THE PROBLEM WITH SUCCESS

The problem with success is that when you succeed, when you develop a track record of success and you develop a reputation— people will begin to assume that you know what you’re talking about and have insightful things to say about everything. But it is not true. You do not know and can’t say insightful things about everything. And worse still, as people assume that your track record of success gives you particular advantage of understanding, knowledge, and intelligence—they will stop questioning you and stop challenging you.

This is a problem? you ask. Well, obviously some people (maybe most people) don’t like being questioned and challenged— but the brightest and best do! In fact, being challenged is what makes them the brightest and the best. They get feedback, they get to wrestle with their ideas in the public marketplace and out of that they come out more insightful, more robust, able to make more refined distinctions, and more able to clearly communicate their ideas. They not only like feedback, they not only thrive on it, they demand it.

Alfred Sloan, CEO of General Motors, is an excellent example of this. When he was running GM, whenever there was no one to disagree or oppose him on a decision in the board room, he would postpone the decision altogether. Why? He thought that if there is a lack of dissent, it meant that the decision had not been carefully considered and there may be too much groupthink. He knew that he needed someone would who pushed back on an idea and challenge it.

What happens with success is that we and the people around us stop thinking. Assuming that we now know, assuming that we now have the answers, assuming that our guesses are top-notch, those around us start deferring. They become “Yes men.” They default on thinking assuming that the person in charge will do the thinking. And in groups, organizations, and corporations, this leads to group-think. And all of this is disastrous to staying on the cutting-edge of creativity and innovation.

Success, like answers, actually cut off thinking. Now true enough, we want both. We want answers and we want success, but there’s a problem with each. Both ends the search. Both brings a halt to the inquiry and both closes the ongoing development so that instead of developing a great answer or creating a great success— we settle for mediocre answers and successes.

What’s needed is real thinking. And that means a healthy skepticism for whatever answers we have so far and whatever successes we have achieved to-date. Just because we have an answer or

or some success is not enough. Test it. To quote an old Bible verse: “Test all things and hold fast to that which is true.” (I Thessalonians 5:23). So ask questions: What is the level of accuracy in this information? Is it valid? How valid? What is the level of relevance? How pertinent is this information for our question? What is the level of sufficiency for this answer? Is it thorough enough? Could it be more?

Actually, success is not enough. What if the success happened by accident? By coincidence? What if it happened by factors that you’re not aware of? In that case, you have no way of perpetuating the success or replicating it. In that case, you really don’t know the factors that played a key role in the success and so there’s no way that you can make it will last. And anyone who is impressed with the success and who asks you about it will be getting pseudo-information.

Sometimes a person or a corporation succeeded because it of the zeitgeist (the spirit of the times). It was the right moment. Anyone with almost any offering would have been an instant success given where the markets were and what you were offering. So if you are not engaged in real thinking and understanding and intelligence— not only will you be deceived about the reasons for your success, you will have a false confidence for continuing it or reproducing it. Not good.

Because success tempts people to stop thinking, they focus on the end-results rather than the process that created the end-results. This reveals yet another problem and danger in thinking —results thinking. Now certainly we all want results, but if your thinking is about the end-values and not the means-values, we can very easily set ourselves up for unethical practices by over- caring too much on the end results.

Succeeding to reach a goal, in and of itself, is not enough. Don’t be satisfied just because you got the results that you set out to achieve. Engage in some deeper and more profound thinking. Consider the process and the “critical success factors.” Can you specify the actual processes that you engaged in that made the difference? Aim for a deep mindfulness.