In the series introduction, we framed choice points as silent forks in the road. Today, we explore why even skilled leaders overlook them, and the costly consequences.
Leaders pride themselves on foresight and control. Yet, time and again, organisations are blindsided by crises that, in hindsight, were telegraphed by weak signals months or even years prior. This isn’t merely bad luck; it’s a systemic failure to recognise what I term “organic choice points”. These are critical moments demanding intentional action before circumstances force it. As a consultant immersed in real-world organisational dynamics, I’ve seen this pattern unfold repeatedly within genuine businesses facing genuine pressures.
A Real-Life Invisible Crisis Example
I was on contract with an organisation to help them implement a World Class Manufacturing System on the shopfloor. They worked mostly for the construction industry and had recently ventured out to selling products to the automotive industry. As I got to know their internal systems better, I detected that they were running a risk where their quality system was adequate for the construction industry but faulty by automotive standards.
Using my experience working for Toyota, I highlighted the issue, the potential consequences, and made suggestions to solve the issue. They had an opportunity to fix the quality system before it became a crisis and that required resources that they didn’t really have. I had the knowledge of what would happen if a faulty quality system was revealed and shared it with them to make them aware of the consequences. As their only reference was non-automotive customers, they downplayed my concerns. The window of opportunity they had for fixing their system closed after a few months, the customer detected defects, audited their quality system and demanded instant action.
The organisation was then in crisis and had to inject more resources and work round the clock to fix the issue. This created an intense moment of stress, effort, and put the contract at risk. With hindsight, it seemed obvious that addressing it earlier would have been less painful… but they couldn’t do it earlier, they just couldn’t see beyond their constraints.
The Awareness Gap
Does this example make them poor leaders and me a great know-all? Of course not!
A choice point is rarely announced by flashing lights and a massive sign; generally, it creeps up, starting as weak signals and amplifying over time. If ignored for too long, the choice point usually evolves into a crisis. Neuroscience reveals why leaders miss choice points: under stress, the brain prioritizes immediate fixes over systemic reflection (Rock, 2008). When faced with ambiguity or potential threats, the brain’s amygdala triggers a fight-flight-freeze response, prioritising rapid reaction over reflective cognition. Leaders conditioned for operational stability often default to “fixing” immediate, tangible problems, inadvertently filtering out anomalies or uncomfortable whispers that signal deeper systemic shifts.
This is compounded by cognitive bias. Our existing mental models act like filters, determining what information we deem relevant or credible. Vertical development levels (Cook-Greuter, 2004; Rooke & Torbert, 2005) play a crucial role.
Vertical development refers to the expansion of a leader’s cognitive and emotional capacity to handle complexity and in this case, determines whether choice points are recognised or missed.
Research suggests a significant proportion of senior leaders operate predominantly from the ‘Achiever’ mindset. They are highly effective at driving results within known paradigms but often lacking the cognitive complexity to readily perceive or value perspectives radically different from their own, or to embrace the ambiguity inherent in transformative choice points.
What is Awareness?
In vertical development theory, awareness refers to the expanding capacity to perceive, recognise, and reflect on one’s own thoughts, emotions, assumptions, and behaviours, as well as the broader systems and contexts in which they operate.
Unlike horizontal development (gaining skills/knowledge at the same cognitive stage), vertical development fosters a transformative shift in how one is aware, enabling more nuanced, systemic, and adaptive perspectives. (See the work of Robert Kegan, Susanne Cook-Greuter, Bill Torbert for more in-depth content).
In coaching or ACT therapy, we can prompt intentional pause and reflection so that the client can evaluate stakes and consequences of their actions, aligning them with their values or supporting the change they are seeking. It involves deepening self-awareness and contextual awareness as individuals mature into more complex stages of consciousness.
I find that field observations match theory: Spiral dynamics theory and vertical development theories state that we can’t see beyond our current level of growth. Essentially that our understanding of the world is limited by our current viewpoint. Leaders stuck at this plateau may dismiss early warnings simply because they lack the framework to understand their significance, and that’s what happened with my client. Interestingly, the crisis sparked growth and once over, they noticed that their viewpoint had shifted as their knowledge of the automotive industry standards and requirements had shifted. The awareness gap was filled and luckily for them, without great consequence (other than a few sleepless nights and much blood and tears). I have another client who shut down his business, not having been able to make the necessary changes, even after having finally acknowledging the issue. But it was too late.
In an organisation, there isn’t a single focus for the choice point like in coaching or therapy (the client) or a defined situation but a more diffuse context with multiple decision makers. Yet, it’s still possible to see what is happening and act upon it. The solution calls upon organisational design, by which we create the conditions and mechanisms to capture the insights and include them in the decision-making process.
As a consultant, it’s my skill to detect trends and the unseen and to bring them into the light. But that doesn’t mean that it can be seen or heard by others. For that to happen, the situation must be accessible to the leadership’s awareness: they must be capable of letting this often new and unchartered information into their realm of conscious knowledge.
The Cost of Blindness
The cost of this blindness is staggering. Gartner research indicates that a staggering 74% of organisational failures can be traced back to unattended early warning signals (Gartner, 2022). A sobering MIT Sloan study found 68% of executives admit to consciously dismissing these ‘weak signals’ because they conflicted with current priorities or seemed like mere background noise (MIT Sloan Management Review, 2021). This isn’t negligence in the usual sense; it’s a systemic vulnerability rooted in human cognition and organisational design.
The Good News is…
The good news is that we can do something about it! Organisational design and structures can help us shape our cognition and build a different kind of knowledge and awareness.
Awareness is acquired through inner work, not power or rank.
This means that in order to see the choice points, leaders must go deeper into themselves and do inner work to be able to recognise and confront the organisational and cultural challenges presented to them.
This is something we all face (me included) and whilst it may seem obvious in the sphere of personal development or therapy, it is often overlooked in the world of business. Yet it is one of the basics of our human condition: we can expand our perceptions, and that is the role of leadership development.
Leadership development isn’t a fluffy extra, something you do to make people feel good when you have nothing else to do, it is a pillar of your strategy because it’s the main lever you possess to cope with changes of circumstance and context. The survival and growth of your business depends upon the collective capacity to open to new knowledge, ways of working, and levels of complexity. Leadership development is your ticket to growth (in many ways).
Coming Up…
Organisations have big clumsy boots that can easily trample fragile shoots that show the premises of potential disaster. In the next article, we’ll equip your ‘canaries’ to sing louder so you can detect trends and subtle warnings faster.
Your Call to Action
Audit your last crisis: Could it have been prevented by heeding early whispers?
If you’re interested further in understanding the role of leadership development in change and transformation, I offer a wider perspective based upon 20 years of field work in my book: How Might We? A Fresh Look at Change Management and Transformation from a Neurodivergent Perspective.