I went to a charity breakfast a couple of days ago and heard a couple of guys who are working to bring relief to a community in South Africa that has a high incidence of hiv/aids.
The charity is doing some very courageous and compassionate things.
However, their largest problem is not the poverty of the area, but the fact that the community is in denial. To quote one of them: ‘you visit someone who is sick and you can tell straight away that they have the disease, but they will blame the symptoms on almost anything else’. There is a perceived stigma in admitting their problem. As a result, sufferers don’t access the available treatments or change their behaviours until it is far too late.
One of the biggest problems organisations face in making the changes necessary to be successful is being in denial about what the evidence is telling you. There is often a perceived stigma in admitting that things are not all they could be.
It can happen in any size of organisation. In large organisations, the facts can gets lost in departmental politics; in small start-ups the decision maker can fall in love with a particular aspect of the technology.
Sometimes you just need someone outside of your situation to come alongside to remove the stigma, help you accept that things are the way they are, and help you take action to improve them.
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