Absence of Evidence Isn’t Evidence of Absence — Lessons for Business and IT
We like to think that if we can’t see a problem, it doesn’t exist. In business and IT, that assumption can be dangerous.
Cybersecurity Isn’t Always What It Seems
A company runs a vulnerability scan and sees no critical issues. Leadership breathes a sigh of relief, the system must be secure, right? Weeks later, a misconfigured cloud storage bucket is exploited, causing a breach. The risk was always there. It just hadn’t been detected by the tools in use.
The Hidden Workarounds in IT Systems
IT operations and business systems show the same trap. A new application rolls out to employees. Nobody complains. Leadership assumes adoption is smooth. Later, usage data reveals employees built their own workarounds because the app was too slow. Silence didn’t equal success, it masked frustration and inefficiency.
Invisible Inefficiencies at the Strategic Level
Even at the strategic level, absence of evidence can mislead. A quarterly report shows no mention of inefficiency, so processes are assumed to be working fine. Yet an employee survey uncovers wasted hours, frustration, and missed opportunities that will eventually impact the bottom line.
The Takeaway
The lesson is simple: Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence. In IT and business, what you don’t see can hurt you more than what you do. Hidden risks, silent frustrations, invisible inefficiencies, they all exist until we actively look for them.
Good leaders don’t just wait for problems to surface. They measure, monitor, and ask questions beyond the obvious. They look where the data isn’t, check where reports don’t reach, and listen where silence lives.
Because in business and IT, what’s invisible today could be your biggest challenge tomorrow, or your greatest opportunity.
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