Nelson’s Eye

They say you cannot wake up a man who pretends to be asleep. This captures a frustrating situation that many of us have encountered as persuaders. We see a replay of this at personal, corporate, and political levels. We do everything right, but our persuasion efforts fail because the target has decided not to see, not to listen, not to understand.

Let’s recall a well-known anecdote from Horatio Nelson, the British naval hero and the star of the Battle of Copenhagen (April 1801). Admiral Sir Hyde Parker commanded the British fleet that was trying to destroy the Danish-Norwegian fleet anchored off Copenhagen. From aboard HMS Elephant, Vice Admiral Nelson led the main attack.

As Nelson started his advance towards the harbor, Admiral Parker judged that a retreat was necessary because three of his ships had run aground and the Danish fire was much heavier than anticipated. Heavy casualties and defeat appeared certain to him. So he signaled to Nelson to withdraw.

The signal lieutenant informed Nelson of the signal from the fleet’s commander. But Nelson did not want to withdraw. He was pretty sure that he would win in spite of the destruction around him. Yet he should not disobey orders. So he raised the telescope to his blind eye (he had lost one eye in an earlier battle) and said cheekily, “I really don’t see the signal.” How can anyone blame him for disobeying orders if he didn’t get them?

Of course he went on to cripple the Danish and bring about a truce in favour of the British. And when Admiral Parker was recalled later in the year, Nelson was made the commander-in-chief in the Baltic Sea. But his tactic is something that many people adopt at all levels and in different spheres.

If you pretend that you can’t see the elephant in the room, obviously others can’t expect you to chase it out. When a powerful person or government adopts this tactic, there is pretty little others can do about it.

Americans, for example, consider it their sacred duty to reduce and if possible eliminate atrocities all over the world. They clearly see atrocities perpetrated by the Gadaffi regime against the people in Libya, and have intervened along with members of NATO. Through a press release American President Obama declared on March 28, 2011: “To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and – more profoundly – our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are.  Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.”

Excellent. Highly proactive. But when signals of similar or worse atrocities come from their allies, they raise the telescope to their blind eye.

What happens on the international scene does happen on a smaller scale in the corporate world too. Have you come across Nelson’s eye in your organisation?