Dr. Jake Taylor Jacobs

It's not a character flaw.

It's not a competence issue.

It's an operational malfunction.

It's structural.

Blindness because it's about visibility or the lack thereof.

The SPD director isn't choosing to ignore problems.

They literally cannot see them.

The information doesn't exist.

The feedback loops are not built.

The connection between what they do and what the organization experiences isn't measured.

Operational blindness is a systemic condition in which leaders cannot see the dysfunction in their own operations because the measurement systems, reporting structures, and feedback mechanisms don't surface it.

Let me break that definition down.

Systemic condition.

This isn't about individuals.

It's about the system.

You can't replace every person in the department and still have operational blindness.

Let me tell you this again.

You can replace every person in the department and still have operational blindness if the system remains unchanged.

Leaders cannot see the dysfunction.

The people affected often have the skills experience, the skills, experience and motivation to fix problems.