Ernest Kanzler may not be a name that you are familiar with, but he was the brother-in-law and closest confidante of Edsel Ford, who was the son of Henry Ford, famous for the Ford Motor Company and more for the Model T he brought out in the early 1920s. Ernest Kanzler went up to Henry Ford and gave him a six-page letter detailing why they needed to move beyond Ford's beloved Model T to a more competitive six-cylinder car. One of the things he pointed out was that Chevrolet sales were rapidly increasing while Ford's were in sharp decline. He said, "With every additional car our competitors sell, they get stronger and we get weaker."
Surprisingly, this didn't go down well with Henry Ford. He was furious and "Ernest Kanzler found himself ignored, ridiculed, and victimized in every conceivable way. Ultimately," as Ron Osborn says, "he was fired by Henry Ford while Edsel was out of the country."
If you look at the annals of history as it pertains to Henry Ford and the Model T, you'll find that Henry Ford was so obsessed with the Model T, he refused to look at anything that would be different from it, including the color black. While others had moved on, he continued to be myopic in his view. This resulted in his firing of Ernest Kanzler. This classic case of denial for Henry Ford manifested clearly in his behaviour.
Denial is something that can creep up on us without our realizing it. We go through the motions, we enjoy the success of things all around us, everything is going well and we don't like to hear a voice that could prick the bubble, or make us feel a little uncomfortable, asking us to move out of these comfortable places we are currently in. John Kenneth Galbraith, one of America's most famous economists and also Ambassador to India in the Kennedy days, says that when we have denial, it's when our view of the world "remains with the comfortable and the familiar while the world moves on." That's what happened to Henry Ford. He got so comfortable with his Model T that he failed to realize that the American people were looking for other things – more flashy things, cars that would add a little bit of life to them, to move away from the somber things that were part of those early days. And Henry Ford never saw that. The world was moving on and he remained in the comfortable and the familiar.
How do we recognize denial in our lives? John Kotter, associated with Harvard Business School says there are two main impediments to change: one is a high level of complacency and the other is a low sense of urgency.
Let's stop and allow those two lines to sink in; then let's turn the spotlight on ourselves for just a minute, maybe an uncomfortable minute, and ask the 2 questions: Are we in a high level of complacency? Are things going well – we haven't really needed to do anything? By default everything is panning out nicely. Then, in your own life, is there a very low sense of urgency – perhaps the desire to do something new, to accomplish something has gone?
Has the spark gone and are you quite comfortable drifting? If you had to think about those two questions a little bit more than you needed to, maybe denial is something that is going on in your life, in some area. And if it is, then the proper thing to do is to be able to deal with it. Not easy!
Richard Tedlow, professor at Harvard Business School says, "A firm that deals with bad news by literally or figuratively dismissing the person who bears it is both in denial and in trouble. Not only will that news go unheard but potential truth-tellers will quickly learn to keep quiet. Or get out." That's another pointer to us – have we recently had people coming and telling us something we didn't like to hear? And perhaps we dismiss, even avoid that person now. And if we have the power to, we put them down – are truth-tellers unable to get through the firewall that you have created around yourself?
Complacency and a lack of urgency would be classic symptoms of denial. But it doesn't need to stay there – if desired, one can move out of it by being decisive; look at what's going on in your life and say that you've got to do something.
Benjamin Franklin, in 1772 wrote a letter to Joseph Priestly, and he said something that has been a hallmark of decision-making for so many years. Paraphrased, he said, "I take a piece of paper, draw a line down the center. I write 'Pros' in one column and 'Cons' in the other. I begin to write down the motivations that I have for doing it, the motivations for not. The pros and the cons. If I see the sheet of paper in the days that follow, anything in the pros column that has equal value on the cons, I strike them out. Then, if I find a pro that is equal to two cons, I strike out all three. If I find two reasons con equal to three reasons pro, I strike out all five. At the end of a couple of days, I look at the balance. It helps me to make a decision, even if it may not be the kind of algebraic decision one can mathematically make with algebraic precision." He called it Moral or Prudential Algebra – an easy simple way to make a decision.
Maybe today, you are in denial in some area of your life. Taking out a piece of paper could be the best thing you've ever done – putting down the pros and cons in that area of your life and deciding to move beyond complacency and the low sense of urgency that you feel. Today may be the time to move out of denial and into the real world in which you ought to be, are meant to be, and are positioned to be, by the Almighty God. May He give you wisdom to do what needs to be done.
May I pray with you? Almighty God, to each one give wisdom that can only come from You. Give discernment and insight to take a good, hard look at our lives and see if there are high levels of complacency and a low sense of urgency. Move us away from denial. Help us to hear the truth-tellers in our lives and to be able to do what You would have us do, because You don't want us to be in denial. Help us to fulfill the reason why we are here at this point in our lives. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen.
• Ron Osborn, "Edsel Bryant Ford," http://www.edsel.com/pages/edslford.htm
• Martha Lagace, "Ruthlessly Realistic: How CEOs Must Overcome Denial." http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/ruthlessly-realistic-how-ceos-must-overcome-denial
• John P. Kotter, "Leading Change." http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usafa/review_leading_change.htm
• Benjamin Franklin letter to Joseph Priestly, http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedVolumes.jsp?vol=19&page=299a
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