Page 68 - The Resilient Organization

Performance Traps 55

and established power coalitions (see the “Dangers and Seductions of
Success” sidebar). It is also tempting to think that everyone else is out there
to serve you and your interests (yet it is difficult to get a truly independent
assessment from those potentially sharing the success).

VOICE OF RESILIENCE
One of my colleagues and I once met with a renowned management
consultant. After the meeting, which was allegedly intended to explore
opportunities for collaboration, my colleague said, “I have never before
in my life felt so much like an instrument to someone else’s purposes.”
This colleague was an unusually resilient one (and has since made a fan-
tastic career for himself).
Most people lose their ability to think independently when face-to-
face with high success, to the point that it dims their capacity for smart
action. They agree to things they would not otherwise consider, for
instance. Partly this may be blamed on a deep human tendency for imi-
tation, and when the object is illustrious success, we wish to imitate it
even more. Moreover, highly successful people also suffer from not
being able to trust what people say to them—not because their support-
ers intentionally lie but because success tends to distort reality in an
attempt to replicate itself in the future. If you are extremely successful,
most people agree with you, no matter what you say; or at least they
will not readily criticize. Often they are seeking a piece of your success.
If they do not kill you (“E tu, Brute!”), they will be subservient to you.
Their opinions are colored by your opinions and thus not reliable. This
is a bad recipe for the continuation of success. You must take drastic
action so that your past success does not entirely cloud the attitude and
advice of people around you.
Kleiner (2003: 75) has written: “When you are a Core Group member,
your remarks are automatically amplified. . . . Casually mention a product
you’d like to develop someday, and you’ll discover three weeks later that
someone has spent a million dollars introducing it. . . . Why does this
happen? Because nobody knows exactly what you want. They assume it is
part of their job to guess. They may be too intimidated by your Core
Group status and the legitimacy you’ve acquired in their minds to ask.”