Excessive Ego–A Recipe For Disaster

I became aware this morning of another company that I had connections with that is in the process of going under.

Sadly, it had followed a recipe for disaster that I have seen so many companies follow.

Recipe for Corporate Failure

Ingredients:

Crust

• Intelligent strategy
• Sharp tactical roadmaps
• Relevant, measurable outcomes
• Leadership humility / self-confidence balance
• A sense of personal and professional ethics and morals

Filling

• Excellent intention
• Powerful vision
• Well-developed product
• Strong market demand
• Phenomenally intelligent, passionate team
• Strong market dominance potential

Steps:

1. Ignore the crust recipe completely.  Foundational stuff that ties everything else together is overrated anyway.

2. Mix all the filling ingredients in a baking dish.

3. When all ingredients have become a sticky mess, proceed anyway even though the result is now predictable (at least from everyone else’s perspective).

4. Bake under high heat and pressure until everything melts into an indiscernible mess.

5. Fire may break out at this time.  This is normal and anticipated and should be ignored.  Such warning signs are for the weak and paranoid.

6. Recipe can still be saved by quickly stirring in balanced amounts of self-confidence and humility and then asking for help. Skip this step for any number of unjustifiable reasons.

7. Act surprised or play the victim when a smoking mess comes out of the oven.

8. Ignore the people who stood by you through thick and thin but were poisoned by the recipe. They didn’t matter anyway.  Better yet – blame the poor result on them if possible.

9. Discard the result, clean up everything, rename the recipe and then repeat with the anticipation that doing the exact same thing over and over will eventually produce a different, more desirable result.

Optional step: Use social media to generate buzz espousing your “success” model.  Call it “The Secret To …” or “The X Steps to Instant Wealth” for higher impact.  Another useful exercise is to cite a “spiritual” or “enlightened”  reason why your failure was actually an anticipated stepping stone to changing the world.  In this way, you can rationalize that you didn’t fail – the world did because it hasn’t caught up to your enlightened way of executing yet.

The danger of excessive ego

I have written and spoken many times about the importance of having an appropriate blend of strong strategy, sharp tactical roadmaps and relevant measurable outcomes in order to create success.

I have watched many companies go under without an appropriate blend of these items.

But the one reason for company failure that kills me the most is when excessive levels of ego cause a company’s leadership to choose corporate death over accepting help of any kind.

Insufficient ego leaves one a doormat to be stepped on by everyone.

But excessive ego is like a runaway train, killing everyone and everything in its path.

Balance is the key … as always.

In many such failures, the leadership will go on to create other failures as their excessive ego also precludes them from learning from their mistakes.

Meanwhile, the great people within the dead organization and their families are left behind to sort out what happened, many times scrambling just to survive.

And that is the greatest injustice of all.

Do you as a leader have the right balance of humility and hubris?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

All people and companies appearing in

or referenced by this work

are not fictitious.

Any resemblance to real persons and companies,

living or dead, is purely intentional.

Don’t be one of them.

Self-confidence – Me Versus We

After a couple of interesting incidents over the last couple of weeks, I have been reminded that hubris is alive and well in business.

It is true that self-confidence is essential to success - there aren’t many people who are “doormats” who have managed to become wildly successful in their field.  Doormats aren’t great at showing the self-confidence, vision and leadership necessary to get “stuff” done nor do they inspire others to do the same.

However, there is always some point in the execution of a company where help is needed.

And that’s where the self-confidence needs to change, from one of “I have everything I need” to one of “we have everything we need”.

The transition from “I” to “we” is essential in the internal dialog, starting before a collaboration is first suggested and being consistently present through to the completion of the collaboration.

Of the many companies I have been privileged to work with over the years, I have had a few organizations approach me for help with the following common scenario:

1. They have little or no strategy and their poor execution have led them to a very precarious position.

2. They have waited until the last minute to ask for help (and needed a miracle by the time they asked) and were now demanding immediate remedies.

3. Their self-confidence level is off the charts with no results to validate it.

4. They believe they can set the terms for what happens next and proceed to make a “my way or the highway” offer that heavily favors the people who created the problems in the first place.

One company owner, just before losing over 25 million dollars in a complete corporate collapse (a good bit of it being taxpayer money), said to me “Of course I can set the terms – this company was my idea and I deserve to harvest the majority of the rewards”.

Maybe so – but I know that if I am in trouble, the last thing I want to do when asking for help is to tell the world what it owes me.

It reminds me of one night back in the 1980’s when my car broke down while I was driving in the area of Gatineau Park in Quebec.  It was late at night, in a remote area, minus 40 degrees with the wind chill and before the days when everyone had a cell phone.

I was in trouble.

When the two Quebec police officers happened to come upon me by chance, did I say “I can’t believe you don’t have any coffee in your cruiser. What kind of rescue is this?”.

No – I was profusely grateful for the help.

I was reminded then as I have been many times since that, despite our belief in our abilities to get stuff done, there are always times when we need others.

Some moments call for an “I can do it”.

Others call for a “we can do it”.

Successful people know when each is appropriate.

In service and servanthood.

Harry

The same entry can be found on my Musings-in-a-Minute blog, found here.

Hubris and Humility – Finding a Balance

One of the things I have noticed in the last five to ten years is that we have either discovered a LOT more experts in the world than we thought existed or that current world dynamics encourage people to proclaim themselves as experts even when they are not.

Given the number of challenges that remain unsolved in the world, my bet would be that the latter is a more accurate assessment.

I wonder if we have forgotten the importance of humility in how we relate to others or even how we relate to ourselves.  Many of us have spent so much time overhyping our experience, our expertise or our strengths that we now believe it ourselves – our hype has transformed from self-promotion to core belief.

When that happens, one finds oneself on a slippery slope. 

We tell clients what their problem is before they have had a chance to describe it.

We tell them what the answer is before we know what the question is.

We can solve any problem without acknowledging contributing factors, waving them off as irrelevant to the problem.

We aggressively promote a solution to a problem even if we have never solved a problem like this before.

We believe no one else can solve a problem like we can.

On a personal level, we think that no one understands our challenges – they are simply too complex for mortal man.  “My problems are unique” or “You simply don’t understand” we proclaim to others.

Frankly, we amaze ourselves with our brilliance.  We’re just waiting for the world to finally “get it” – to catch up to our brilliant mind.

Feels good, doesn’t it?

Or does it?

Maybe a client didn’t like how we didn’t allow them to describe their problem.

Maybe someone didn’t like how we provided an answer to the wrong question, making the answer of little or no value.

Perhaps someone got so tired of hearing how we are the best person for the job bar none that they went off to find someone whose credentials spoke louder than their words.

Maybe a friend or relative is getting tired of hearing our stories of how we saved the day again.  The life of a superhero is never dull, after all.

How many times do we wonder why it is difficult to get others to collaborate with us?  It never occurs to us that our bravado, our need to be the best, our desire to “own the whole enchilada” has turned away our potential collaborators.

Maybe, in the deepest dark of night, we wonder why no one is stepping in to help us with something we struggle with.

Perhaps we don’t realize that we have spent so much time convincing the world that we have it all under control that the world feels that we don’t need them anymore.

Maybe the world feels that we are overdue for a lesson and so we are left alone to allow the lesson to manifest.

Strong leaders need confidence.  Without confidence and a passion for moving towards our purpose, leaders lack the ability to inspire others, to motivate them and to push through when challenges and obstacles are significant.

That being said, confidence must always be tempered with humility.

The humility that accepts that we don’t have all the answers.  We may not even know all the questions.

The humility that knows that even if we are in an advanced state of knowledge, that there are always others who know more.  Not only that, but there was a time when we knew nothing and someone else taught us what we now know, which should cause us to stop and think before turning away the person who now looks to us seeking help and knowledge.

We need humility that acknowledges that we need each other.

This is not the humility that calls us to be the doormat to the world.  If we do that, we discover that many in the world are content to wipe their feet off on us as they proceed on their own quest.

I also recognize that arrogance versus confidence is heavily influenced by the perception of others.  In New York City, I am viewed as confident.  To many in my home town of a few thousand, I could easily be viewed as arrogant.

That being said, we know when our balance of confidence versus humility is where it should be, regardless of the situation and location we find ourselves in.

We each bring a unique combination of  knowledge, talents, strengths, insights and life experiences.  This unique combination of gifts means that we are called to bring these gifts to bear in collaboration with others.

There are very few problems out there that we can solve without the help of others.

When we realize this and humbly acknowledge that we need everyone and that others need us in return, then we allow ourselves to temper our hubris with humility.

I have been as guilty as the next person for believing my own “shtick”.  That’s why I am grateful for the reminders that bring me back to reality.

Some reminders have been gently and privately delivered.  Some have not been so gently or privately delivered, which is why I am reminded that confidence empowers while hubris kills.

Which do you embrace?

How do you know?

More importantly, would others agree with you?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

For my Musings-in-a-Minute about “Hubris and Humility”, please click here.