might have heard about the myth of Cassandra. Cassandra was the beautiful daughter of King Priam of Troy and his wife Hecuba. To seduce Cassandra the god Apollo gave her the gift of seeing the future; but because she didn’t love the god back, the revengeful Apollo placed a curse on her: her predictions will always be right, but nobody would believe her (more information here).

So, Cassandra told the people of Troy not to trust the wooden horse the Greeks had offered them. Nobody believed her, and Troy was defeated. She told Agamemnon that his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus would kill him (and Cassandra herself); he did not believe her, and they both were murdered. That’s a pretty stinky fate.

Now, I was telling my husband that if Cassandra were a corporate employee, she would have been rated as a Needs Improvement at year-end. No bonus and no merit increase, and a serious risk for a demotion. I can see her appraisal:

Although Cassandra demonstrates skills in analyzing problems, understanding situations, and making accurate predictions, she completely lacks the ability to generate trust in his coworkers and to persuade her team of the correctness of her insights. Her communications and negotiations skills are below those of her peers. As a consequence, her contribution to project work is limited or nonexistent.
Cassandra often complains about obscure threats and casts a pessimistic outlook on the future of the project, creating a gloomy atmosphere that does not promote collaboration and teamwork.

Corporate America has zero tolerance for Greek tragedy.

Cassandra Syndrome

Wikipedia has an interesting description of Cassandra Syndrome:

The Cassandra Syndrome is a term applied to predictions of doom about the future that are not believed, but upon later reflection turn out to be correct. This denotes a psychological tendency among people to disbelieve inescapably bad news, often through denial. The person making the prediction is caught in the dilemma of knowing what is going to happen but not being able to resolve the problem.

A few months ago I read the Columbia Accident Investigation Board report, which devotes an entire chapter to the analysis of how NASA’s “can-do-no-matter-what” culture played a strong role in management (bad) decision-making.

I do understand the corporate tendency to reward optimism and can-do attitude. It’s actually really nice to have people around you who are positive and energetic. But sometimes things are pretty bad, and the only way to make them better is to first recognize how bad they are. I just cannot shake this impression that some behaviors I see in companies should be classified as Cassandra Syndrome.
“A tendency to disbelieve inescapably bad news, often through denial.” As much as the employees have an obligation to tell persuasive and articulate stories, isn’t there a similar obligation from management to listen with an open mind to both good and bad news and do some fact checking before dismissing the bad news or accept the good ones?

[And of course, whatever you do, do not EVER use PowerPoint to deliver bad news.]