 Denoidance
By Mark W. Sheffert
November 2005
Cartoonist Charles Schultz once drew Charlie Brown asking Lucy if she was going to make any New Year’s
resolutions. Lucy screams, “What for?! What’s wrong with me now? I like myself just the way I am!” and
Charlie Brown is launched into a backwards flip by the force of her voice.
Lucy goes on in the next frame: “Why should I change?! What in the world is the matter with you, Charlie Brown?!!” And
as Charlie Brown finally walks away, muttering “Good grief!” she shouts after him, “I’m all right the way I am! I don’t have to
improve! How could I improve? HOW, I ask you?! HOW?”
I encounter a similar response from executives and boards of directors when I work with underperforming companies.
Presented with data showing that the company is descending into a death spiral, they typically deny and avoid the problems at
hand. It occurs so often that I’ve affectionately coined a term to describe the ugly combination of denial and avoidance: “denoidance.” (Pretty catchy, huh? I should get a royalty on this one if Webster uses it.)
Denoidance Devastates
It’s a human reaction to duck into a foxhole when the bullets are buzzing around your ears, rather than stick your noggin out
and risk getting shot. But denial and avoidance of problems will lead to a full-blown crisis.
No one sets out to react this way. In fact, people can lull themselves into believing that they are dealing with problems when
they’re not. They notice signs – revenues fall short of projections a few quarters in a row, or profit margins begin to slip – and a
few folks in leadership positions discuss the issue at board meetings and management meetings. They make promises to each
other to improve next quarter, but when that time comes, there’s a valid reason (read “excuse”) for once again not having
achieved better results. And so on. The results are always coming mañana, mañana. Tomorrow comes and nothing changes.
Management and the board go along this way, denying quarter after quarter or year after year that there’s a real, long-term
problem. They all talk a good game, but have no results to show for their empty words. The entire corporate culture becomes
one of denial about the state of the organization and the effectiveness of its key employees; the problem even becomes the brunt
of jokes by some people inside the company, but no one talks about it seriously.
It seems easier to avoid the tough stuff than to deal with it head on. In reality, the short-term pain of dealing with the
problem is much less than the long-term pain of a crisis. Put another way, if it looks like a skunk, walks like a skunk, and smells
like a skunk…it’s a skunk! And if you just stand there in a daze while it comes at you, you’ll have the smelly outcome you’ve
got coming to you.
In business, that means your company will underperform in the best-case scenario or go out of business in the worst case.
What the Shrinks Say
According to the shrinks at MentalHelp.net, denial is “refusing to admit or face a threatening situation.” It can be unconscious,
such as when someone recovering from a heart attack continues to overeat or smoke as if there were no connection between that
and heart problems. Or it can be semiconscious, as when a person in a bad relationship finds reasons to stay in it, despite the
urging of friends and family. Denial also can be very conscious – the kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar who says he
isn’t eating cookies.
I’ve seen denial at all three levels in business: unconscious being when a company doesn’t have cash in the bank to make
payroll at the end of the week, yet is still paying for country club perks for its executives; semiconscious being when revenues
and profits are declining, yet there’s no change in strategy, just idle talk about doing better next time; and very conscious being
when the board of directors does not get rid of inept management, even though most employees can see it should be done.
Dodging that problem – of firing key employees who can’t get the job done – is always costly. There’s been a lot written
about the cost of hiring the wrong person, but what about the cost of keeping the wrong person around? I’m sure the research
would show similar dreadful effects.
The Cure
Mental health professionals say there are two ways to cope with stress, “flight or fight.” The flight response includes
denoidance; you see “flight” whenever people avoid, repress, look away from, deny responsibility for, or try to literally escape
from a situation. The “fight” response is in evidence when people approach the situation, learn more, become engaged and
vigilant, take charge, and plan what to do next.
Flight might be okay when you’re dealing with a situation that’s out of your control, but the fight approach is better when
you can do something about the circumstances. And in business leadership, there’s always something you can do.
Leadership is about dealing with uncomfortable things. That’s what you’re paid for, for crying out loud! So wake up and be
proactive!
Even if your company doesn’t show outward signs of trouble now, it would benefit from a benchmark study that compares
your company’s performance to the performance of peers in your industry. If your company isn’t growing as fast as the
industry, by definition you’re losing market share; if your profits aren’t growing as fast as the industry’s, by definition you’re
going broke each day.
If there are signs of trouble and they’re so overwhelming that you don’t even know where to start, begin by breaking the big
problems into their component parts: Profit margins aren’t acceptable, or operations are inefficient, or cash management is not
effective. Whatever the problems, they become easier to tackle when they’re identified and broken down.
Financial results are symptoms of bigger issues, usually including a management team and board of directors who are
ineffective. Deal with it. Now. Begin at the top, because the fundamental duty of directors is to assure stakeholders that the
company has capable management. That’s what lenders, investors, shareholders, employees, and customers expect of you if
you’re a director, and that’s what courts will hold you accountable for.
Failure to deal with tough issues could be costing your company hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. If
denoidance is the culture at your company, the board and management team are a block to improved performance. This is your
wake-up call. Take responsibility and stop blaming others or avoiding conflict. If you don’t act now, the light at the end of the
tunnel isn’t an escape, it’s a freight train coming at you.
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