Rectifications (12) – The Usual Suspects…

Rectifications (12) – The Usual Suspects…

Torrey Orton – July 1, 2009

… is the name of a film (1994) which a patient client was telling me about in the middle of searching his own script a few days ago. I jumped for my notepad because I’d been looking for the next needed Rectification. I know one when I see one because my favourites abound, but only a few are chosen. This is one. Not the film of course, which I gather from reviews and his recollection is a must for those among the unchosen.

Apart from the film, ‘the usual suspects’ enjoys an ubiquity among the commentariats and letterati which is saddening. So quickly, in a turn of the phrase, the writers relieve themselves of any need to think about their argument. It is no longer argument since it addresses part of the prospective audiences as noteworthy only by their dismissal. Pathetic. But this fault is not only to be found here or on just one side of socio-political discourses.

Its underpinning is a failure of intellectual competence, or better, of intellectual and moral development beyond that of the black and white universe of early adulthood. The Harvard Business School provides a nice example of this. In “How Frank or Deceptive Should Leaders Be?” the argument flows back and forth between the two with nary a thought given to the probability that both are required in many circumstances – quite likely in all human ones. Such digital thinking, either/or thinking leads to simplicities which cannot sustain complexity. The roles of frankness and deception in everyday life (to say nothing of their roles in high speed, high stakes decision-making) are open to encyclopaedic dispute. Accepting that they both have a role is the starting place for a more radical discussion.

If the digital is the level of thought of world class (?) CEO’s and aspirant-CEO’s in the US (and therefore, since at HBS, the world) it is not surprising they get caught in conceptual and procedural pits, inflexible in the face of normal complexity. What’s the training they offer for this gap? I think an education may be required, but most universities don’t offer that anymore. It probably can’t be trained anyway, though a multitude of leadership specialists will offer it in a week or two’s workshops and projects and someone is buying their wares so…maybe it can!

Finally, talking to Brassie today, I realised that ‘the usual suspects’ is a kind of profiling which, if it were conducted by our various social services, would be grounds for a discrimination complaint or more. Since it is only intellectual profiling of figureheads in our fantasy demonologies let it be.
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As a last gasp, if you feel a ‘usual suspects’ coming on, take a breath, wonder why you are preparing to attach this label to the people in question, and ask yourself what your thought or action gains by so labelling them. I bet it’s some kind of ethical free pass for you from the pain of thinking through a complexity. It usually is for me.