See no evil: why not to ignore problems at work

"Everyone knew she was an awful, abusive, evil boss. We even had a code name for her: in emails, instead of calling her Mimi, we'd type it Me-Me! Nobody ever understood why or how she lasted so long."

Sandra has worked in the City for years and she's seen plenty of weird behaviour. But as far as she's concerned, Mimi was the worst. "She sold and mis-sold and crammed things down people's throat. No ethics at all. But we'd look around and see nobody was doing anything about it so we figured maybe nobody above her knew, or maybe nobody cared."

What Sandra is describing is "wilful blindness": the behaviour we all manifest when there's something we could know, and should know, but prefer not to know. We say we turn a "blind eye" to it because, as long as we can pretend we don't see what's going on, we don't have to deal with it.

You can see wilful blindness in all walks of life, from debt-ridden homeowners who don't dare open their credit card bills to the sun-worshipper who'd rather forget those nasty skin cancer statistics to the HBOS broker who knew his customer couldn't possibly afford such a huge mortgage. But nowhere is wilful blindness as pervasive as at work.

One of the most common forms is the corporate meeting at which nothing gets said. Jeremy worked in the beverage industry for years until he finally left out of sheer frustration.

"It was completely maddening! For years, you'd see people at the gym drinking vitamin water and health drinks. We saw them take off in the States. And then we'd all troop off to corporate meetings and offsites to discuss the future and nobody would say a word about vitamin drinks. You'd feel like a crazy person: Hello? Has anyone here noticed the biggest fad staring us in our face?"

I know just how Jeremy felt. Ten years ago, running an internet company in the US, I tried to engage the major film studios in a project trialling online digital downloads of short films. I got the meetings with all the "right" people (many still there today) but it was a conference of ostriches: no one wanted to know.

On one level, wilful blindness is inevitable. Our minds can't take in everything, so we edit as we go along, taking notice of information that is familiar and comforting. New, challenging material can feel too awkward so it's easier to ignore it. And we're too busy to see everything, which is one way to explain how Microsoft failed to notice the internet and Google missed social networking.

Being exhausted doesn't help either - because a tired brain doesn't fade equally. After a single all-nighter, what we lose first is our ability to process information. The areas of our brain needed for reasoning lose 12 to 14 per cent of their glucose, as we put so much energy into staying awake that there's little left for thinking. Sleep deprivation alone could go a long way towards explaining the banking crisis.

Even wide awake, we're blinded by our desire to fit in socially. This isn't weakness; it's biology. When we form and confirm our social relationships, our brain produces opioids that make us feel wonderful - and those feelings become addictive. Likewise, when the relationships dissolve, we're left in an involuntary cold turkey, feeling awful.