Military pilots know about target fixation.  It can cause a pilot to follow his stream of strafing rounds right into the ground.  Motorcycle riders know about target fixation.  It can cause a rider to ram an obstacle that he or she is trying to avoid.

Target fixation is a process by which the brain is focused so intently on an observed object that awareness of other obstacles or hazards can diminish. Military and motorcycle trainers explain the phenomenon to those in their charge.  Someone should have explained it to Patricia Dunn.

Tuesday's Wall Street Journal included an excellent commentary on the HP scandal by Viet Dinh.  I recommend that you read the entire piece, but here are some excerpts that caught my eye.

"Most perplexing was the supposed trigger for this unfortunate foray into corporate intrigue. The CNET article, if anything, burnished the image of H-P and its management. There was no disclosure of material nonpublic financial information to trigger regulatory or legal issues. Amid banal details about how long the days were and how hard the directors worked were glimpses into the company's general strategic and competitive vision. Mr. Hurd was engineering an impressive turnaround, and the article showed that H-P was not simply cutting costs and laying off workers but rather executing a shrewd strategic plan to best its competitors.

It is difficult to see how a puff piece with nuggets already publicized by H-P could be viewed as harmful. The board has since acknowledged that "at H-P's request, Dr. Keyworth often had contacts with the press to explain H-P's interests. The board does not believe that Dr. Keyworth's contact with CNET in January 2006 was vetted through appropriate channels, but also recognizes that his discussion with the CNET reporter was undertaken in an attempt to further H-P's interests." And there is no general duty of confidentiality for directors, only a duty of loyalty to act in the best interests of the corporation and its shareholders."

Why would an intelligent and committed woman like Patricia Dunn pick a story like this as the reason for an investigation that resulted in her resignation from the board and upcoming testimony before Congress?  The answer is target fixations.

Back when the HP board was considering the Compaq merger and later when it was getting ready to heave Carly Fiorina overboard, leaks were the order of the day.  Patricia Dunn was committed to improving HP's governance and to stopping those leaks.

When a leak surfaced, she initiated an investigation.  Evidently she didn't ask the directors individually if they were the source of the CNET story.  The security department took over.  They outsourced the investigation.  And they did things that were both illegal and ethically repellant.

What happened was that Ms Dunn was so focused on catching leakers on the board that she didn't assess the size of the infraction, or even if there was a leak.  She did not set boundaries for the investigation.  She was so fixated on the target that she dove straight into the ground.

Wally Bock helps leaders at every level improve the performance and morale of the group they're responsible for. His latest book, Performance Talk: The One-on-One Part of Leadership, makes learning key leadership principles almost effortless because it teaches through a story, the way human beings have always learned complex lessons best.