Sunday Email - Success / Root Issues

Read time: ~2.30 minutes

Happy Sunday!

Every Sunday I offer strategies for the week ahead and a thought to fuel your action.

What does success mean to you? 

Ever pondered the aftermath of reaching that coveted success?

I find success to be such a funny concept.

Success drives us to innovate, challenge norms, and work tirelessly. It's the fuel for entrepreneurial urgency. However, once success is perceived as achieved, this urgency often shifts to complacency, innovation to standardization, and drive to mere maintenance.

Consider the tales of Western Union dismissing the telephone, Kodak sticking to traditional film, HP turning down Steve Wozniak’s computer concept (three times!), or the missed opportunities of Excite, Myspace, and Blockbuster with Google, Facebook, and Netflix, respectively. 

These examples are well-known, showcasing companies led by brilliant minds who achieved remarkable success. Yet, they succumbed to success's silent killer.

Success can lead us to overestimate our market control and dominance. It's ironic, considering success's unpredictable nature, influenced by a blend of decisions made on imperfect information and outcomes propelled by uncontrollable luck.

Imagine starting a venture, fueled by the novelty of your idea and the potential ahead, driving you to work relentlessly, embracing failures as stepping stones. Finally, success arrives, and you feel like you've cracked the code to "how it all works." Confidence soars, and a protective instinct kicks in. The initial innovative spirit that got you there begins to fade, replaced by a maintenance mindset, a reluctance to upset the status quo.

Why? The journey's hardships are still fresh – the tears, sweat, and toil. The fear of reverting to those struggles makes you cling tightly to your achievements.

But in this success-induced blindness, new opportunities seem too risky, too inconsequential to your established dominance. This mirrors the results trap we've discussed before, where ongoing success masks the need for change.

Meanwhile, a wave of hungry competitors, reminiscent of your earlier scrappy days, is rising. They're willing to disrupt what you've built, driven by a 'nothing to lose' attitude, contrasting your 'everything to lose' mindset.

Then comes the moment of truth – call it the Blockbuster or Myspace moment – when an unforeseen disruptor changes the game. Clinging to past successes and their perceived permanence, you find yourself reacting too late.

Success, indeed, is a silent killer in business. Many have fallen prey to it, and many more remain convinced it won't happen to them, much like their predecessors.

As leaders, we must actively guard against this threat. 

Tactically, this means constantly questioning our correctness, welcoming new ideas, embracing failure, and hiring leaders with diverse backgrounds. 

Psychologically, it involves proving ourselves daily, continually reinventing and staying curious.

Jeff Bezos captured this essence in the last paragraph of his final shareholder letter in 2020, a sentiment he's echoed since Amazon's inception: 

“To all of you: be kind, be original, create more than you consume, and never, never, never let the universe smooth you into your surroundings. It remains Day 1.”

The antidote to this silent killer? Treating every day as Day 1, regardless of past successes.

A Thought To Ponder This Week

Parenting is the ultimate test of patience and understanding. 

I currently have a 4.5 year old son and a 2 year old daughter. We are in the thick of it. 

And I’ve learned, far from mastered, the concept that what is upsetting to my kids on the surface often isn’t the driver of the meltdown. 

The meltdown over pancakes instead of waffles or the blue shirt instead of the red shirt, is often just the tip of the iceberg. 

The real triggers tend to lurk beneath the surface.

Yet, with young children, uncovering these underlying causes can be a guessing game. Are they seeking comfort, or are they anxious about something they can't articulate?

This parenting lesson applies to our professional lives too. 

Consider client interactions, for example. When clients express frustration over portfolio performance, our instinct is to address that specific concern directly. We might adjust their portfolio, seemingly solving the issue, only for similar problems to reemerge later.

Why? Because often, like with our children, the real issue is deeper than what's immediately visible. It could be fear, uncertainty, or a feeling of losing control. The performance issue is just a symptom of these underlying concerns.

So, as we head into the week, a thought to ponder is what can we all do with our clients to help get to the issue beneath the surface? What lesson can we take from parenting that can be applied to business to help ease concerns more effectively? 

The best is ahead!

-Matt