A person who comes at the top from a technical field is focused, but may not notice the critical changes around him. The environment requires scanning in terms of opportunities and threats. The Actuals is the novella authored by the Nobel laureate Saul Bellow where the team ‘ first class noticer’ has been introduced. Max Bazerman has further elaborated on this concept in The Power of Noticing : What Best Leaders See.

Ulric Neisser, the father of cognitive psychology, conducted an experiment with two basketball teams — one in white shirt and the other in black. The players were asked to count the number of passes made between the players in the white. A woman with an umbrella walks through the middle of the basketball court. Few people watching the video see her, as they were focussed on the passing of the ball by the team in white. Dan Simons, his student, replaced the woman with a gorilla. Most people watching the video did not notice the gorilla. This is inattentional blindness, or bounded awareness. Literally we see, but we do not see. In many cases, leaders ignore the information that is not visual. Enron and Satyam boards could not see the vital information.

It is necessary to bifurate the business if auditing and consultancy, as there is conflict of interest.