Titanic Mindset

I have always been fascinated by the story of the Titanic, and why the ship met its tragic fate. From the architects and engineers, to the crew and passengers themselves, everyone was convinced that the Titanic could not sink. What was even more fascinating is that the denial grew and prevailed for some time among the passengers and crew as the ship was sinking. This mindset undoubtedly caused many unnecessary deaths. Since nearly everyone believed so strongly that the Titanic was invincible, they were unable to perceive reality as it unfolded. It seems incredible to us today that anyone could believe that 70,000 tons of steel could be unsinkable, but that was the conventional wisdom of 1912. 

In the book Titanic: An Illustrated History, Don Lynch and Ken Marschall describe how strong this belief was. They quote one of the survivors saying, “From a distance, the Titanic looked like the perfect postcard – all lit up on a clear, calm night. Many crewmen reinforced the false sense of security – either intentionally — or because they themselves could not believe the ship was sinking fast.”

In Harper’s Weekly, Volume 56, Issue 5, May 21, 1960, William Inglis takes us through the experience of a survivor Henry Sleeper Harper who described how nobody initially believed there was any emergency. Harper explains the incredulity of how, on board the sinking Titanic, with water creeping up foot by foot, the gymnasium instructor was still helping passengers on the mechanical exercise equipment. The orchestra continued to calm the crowd with waltzes, ragtime, and music hall tunes, and last drinks were “on the house” in the first-class smoking room. Three ladies who had been walking the deck arm in arm, singing to the other guests who were more alarmed by the inconvenience, ignored the stern warnings to board the lifeboats to escape pending danger. “What do they need of lifeboats?” one woman asked. “This ship could smash a hundred icebergs and not feel it. Ridiculous!” she announced. Everyone seemed confident that the ship was all right.

Those closest to the Titanic were the ones most convinced of her invincibility. The Titanic was sinking; this was the reality. Yet the mindsets of the people on the ship were so strong that they could not see the reality, leading to an unnecessary loss of human life at sea. The fate of people on the Titanic shows how the unimaginable can become possible and how assumptions can be mistaken for facts. 

The story of the Titanic is a very powerful example of a “too big to fail” mindset. Kodak, Nokia, Enron, Lehman Brothers, Blockbuster, Toys-R-Us, Borders, Myspace, Sears, and many other companies suffered from the same mindset problem. Today’s organizations struggle with the same types of problems as they did decades ago. They attempt to adopt new methodologies, frameworks, and practices, but the mindset and culture of the organization remains unchanged. 

We all, at some point of time, fall victim to the Titanic mindset, “Since I am so sure, I can’t be wrong,” and some of us fall victim to this mindset most of the time. This is because the way we think influences the way we behave and because we all see the world through the prism of our own attitudes, shaped by our environment and experiences. The first step to evolving our mindset is to understand how we hold a set of basic assumptions, values, and beliefs about how the world works, which are also called our worldviews. This is how we determine our outlook on life or our formula for life. These are the fundamental aspects of our mindset that ground and influence our perceiving, thinking, knowing, and doing. Our worldviews evolve throughout our lives. However, at times, we’re in over our heads. Our cognitive capacity doesn’t always keep up with the complexity of our environment and problems.

Our current mindset does not allow us to see the world as it is, instead our mindset creates blind spots for us.

In 1991, when the war in Yugoslavia first started between Serbia and Croatia, most people in Bosnia didn’t think the war would come to their doorsteps. As most people watched the live images on television of houses burning and dead people on the street, they didn’t think the war would come to their towns. Their mindset, beliefs and worldviews stayed unchanged. I vividly remember my dad saying as I sat next to him, “Go outside and play. This is temporary, our neighbors won’t do anything like that to us.” As the war erupted in Bosnia, just months later, people continued to believe their neighbors would not imprison or kill them, even though town after town was seeing mass expulsions, killings, and ethnic cleansing. Soon after, my whole town of about 80 Christian families would be set upon and taken to the concentration camps by our non-Christian neighbors. Many fell victim to the Titanic mindset during the Civil War in Yugoslavia. The civil wars that demolished this south-eastern part of Europe for several years during the 1990s left more than 120,000 people dead.

Most organizations are blind to their wicked problems. They don’t see it coming, and when a crisis happens, the recovery is very expensive.

Every organization becomes trapped in the myths or assumptions that take on the aura of indisputable truths over time.

You may wonder why is this happening? Why can’t leaders, consultants, and coaches do a better job of helping organizations deal with these wicked problems? The challenge lies in exactly what they do. Or more importantly, what they’re being asked to do by the people who hire them. I once questioned my client about their mindset and culture and his reply was, “The company has been in existence for over 100 years and you are going to presume to tell us that we need to change our mindset and culture?” That engagement didn’t last long. Today’s organizations struggle with the same types of problems as they did decades ago. They attempt to adopt new methodologies, frameworks, and practices, but the underlying mindset and culture of the organization remains unchanged. As a result, organizations continue to produce a lot of waste, such as features that customers don’t find useful and practices that disengage employees.

Today, many organizations are in trouble as they still believe that things are obvious and predictable. They continue to believe their own myths and that past success means they’re invulnerable to any big failures. But then, the inevitable happens, and they find themselves in crisis. All because of the old Titanic mindset that continues to prevail across many organizations.