A total of 47 persons – including 21 requiring overnight hospitalization – became ill following a Detroit ad agency’s effort to formulate its vision statement for 2020.
Over a period of two weeks starting in August, all 212 employees of the Plitnick Group were required to attend at least 17 two-hour visioning sessions. Many began feeling ill during the ninth or tenth, but tried to keep visioning fearing they’d harm their careers if they stopped.
“By the second week people were dropping like flies,” says a creative analyst who asks not to be named. “One day I counted six ambulances lined up outside the entrance.”
“It was way too much, way to fast!” says Lila Landsman, a professor of Visioning at Carbondale College. “Any company that had done its homework would have known that visioning sessions have to be carefully controlled.”
Landsman says that an average person can be exposed to six hours of visioning per week with no side effects. Anything up to ten is pushing it, and 34 per week is just asking for trouble.
A spokesperson for Plitnick would not comment, other than to say the company has sent each of the sick visioners a certificate redeemable for two pieces of fruit.
“In the end the company only hurt itself,” says Landsman. “To properly recover, the affected employees shouldn’t vision for at least two years, maybe three.”
