Companies fail when they lose the collective capacity for curiosity. Poor cultures develop through active promotion and rewarding of poor behaviours, subtle nudges and winks, inaction or by giving licence by turning a blind eye.

In every case, there is a failure to explore the anomalies or outliers which is the essence of curiosity. Focusing only upon traffic lights to signal danger or safety while ignoring the passenger who has spotted a speeding truck can lead to devastating outcomes.

Failing to spot anomalies in workplace culture can lead to system failures.Credit: Tamara Voninski

Too frequently in the aftermath, company spokespeople will claim they didn’t see it coming and that they were following best practice by driving into the junction when the lights went green.

The problem with spotting anomalies is that in corporate cultures that so heavily promote team-work, shared values and key performance indicators, if you point out the anomalies you are likely to be branded difficult or worse, oppositional.

Despite vacuous claims of “flat” organisations and the encouragement of “two-way” communication, the reality is commonly quite the opposite. There is still a common assumption that those at the pointy end of the so-called flat organisation........

© The Age