Your Success Might Be Creating Problems You Can’t See. Here’s What to Ask Yourself.

Résumé détaillé

Your business may be growing, but what is that growth really costing you?

In the early 1920s, car manufacturers faced a frustrating problem: They wanted to build more powerful engines, but “engine knocking” kept getting in the way. Fuel igniting unevenly inside an engine created violent vibrations that damaged its components. The finest minds scratched their heads over how to get more power without sacrificing reliability.

Meanwhile, refrigerator manufacturers faced a problem of their own: Some chemicals used in early refrigerators were toxic or highly flammable. A leak could turn a household appliance into a serious hazard. Finding a safer refrigerant could make refrigeration more practical for homes and businesses.

Enter Thomas Midgley Jr., an American engineer who was working at General Motors.

Midgley discovered that adding lead to the fuel could suppress engine knocking. Later, he’d help develop Freon, a refrigerant far less toxic and flammable than many alternatives in use at that time. And just like that, two stubborn engineering problems appeared to be solved.

Manufacturers respected him and adopted his work, and both products became commercial successes. For his work, the American Chemical Society awarded him the Priestley Medal, their highest honor.

You could look at that record and reasonably conclude he had done an excellent job. Entire industries were growing because of him, and he’d earned recognition from his peers.

Would you agree that by the usual measures, Midgley had an extraordinary career? Well … then the other shoe dropped.

Leaded petrol was found to spread toxic lead through the exhaust, exposing generations of people to a metal whose harmful effects we now know better about. Decades after Freon and related chemicals became widespread, scientists discovered that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) damaged the Earth’s ozone layer.

Midgley died in 1944, before scientists discovered the damage to the ozone layer. In Midgley’s defence, he could not have predicted every consequence, but his story begs the question for anyone who has…

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