Why do accountants, economists, lawyers, medics, politicians and civil servants all resist the very changes the world needs?
In this video, I explain why top-tier professionals cling to failing systems, defend obsolete ideas, and punish those who challenge accepted wisdom. From currency debates to medical hierarchies, the professions close ranks to protect their status, not the public.
This is about fear, conformity, institutional culture—and the cost we all pay for it.
Real reform requires unreasonable people willing to defy failing norms. Until courage replaces compliance, nothing will change.
This is the audio version:
This is the transcript:
There's a puzzle, and the puzzle is, why do top-tier professionals always resist change?
Whether they're accountants, economists, lawyers, financiers, civil servants, politicians even, and medics as well, all top-tier professionals cling to norms that they know are failing. Even persuasive new evidence that things have to change is met by them with defensive silence. And this isn't about ignorance. These aren't stupid people after all. It's about fear, it's about habit, and it's about their hatred of the idea that they might lose their purpose.
Why does this matter? It matters because I was told recently that Scotland cannot be independent until all questions about its future currency can be resolved. And the person making the suggestion said that an army of professional people must be engaged in answering all the questions that the Scottish currency now gives rise to, and that must happen before Scotland goes to the poll again, if it does, to ask the question, should it be independent or not?
And my response to that person was that professional people will always answer the question of whether Scotland can have its own functioning independent currency by saying, "No, of course it can't." And the reason why is very simple and it's very straightforward. That's because it hasn't got one at present, and therefore they don't know about it, and therefore they won't be able to advise on it because all the professional person can talk about is what they know already. They can't imagine what is possible.
So why is that? Why are the professions such a problem in modern life to the extent that they are one of the biggest resistors of change?
That is because I suggest professional people define themselves by mastering existing systems, their education, their careers, and their authority rests on knowing the current rules. To admit the system that they know is wrong is to question themselves, and even their personal identity. Change feels to them like personal failure, so they defend the order that exists because that defines them.
And their desire is for institutional conformity. Advancement depends on them never unsettling superiors. Institutions, such as the firms that they work for, reward reassurance and not truth. Creative dissent within such entities risks career death, and they sell sound judgment even when it's obsolete. That's why professional advice is so often so uniform. Everybody is forced to agree with the status quo.
And this is about peer reputation. Among elites, and the professions are an elite in our society, reputation matters more than reality. Soundness is the keyword for belonging. To step outside is to risk exile. So debate narrows to what's safe, and not what's right. Politeness replaces honesty, and my suggestion to you is that we all pay a massive price for that.
Every profession lives in its own small, closed world and uses its own logic.
Accountants trust standards set by the large firms of accountants.
Economists trust their models, in particular, at this point in time, the neoliberal model, because that is the one which you are meant to adhere to.
Lawyers cling to precedents because that is what they know.
And medics live by outdated paradigms, even when the consequence is that people die, and there is clear evidence that that is the case.
Meanwhile, politicians stick to party lines.
Every one of these groups optimises its own behaviour inside its own bubble for its own benefit, and expertise becomes a barrier to understanding.
The medical example is one way of showing this. There are now new insights on mental health, on cancer and disease prevention, and all of them are significantly resisted. Just take that point about disease prevention.
We now know that if we actually cut ultra-processed foods out of people's diets and cut significantly the amount of sugar intake that people have, whilst increasing the amount of exercise they have in daylight, then we would undoubtedly beat most of obesity. We would therefore beat most of type-two diabetes, but the hierarchies of certainty within the medical bodies refuse to accept this evidence. They want to work inside the system they know, and empathy is replaced by procedure. Care for the patient is not as important as compliance with the algorithm. Knowledge might grow, but wisdom shrinks.
And all of this is powered by something else as well. Big Pharma massively reinforces this idea. It wants its existing drugs and solutions to problems to continue to be used because that is the root of their profits. So, as a consequence, they sponsor university education to ensure that their answers to medical questions are prescribed, quite literally. And they do the same with regard to continuing professional education for doctors, whilst they also fund research to perpetuate the status quo. And the journals in which that research is published are sponsored by these companies.
As a result, we have a medical research process that by and large reinforces the status quo of their power and does not give rise to questioning. And if that questioning does come up, then it's published in minor journals and those, by and large, who publish it are pushed outside the hierarchies of power and might even lose their jobs, and there's plenty of evidence of that having happened.
Professional reticence, therefore, becomes normalised by the power of corporate money to maintain corporate protocols and so profits at literal cost to human life.
And everywhere, that is because professionals are frightened of failure. They are the guardians in their opinion of money, safety, and life itself. And their culture punishes mistakes, but being wrong in their view is okay if done together; being right alone is what they think to be risky and punishable. So collective error becomes the norm in the case of almost every profession, and innovation withers under the weight of caution.
The result is a form of moral disengagement. Bureaucracy diffuses responsibility. The claim, when an allegation of misconduct or error is raised, is that "I followed the standard," and that becomes not just an actual, but a moral defence; they did what they were told to do. Harm as a consequence is treated as collateral; the guidelines were wrong, but it wasn't the professional's fault. And neutrality then becomes complicity. The system absolves everyone, and at the same time, it should absolve no one because the system is, of course, wrong.
There is this fear of disorder, and so professions exist to impose order on complexity, but too much order breeds stagnation, and that is my point in this whole video. Growth needs uncertainty and friction to happen, and professionals fear the entropy of growth because it feels like disorder to them, yet life depends on it. Risk is necessary, and without disorder, nothing new ever emerges.
So we don't need more professionals to solve the problems that we face; we know those problems exist. What we need to solve the problems that we face are more unreasonable people. Those are the people who will take risks. George Bernard Shaw defined the unreasonable person well over a century ago, saying:
The reasonable person adapts themselves to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to themselves. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable person.
And that remains as true today as it did when George Bernard Shaw said it.
All change is down to awkward people, and yet very few professional people are willing to be unreasonable; only the brave break the rules, and that's the problem that we face. The result is that we have professionals who manage systems, but rarely care. They measure compliance and undertake massive review processes to ensure that everybody is walking in step, but they don't deliver compassion. Real reform means making care the measure of success. Courage, and not conformity, would, in that case, define professionalism, but we're a long, long way from that, and until we get anywhere near it, we're going to be ruled by people afraid of their own intelligence.
They serve power, and they depend on power for their survival. Big firms, big corporations, big government, they all share this same creed, that they must literally walk in line with each other to serve the existing elite hierarchies. And that they define by money, which literally affords them legitimacy and sets the boundaries of soundness. To challenge that order would for them mean literally losing everything.
And there's no greater example of this than within the Big Four firms of accountants. They have become extensions of capital itself. They write the rules to suit big business. They shape regulation. They lobby to achieve the outcomes they desire. And then they advise on how to avoid the regulations they've even consulted. Their neutrality sustains inequality, and that's deliberate.
Real professionalism would serve the public good and not private wealth, but that's not where they're aligned. And until courage returns, the system will remain both elegant in its form and broken in its substance. Until that is, unreasonableness appears, change will not happen.
And that's where we are in a world where nothing can change because the professions want everything to stay the same. You, I, and our health pay the price for that.
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Its in a similar vein read ‘Beyond Command and Control’ by John Seddon.
I have worked in an authority that adopted ‘Vanguard’ and it certainly works
I love the Portsmouth Housing Repairs example
On the other hand the Department for Work and Pensions REFUSED an offer to design systems for them because it might make things better!
https://beyondcommandandcontrol.com/beyond-command-and-control-book/
3 weeks ago I walked away from a 30 year career in the financial industry to spend my time being ‘unreasonable’.
Banks, building societies, pensions and wealth management firms are led by people who have no understanding how money systems work and who are happy to oversee a system that drives cost and complexity into people’s lives whilst facilitating inequality and climate breakdown.
I’m going to spend my time focused on systems change and reform of FS within planetary boundaries.
A scary move to make? Yes. But empowering also. Inspired in no small part by your work.
Good luck.
I walked away from a very secure in come when I had two very young sons. It seemed like madness, but it both worked and was the right thing to do.
I think human nature largely dictates how deeply embedded professional resistance to change can be. Much of it stems from psychological instincts: people gravitate toward the familiar, defend the systems that define their status and identity, and fear losing competence or control in new ways of working. Organisations often reinforce this by rewarding conformity, siloed expertise and risk-averse behaviour. The result is a culture where reform is seen as threatening rather than enabling.
If we want to achieve change – social investment, greener priorities, collaborative public services, and a shift from extractive to productive economic activity – we need to design change around how people actually react, not how we wish they would. That means creating space for participation rather than imposing reform from above; building shared narratives about why change is necessary; giving professionals opportunities to shape new systems; and ensuring transitions are supported with training, time and psychological safety.
It also requires shifting incentives: rewarding innovation, valuing service over status, and removing the fear that change brings loss of autonomy or livelihood. When people feel secure, respected and involved, resistance diminishes, and the reforms become far more achievable.
I worked for a man who espoused the inverted pyramid model of leadership.
When he took over as CEO of the railway company I worked for at privatisation, he came round and told us that he was going to put himself at the bottom of the pyramid. His job was to support everyone else. He walked the talk, and I had the best 7 years of my employed life.
Thanks to you and your team for such a generally relevant article!
Might the same apply to state education (c. 93% of the relevant group), which, by indirectly and directly teaching, and enforcing a form of educational obedience/subservience, results in our children and students being conditioned to not ask questions and not to think critically or laterally?
I think you are right.
Steve, a classic example of educational conformity is the restrictions placed by the Scottish educational bodies over a long period, certainly up to about 1960 when I left school.
It was forbidden to use 2 of Scotland’s native languages in the classroom – Gaelic and Lallans (Lowland) Scots. This was was often enforced by physical punishment – the tawse (a heavy leather belt). This embargo was lifted for one day in the year -Robert Burns’ birthday – as it’s impossible to celebrate our National Bard without allowing Lallans in the classroom.
The lopsided irony nowadays is that Gaelic is permitted as part of drive to prevent its extinction, and schools exist where all education is in Gaelic, not just language class. The irony is that Lallans remains embargoed.
History syllabus pre 1960 was also heavily slanted towards UK (i.e. English) and Empire history with Scotland’s own history fairly sparsely represented. Thus were we children expected to grow up as as loyal subjects of royalty and the Empire.
Mr Boxall – you’re a man after my own heart – ‘have met Seddon during my MBA, and exchanged emails over the years. I was really hoping that Labour would gravitate to Vanguard or an offshoot at the DWP and universal credit fiasco’s, but no, the STP stopped that didn’t it. For me it is the law of infinite variety that Seddon latches onto – only a human being can truly understand another human being because we are all so different – and that is the key to caring and a better service. And it works – unless all you want to do is manage cost.
It is not just “professionals” that resist change – it is people in general…. but I do accept that those with power and vested interests do fight harder.
But if we take the Michael Gove approach to “experts/professionals” you get…. well, need I say more.
Listening to professionals – I mean those actually doing the job – (eg. teachers in the classroom) is important…. more often than not (among lots of “no change, please”) the best and most sensible ideas are found in this group of professional practitioners.
My best manager ever, I went to and challenged the way they were doing things, and they said ‘why do you think that?’ It was a life-changing experience for me, having spent around 20 years mostly working under managers that mostly me to toe the line.
My best success came when I was a few weeks into a job and arranged with the Head of Development to go to the CEO and pitch doing their first software product. Organisational change meant I left without the rewards, but I started them in an area of business that makes them tens of millions a year. That was the previous time I’d really challenged the status quo.
Managers who hire people like them will build that kind of culture that says things can’t or shouldn’t change. The best managers hire diversity of thought, experience and opinion, and value the right change. They build the companies that can change systems.
One other thing that has to be noted for professional resistance beside that group-think is just financial security. As relative beneficiaries of the existing system compared to the average person, they are more wary of change. Many are in the middle to upper wealth deciles and have some level of buffer that could be easily lost. Calling for change may risk being a significant personal sacrifice. Many have families to support, and simply do not feel they can risk their family’s security by stepping out of line.
Thanks
I used to have managers who apparently liked my ability to challenge………….unless it was themselves of course. No matter how delicately broached, they did not like.
🙂
The weakness was on their part.
As an example, the resilience of the big accountancy firms is staggering (something Richard has often commented on).
They fail, they are investigated, they get fined (lightly, in comparison with their assets, dividends, top salaries and profits) and then bounce right back into the next big contract with even higher fees. Why change, when behaving badly is so free of significant consequences?
Behind each headline-grabbing corporate scandal seems to be a large accounting firm that didn’t do its auditing job ethically. (Carillion? Thames Water?)
Even when they apparently do close down (Arthur Andersen) the main culprits seem to be able to thrive unhindered elsewhere.
Where is the incentive to change, when failure is so free of signicant consequences for the perpetrators (although not for the victims).
Examples of successful alternatives don’t seem to be persuading change in the complacent, as we will discover on the 26th November.
When I was a young person, I remember very well the medical profession ridiculing Australians, Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, for suggesting that a bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, could be responsible for gastritis and many peptic ulcers. Members of the profession argued that a bug couldn’t live in an acid environment.
They were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2005.
Back in 2007 when I decided my expertise in computational modelling of the brain was no longer the 21st century challenge, it having been overtaken by climate change, I visited my academic colleagues in various disciplines to decide where my computational modeling expertise could be most useful in addressing the challenges induced by climate change. It was eye-opening. The physicists (atmosphere/ocean) seemed good modelers. The biologists (ecosystems, agriculture) seemed pretty good but could use help. The economists (the industrial economy induced the problem) were awful at modelling.
They paid almost no attention to the real economy (system of production, distribution and consumption) but instead were applied mathematicians in thrall to their clever mathematics. Experts at proving things, dumb at modelling a real system. I found some modelers who paid attention – economist Steve Keen, chemical engineers and social scientists Malcolm Slesser and Jane King, and got into the area of modeling the economy as a socio-biophysical system. But getting grant funding was impossible – reviewers always included economists who asked where the supply and demand curves were, and where was the mathematics. and trashed the application. There’s been little change in the academic profession.
Everything to agree with.
You advocate a command economy. Aside from a few on the hard left, NOBODY wants that change.
Where have I done that?
Might you explain, with examples?
I am quite sure I promote democracy in the interests of all, and not a few. How would you achieve that without an active government? Please explain.
Peter, where DO you get your straw men from?
“Command Economy”?
– Is that the “neoliberal economics troll” synonym for Communist?
There was somebody (Ian Fleming?) who said that during WW2 he preferred working with Officers with private incomes as they would make the decision that was needed not the one that would keep their job
The irony is that change is supposed to be the very tenet, the dynamic that is the foundation of a ‘market’ economy.
All those resistant to being challenged are in the next breath espousing ‘the market’ as religion.
Tangentially related, Julian Richer has a very good piece in the Guardian today imploring those immersed in meritocracy to acknowledge serendipity.
Thomas Kuhn in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions said that paradigms usually change when the Old Guard retire or die.
I have seen a lot to confirm it. But I don’t think we have the time to wait for the present ‘Old Guard’ to die off.
So we need Shaw’s unreasonable man- or woman. He was Irish and his friend Annie Besant was mainly Irish. She published a book on birth control in 1877, was taken to court and the case was dismissed. The co-publisher was Charles Bradlaugh who elected to Parliament refused to swear the oath of allegiance as he was an Atheist. That eventually resulted in the right to affirm. She organised the Match Girls strike at Bryant and May which gave a boost to trade unions for the unskilled.
She then became a Theosophist and while in India was President of the Congress Party before Gandhi, advocating Indian Independence. She was locked up for a bit but the Raj did start talking about Independence.
Of course it is not all down to a few great people. There has to be a need for change, and a public following as well as some of the awkward squad.
Such is the power of the old guard and current gatekeepers that them dying off, retiring doesnt seem to matter. The batton is passed without a flinch.
If anything, their grip on power is unrelenting.
Looking across the pond – something I fear? What if these power mad Thiel/Musk types create systems that we cant break – with their Ai, calculations of reality and surveillance states? It will take am act of god to change anything.
I disagree: we are nearing a tipping point.
Edward, I can why you think that but I agree with Richard about a tipping point.
Communism in eastern Europe looked monolithic but it collapsed in a couple of years. For many, I admit, not an easy time.
Then we will need a go-to idea and people like Richard and others help provide it.
Let me assure you Richard – I hope I am very wrong and you are right.
People resist change because it means admitting that we may have been wrong.
Max Planck observed:
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”.
And of course, John Maynard Keynes noted:
“When the facts change, I change my mind – what do you do, sir?”
🙂