Image: Pixabay, RoderickQiu

Some of us have seen this happen few times during our lifetimes.  A highly successful, global company with thousands of employees and the darling of the press and management books gets into trouble slowly and loses its shine eventually.  Thousands of jobs are cut, announced in phases over years and the decline become more visible gradually.  Issues become too big to ignore, other companies start taking over market share and breakdowns become more frequent with increasing number of unhappy customers.  Few revered corporate names have been visible in the press for these reasons, even during the last week.  This has happened to non-profit organisations as well.

The golden mindset to protect dearly during success is conscious humility.

A 2016 HBR Article (The Scary Truth About Corporate Survival) noted that 80% of the companies that existed before 1980 were no longer around.  Professors Vijay Govindarajan and Anup Srivastava looked at all companies that listed on U.S. stock markets from 1960 to 2009 and confirmed that longevity is decreasing.  Companies that listed before 1970 had a 92% chance of surviving the next five years, whereas companies that listed from 2000 to 2009 had only a 63% chance.  They wrote that the bad news for the newer firms is that their days are numbered, unless they continually innovate.  In short, even seemingly successful and rich companies can fall into a fight for survival sooner than expected.1

From a behavioural perspective, a consistent common pattern is noticeable.  As companies become more successful, arrogance tends to creeps in.  When this happens at the leadership levels and manifests in decisions, judgment calls and cultural elements, the damage can be enormous.  Most times, the degradation is not evident quickly.  This may show up in the form of increased ignorance of contradicting views and potential risks, lack of openness, increased feelings of invincibility, sometimes even translating to visible disrespect.  For leaders, even listening to varying perspectives from internal stakeholders goes down.  There is a rigid focus on “our approach, our process and we know what is right” thinking.  Stakeholders outside the organisation most times see this degradation earlier than those inside.  Even at this stage, the general feeling is that nothing could go wrong.  Leaders can also become overly focused on themselves. While some leaders may seem to be humble at a personal level, it’s important to watch out for reduced humility at an intellectual level (eg. openness to discussing varying and contradicting perspectives, disregarding others quickly).

The mindset of conscious humility and curiosity are closely related.  Genuine curiosity comes from being humble about one’s own views and openness to others.  Conscious humility are also related to compassion and empathy. Behaviours are consistently leading indicators of organisational unhealthiness and degradation, while the slowing business results may show up much later.  Once the negative impact on business results indicates a pattern, it becomes hard to turn around the ship quickly.  The focus then shifts to cost cutting and prevailing phases of uncertainty, leading to complex environments.  Does this sound familiar?

Professor Jim Collins (Good To Great) wrote about the Five Stages of Decline, in the book, How the Mighty Fall.  He called Stage 1 the “Hubris Born of Success”.  “Great enterprises can become insulated by success; accumulated momentum can carry an enterprise forward, for a while, even if its leaders make poor decisions or lose discipline. Stage 1 kicks in when people become arrogant, regarding success virtually as an entitlement, and they lose sight of the true underlying factors that created success in the first place.  When the rhetoric of success (“We’re successful because we do these specific things”) replaces penetrating understanding and insight (“We’re successful because we understand why we do these specific things and under what conditions they would no longer work”), decline will very likely follow.  Institutions can be sick on the inside and yet still look strong on the outside; decline can sneak up on you, and then-seemingly all of a sudden-you’re in big trouble.  Stage 3 is Denial Of Risk And Peril.  As companies move into Stage 3, internal warning signs begin to mount, yet external results remain strong enough to “explain away” disturbing data or to suggest that the difficulties are “temporary” or “cyclic” or “not that bad,” and “nothing is fundamentally wrong.”  In Stage 3, leaders discount negative data, amplify positive data, and put a positive spin on ambiguous data. Those in power start to blame external factors for setbacks rather than accept responsibility.”2

While sometimes organisations may be truly unlucky in their journey to get hit with factors outside their control, most times, the start of organisational failures can be traced back to the hubris of success and lack of humility.  Leaders play a very important role in protecting and ensuring humility in day to day operations.  This starts with role modelling related behaviours and incorporating conscious humility mindset into the heart of thinking, decision making and organisation culture.  Ignoring these elements can invite serious repercussions.

In the book, Trillion Dollar Coach, the traits of coachability Bill Campbell sought were honesty and humility, the willingness to preserve and work hard and a constant openness to learning.  Honesty and humility, because a successful coaching relationship requires a high degree of vulnerability.3  Openness as well cannot exist without humility.  Humility can be developed consciously.

References

1. The Scary Truth About Corporate Survival, December 2016
2. Five Stages of Decline, Jim Collins
3. Trillion Dollar Coach, Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, Alan Eagle