Sigmund Freud and organisational psychopathy
Freud's reputation is mixed. Wasn't he a bit weird and sex obsessed? Well, quite possibly. Indeed, the world's most famous Freudian slip was at a conference on Freud himself when a speaker - less than impressed with the great man - started with, "When discussing the work of this man Fraud".
Dr Tim Marsh PhD, MSc, CFIOSH, CPsychol, SFIIRSM, MD, Anker and Marsh
But actually, he has contributed hugely to our understanding of the world. It was his work that first stressed the vital importance of sexuality which, in time, begat the hugely influential socio-biological work of such as Richard Dawkins on ‘selfish genes’. He also stressed the vital importance of early experience (Show me the child and I’ll show you the adult.) It was also Freud who first emphasised the importance of the subconscious a century before Daniel Kahneman wrote Thinking fast and slow and David Cameron set up his ‘nudge unit’.
The Freudian insights that I’m discussing here, however, are about distortion, denial, rationalisation and projection. In short, he was all over mental gymnastics – especially of the self-serving variety. There is any number of politicians worldwide we could now discuss of course but I was reminded of the organisational context watching the (true) film The Good Nurse, starring Eddie Redmayne as the serial killer nurse Charles Cullen.
Despite a spike in emergency events at every hospital he worked at and persistent rumours pointing at him as to why, no less than eight hospitals, in fear of bad reputation and law suits, were happy to simply move Cullen on. Typically, on a technicality – he would then just go get a new job at a hospital down the road. Despite evidence he’d been killing patients by injecting them with insulin they sacked him, for example, for saying he was at a previous hospital from May when it was actually June – His contract stating very clearly there can be no errors on the application form as the team of lawyers and risk managers walking him directly to the door pointed out!
When eventually caught, he was found guilty of 28 murders, but it’s estimated that the actual number is closer to 400 or more. However, no one from any of the hospitals involved has ever been charged let alone convicted with any crime or malpractice. This despite the fact that each hospital simply made the decision to pass the problem to the next hospital employing him. In doing so, they effectively signed the death warrants of up to 390 people.
Lethal corporate mental gymanistics is referenced in a previous article I’ve written about Boeing’s culture; is evident in films like Dark Water (about DuPont of all people) and Erin Brockovich; you’ll have heard of the tobacco industry supressing research data for as long as they could; or the Sackler family and their role in the (legal) drugs epidemic that is estimated to have killed and/or addicted millions. An excellent article about that here.
The list is endless and, in short, this sort of lethal corporate mental gymnastics is everywhere and will only be likely to increase in a world recession.
I’m often asked to talk in debates about the future of the safety professional. Can I suggest that job one will remain a front-line fight against the soulless bastards who undertake all sorts of mental gymnastics to convince themselves that it’s OK to hurt and kill random innocent people for the ‘greater good’ of their organisation’s sustainability. They point at one ‘bigger picture’ to distract from the real one – often having convinced themselves they’re doing no such thing.
But there’s an old man with a beard and a couch from Vienna who could have put them straight.
NB: Abba’s Money Money Money is very catchy but Bob Dylan (of course) nailed it with a rather more insightful line. A free book for the lyric and the song it comes from.
