Johnson & Johnson published a global survey of 6,000 women at the start of October. Most knew that menopause can affect mood and sleep. Only 40 per cent connected eye changes with the transition, even though 90 per cent said that seeing clearly and comfortably helped them feel confident, capable or like themselves.
The gap widens in the next number. Seventy-five per cent had taken some action to manage midlife changes. Only 18 per cent had booked an annual eye exam as part of that, and only 18 per cent had discussed the changes with an eye care professional.
A separate survey of 402 women found that 14 per cent recognised dry eye as a menopause-related symptom, against 79 per cent who recognised hot flushes. Eighty per cent of those experiencing dry eye symptoms said they came as a surprise.
So the symptoms were present, the people were actively managing their health, and the relevant professional was never consulted. What failed was not awareness in general. It was categorisation.
This is a distinct kind of blindness and it is worth naming because it is not ignorance. Nobody in these surveys was neglecting themselves. Three quarters were taking deliberate action. They simply had the symptom filed under a heading that led nowhere, most likely under getting older, which is a category with no action attached to it and no professional at the other end.
Businesses do exactly the same thing, and the pattern is identical.
Takings have softened. Everybody agrees takings have softened. It gets filed under the economy, which is a heading with no action attached. Meanwhile the specific, fixable cause sits in a different drawer entirely: the opening time that changed six months ago, the supplier whose quality slipped, the member of staff who left and took the regulars’ names with them.
Staff turnover gets filed under the labour market. Slow service gets filed under being busy. Complaints get filed under some people are never happy. In each case the label is plausible, generic and terminal. Once something is in a category that implies nothing can be done, nobody investigates it again.
The diagnostic question that breaks this open is simple and uncomfortable. For each thing that is currently going wrong, what heading have I put it under, and does that heading have a next step? If it does not, the heading is probably wrong, because almost nothing in a business is genuinely caused by a force with no local component.
The second lesson is in who asks the question. The survey’s practical recommendation is that eye exams become part of midlife care, which means the connection gets made by the professional rather than by the patient. People cannot be expected to spot a link nobody has told them exists.
In a business, that role falls to whoever is allowed to ask naive questions. An accountant who asks why a cost line moved. A new member of staff who asks why a thing is done a particular way. A customer who says something odd and is actually listened to.
The symptoms were all being experienced.
They were in the wrong drawer.
