Summary
Margaret Heffernan explores why big organisations so often make big mistakes - and asks if the cure could be the aviation industry's model of a "just culture".
In the past ten years, there have been a string of organizational failures - from BP to the banks, from the Catholic Church to Rotherham. In each instance, hundreds, even thousands of people could see what was going on but acted as though they were blind. Silence ensured the problems continued and allowed them to grow.
The conditions that create the phenomenon called "wilful blindness" are pervasive across institutions, both public and private. Wherever there have been cases of organisational failure you typically find individuals who are over-stretched, distracted and exhausted. They cannot see because they cannot think.
Businesswoman and writer Margaret Heffernan argues that the solution is a "just culture"; which means organizations that encourage people to speak up early and often when things go adrift, without fear of being silenced.
Contributors: Alexis Jay, author of the report into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham Ben Alcott, Head of Safety at the Civil Aviation Authority Helene Donnelly, Cultural Ambassador, Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent NHS Trust Bill McAleer, a former safety auditor for General Motors Philip Zimbardo, the psychologist behind the famous Stanford Prison experiment
Producer: Gemma Newby.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC |
| 0:35.4 | Sounds. |
| 0:36.4 | Thanks for listening to analysis. |
| 0:38.3 | This week the business woman and writer Margaret Heffernan investigates the strange and |
| 0:42.2 | surprisingly common phenomenon known as willful blindness, |
| 0:45.9 | and she asks why so many organisations ignore the facts in front of them and proceed to make the |
| 0:50.4 | most enormous cock-ups. |
| 0:56.0 | I first encountered the term willful blindness, reading about the trial of Enron's chief executive. |
| 0:59.0 | As a former chief executive myself, I have to say, a chill went down my spine. |
| 1:05.0 | Are you familiar with the term willful blindness? |
| 1:10.0 | Mr. Sanders, would you care to elaborate? |
| 1:14.0 | It is a term that came up in the Enron scandal. |
| 1:18.4 | A willful blindness is a legal term. |
| 1:20.9 | It states that if there is knowledge that you could have had and should have had but |
| 1:25.7 | chose not to have you are still responsible. |
| 1:29.8 | This is a very high standard. |
| 1:32.2 | It means we're supposed to know everything and I'm certain in my own |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.