Amathia: The Abdication of Leadership
Hans Amell Agility and Transformation Expert
Making corporations faster! Leadership and Agility expert. Certification.
In an age of unprecedented turmoil and uncertainty, a silent yet insidious enemy undermines progress, justice, and truth. This enemy is amathia—an ancient Greek term meaning "intelligent stupidity." It is not ignorance, but a deliberate refusal to act, even when one knows better. Amathia thrives when individuals who possess the knowledge, capacity, and power to create change instead choose silence, compliance, or inaction.
The cost of amathia is staggering. We see it in organizational chaos, broken political systems, and the unchecked spread of misguided ideologies. Leaders, afraid of backlash or personal risk, turn a blind eye to the absurd. It is a total disregard of common sense. They rationalize their apathy with statements like:
But make no mistake: this is a betrayal of leadership. It is a failure of courage, a rejection of responsibility, and an abandonment of common sense. Amathia enables unnecessary processes, supports flawed systems, and perpetuates stupidity—not because people don’t see the problem, but because they choose to look away.
Leadership is not merely a title; it is an obligation to act in service of truth and integrity. To lead is to stand firm in the face of complacency, to reject amathia in all its forms, and to dismantle the nonsense that holds organizations, societies, political parties and individual’s hostage.
The way forward is clear. We must call out amathia wherever it lurks, refuse to tolerate its excuses, and demand more of those in positions of influence. This is not just a battle for better systems or processes—it is a fight for the very soul of leadership. Those who know better must step up. The world needs voices of clarity, champions of courage, and leaders who prioritize truth over convenience and other silly reasons. Most of it is common sense, and nobody in his/her right mind can argue when it comes to implementing the change.
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HERE WE GO AGAIN, MY ORIGINAL POST FROM SEPTEMBER THIS YEAR WITH MORE AGILITY FOCUS
??????????????????????????????????????????????? Don’t accept AMATHIA in your organization!
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Making corporations faster! Leadership and Agility expert. Certification.
September 26, 2024
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Do you often get very irritated by these endless processes when calling a bank or insurance company? The training in many services driven groups is often built around processes. If the employee eventually fails to follow the exact process, then they will get in trouble or even lose their job. I remember a Swedish leader called Jan Carlsson who took over SAS, the troubled airline at their time was in total financial despair. He forcefully turned SAS around by empowering the service frontline (customer phasing employees) to take immediate decisions to accommodate customer requests when it made sense. He pushed Marketing to make customers understand that SAS was a service company first and a transportation company second. He wrote a book about “turning the pyramids upside down”, making the point that the whole company works for the frontline!
I would argue that so many otherwise intelligent people are accepting this measurement and process frenzy situation, but know in their hearts of hearts, that many processes are silly and unnecessary at best, and completely wrong at worst. There is an ancient Greek word in philosophy called “AMATHIA”, it’s also been referred to as “intelligent stupidity”. It’s used to describe situations where otherwise extremely smart, or well-intentioned people or groups of people fall victim to “stupid” or rather, simple problems or changes. It’s not because of an inability to comprehend or adapt, but a refusal. I believe all the unnecessary processes fall into this category. ??Do not let your company fall into that trap!
The new era of uncertainty can be scary to many. We work and live with a wish for certainty. Making plans and budgets is getting harder for each year and no matter how hard we work we always must make a leap of faith as we recognize we just can’t know and measure everything! Often forecasting is handled by teams in Supply Chain Management (SCM), Production, and Finance. These areas are typically seen as more "trustworthy" and quantitative. While they do seek input from Sales, Marketing, R&D, HR, and other departments, the growing uncertainty in every facet of society has made forecasting more challenging. The reality is, in our increasingly volatile world, that new technologies and globalization are shortening product and service life cycles. It’s a perfect storm that makes traditional planning almost impossible. To survive, we must embrace AGILITY—without it, we risk becoming obsolete.
We cannot afford to freeze our company's maneuverability with rigid systems and processes based on uncertain plans and budgets. As I, Hans Amell argue in my book, Radical Business Agility, corporate agility is essential. Forecast deviations will become unacceptably wide soon after predictions are made. Like a ship or airplane, corporations need a plan and a general schedule, but the journey itself must be constantly adjusted—sometimes rerouted or canceled altogether—due to uncertainty and unforeseen events.
This must be done without "drama or angst," even in large organizations with thousands of employees. Implementing changes in such environments is often a significant challenge due to established systems, processes, and cultural resistance. My book uses the metaphor of a ship’s captain to illustrate how I believe companies should be run—AGILE, WITHOUT ANGST!
AGILITY vs. FORECASTING TRAITS
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Currently, forecasting is often left to "half the brain," when it requires the full engagement of both the creative and analytical mind. Agility and true marketing frequently play a subordinate role in many B2B or industrially focused companies, but that must change. However, for agility to thrive, departments like Marketing will need to strengthen their quantitative skills.
Agility doesn’t belong to any one department, but Marketing could be its natural home—provided they have a strategic mandate beyond just PR and advertising. Marketing must own all four P’s (Price, Product, Place, Promotion) in a true marketing organization. At WAPA, we refer to this empowerment by installing a DNS (Dynamic Navigational System) in the Marketing department—a forward-looking Mission Control. It can, however, be placed anywhere, but we find it logical to be co-managed by Finance and Marketing no matter where it’s located.
We at WAPA are ready and able to guide you on the journey towards greater AGILITY without ANGST!
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Are you experiencing rising uncertainty, cost considerations or increased competition in your market? ?Call WAPA International S.A. We can help! Corporate Agility and Supply-chain are our two areas of expertise. www.wapa.world, [email protected]
Making corporations faster! Leadership and Agility expert. Certification.
2 个月It's surprising to me that Amathia doesn't get more attention. We definitely have some major movement in some governments with their efforts to cut unnecessary fat but few leaders have the guts to take it on. I guess they are afraid and don't dare to be exposed with optics of the negatives having people lose their jobs.