On madness, models of failure, and the mythology of past successes
I have been thinking a lot about success and failure in business this past week, and about behavioral patterns and common cultural factors I invariably find in organizations that breed either one outcome or the other. I will dive deeper into this topic over the coming weeks, but for now, today, I want to show you something. Something that, at first glance, I found funny. Not knee-slapping, LOL-inducing haha-funny, mind you. Something funny yet tragic, because it illustrates not only the stupidity of the way some organizations cling to anachronistic models of failure, but the absurdity of it in its whole.
We’ll get to that in a minute, but let’s just say that what I received today, what prompted this post, made me wonder about the sanity of the person who thought it wise to send it to me. And this made me think about why some managers insist on never letting go of strategies and tactics which they know don’t work.
Point #1: Knowing full well that a method, tool or model no longer yields the desired outcome (assuming it ever did), some organizations will continue to bet on it, in the hopes that the laws of the universe will shift in the night and miraculously turn a completely ludicrous project into success.
The partial email I will share with you may make many of you chuckle, as I chuckled when I read through the first few sentences, but in truth, there really isn’t anything funny about it, and here’s why: As extreme as this example of stupidity may seem, the principles which guided the hand of a business to drive this campaign, to assign resources to it (writers, staff, computers, software licenses, chairs, desks, office space, electricity, lights, etc.) are no different from the principles that guide tens of thousands of companies to also cling to their own proven methods of failure.
That organizations, then, would cling to such ill-advised models in the face of logic, in the face of common sense even, I can almost understand. Not every organization or department is helmed by the sharpest mind of its generation. I get that. But more shocking to me is that this type of absurd behavior – this level of abject stupidity when it comes to discerning between effective and ineffective models – occurs in face of facts, and by that, I mean hard data and history, ignored, pushed aside in favor of a mythology of past successes.
Let the notion sink in for a moment. Mythology of past successes. The myth that the organization was once successful, and the further notion that the methods it employed then, if employed now, will restore it onto its successful path. A past success, mind you, that more often than not only exists in the minds of those who cling to its dream, therefore invalidating the very methods which they so revere.
Point #2: Imaginary past successes and glories are potent illusions – they aim to set the stage for future ones after all – but as poisonous and lethal as memories of painful lost loves: Embellished over time by the mind’s gentle healing hand, polished to a high sheen that grows brighter in magnificence with every passing year.
A man, in the embrace of weakness, can find himself trading the inconvenience of reality for the comfort of such an illusion, and as the mind is trained to do in order to help us survive tragedy, begin to turn the pain and reality of failure into something seemingly beautiful and pure. Faced with the prospect of further failure, facts go out the window. Reality seeks to be disproved. The mind begins to look for safety and comfort. All that eventually remains is the legend of “the good old days,” and the notion that a higher power (even in the form of abstract “business cycles”) will come and make things right if only one perseveres in holding on to the past long enough.
Fisher Kings, organizational dysfunction, and engineering cultures of failure
This is something a C.E.O. told me years ago, when he and I were discussing the future of his company: “This is how we’ve always done it. It’s always worked for us. We’re not about to start doing it differently now.”
Except it hadn’t worked in twenty years, everyone knew it – as I suspect he did as well – yet there he was, defending the sanctity of a model that had already begun to fail a full generation ago and showed no promise of deliverance whatsoever. Embattled and failing, the company yet refused to let go of a past it had turned for itself into legend. Religion, even. This man, this grown man, clung to the safety of a myth of success the way an anxious child in the face of uncertainty clings to the hand of his mother.
The reality of the company’s past “success,” (the basis, in his mind, for the inevitable return of fortune as foretold by his internal narrative – the myth he created for himself over years of wishful thinking) was that the company had never, in fact, been all that successful. It had struggled, as all companies do, for market share, for growth, for loyal customers. What success it had enjoyed for a time had been hard-earned and modest at best. There had never been glory. There had never been true sustained market leadership. The man sitting across from me was operating under a spell of denial which he had – over time – infused into his organization. The Fisher King retold.
One doesn’t have to be clinically insane to act like a madman but this one, afflicted as he was by his fears, by his bitterness, by his anger, by his own inner demons of self-doubt and shame, in retreating into a world of make-believe, was in fact acting like a madman: Working against all reason and common sense. Rather than steer his ship to warmer waters and favorable winds clearly discernible just ahead, he chose to keep to the murky, brackish waters he now believed had once been a glorious ocean. He painted himself the C.E.O. of a successful company, whose brand would someday regain dominance. A dominance to be regained again as its birthright, or so the tale went inside his head. This in spite of inaction, of denial, of stupidity and a surprising level of arrogance.
The places we allow ourselves to drift to and die, out of fear and out of shame. Both one and the same. (If you hate your job, consider this a tap on the shoulder: How long do you intend to wait there in misery?)
This was the company I had been hired to rescue. I almost did, but only almost. I don’t always succeed. I managed to drag it back from the brink, to show them the way, even to pave it for them, but the last step, they had to take for themselves: Making the decision to change. To let go of their ghosts and commit to a fresh start.
Not everyone, though, has the courage to unfurl their sails.
The Greek perspective, and methods of failure
If I were an ancient Greek, I would talk about fear and anxiety in terms of spirits and possession. Not spirits as in demons, the way we think of them now, but the spirits of love, anger, hatred, fear, cowardice, envy… Emotions given life and will and power over our lives by us, their willing vessels.
The Spartans believed that blood lust in the middle of battle, for example, was possession – and something to avoid at all cost. Despair can be possession. Fury. Jealousy. Terror. Love. Enthusiasm. Every type of feeling can take us over. Overwhelm us. Crimes of passion are the result of possession. Brawling with fans of a rival football team is the result of possession. Understanding this is understanding something about human behavior, not just 3,000 years ago but today as well. Perhaps especially so.
We yet have much to learn from the Greeks.
Looking at human behavior from that perspective, whatever spirit possessed this man, this unfortunate C.E.O., I have met many times since. Different offices, different cities, different letters on the doors and the lobby walls and the business cards, but always the same madness. The same visceral need to create then cling to myths of success, and along with them proven methods of failure: Decisions and actions that led to their ship remaining in irons, year after year, in the false safety of a cove that in fact had become its grave. Cultures of failure start here. In this manner. Engineered by the dysfunctions of an individual ill-suited to lead an organization.
When mediocrity and failure are hailed as glory and success, take a bearing: Relativism doesn’t apply to victory. It only serves to paint defeat into something more palatable. It is the fuel of denial. Flipping success and failure on their heads so that one suddenly becomes mistaken for the other is madness as well.
Point #3: Failure in organizations, in business, in projects and campaigns isn’t always the result of luck or fate or circumstances. Sometimes it is (though I would caution against looking at obstacles and challenges, even the most seemingly insurmountable odds as anything but opportunity), but just as often, failure is engineered, constructed from within, given birth to and shaped, fostered, nurtured, encouraged and fed daily – like a creature.
The truth of failure, true failure, is that it lies not in circumstance but at the intersection of weakness and method. In the weakness that drives some men to shun the fight and the challenge which are the price of both success and victory, and to instead embrace illusion, relativism (characterized by endless strings of excuses) and the type of insanity that makes them act against their own best interest: Ignoring facts. Declaring success when none exists. Continuing down a clear path of failure. Adopting failure as a method.
Symptoms vs. Disease: Digging beneath superficial absurdity to find its cause
However extreme the following example may seem to us, scores of companies insist on clinging to equally ridiculous and completely ineffective methods of conducting business, albeit not quite as spectacular in their awfulness. Yet… outside of execution – or the manifestation of this type of nonsense, as seen below – compulsive adherence to methods of failure is in no way different in its path to what led to this example, and remains equally absurd.
Here it is, the first paragraph from an email like millions of others just like it, which we consider spam, yet someone, somewhere considers marketing:
I sincerely ask for forgiveness for I know this may seem like a complete intrusion to your privacy
but right about now this is my best option ofcommunication. This mail might come to you as a
surprise and the temptation to ignore it as frivolous could come into your mind, but please
consider it a divine wish and accept it with a deep sense of humility. This letter must surprise you
because we have never meet before neither inperson nor by correspondence, but I believe that,
it takes just one day to meet orknow someone either physically or through correspondence.
Ridiculous? Of course it is. It’s spam – and bad spam at that. But you know what? The company that paid for it thinks this works, that this utterly ludicrous bit of email content is the best way to get me to click on a button or surrender personal information. And while we laugh at the stupidity of it, wondering in the backs of our minds what kind of manager or business owner would believe, in this day and age, that something like this is a method of success, it is in no way different from a manager or business owner in Kansas City, Charlotte, London or Chicago believing that their own brand of ineffective, outdated, business development method will somehow yield better results than it has until now.
Point #4: The absurdity of embracing methods of failure is not measured by the depth of stupidity characterizing their execution – like really awful copy, as seen in the above example,- but rather by the fervor with which failure-blind managers cling to their own delusions in spite of everything they know.
It’s tragic.
I don’t say this lightly. It is soul-crushing to see professional men and women – not organizations but human beings of flesh and blood, like me – so blinded, so possessed by layer upon layer of bullshit that they are no longer able to tell up from down, right from wrong, smart from stupid. Confused and lost in the wilderness of a world that has outpaced them, they cling to a made-up version of it, one they can feel comfortable and safe with, even if it doesn’t actually exist.
In this world, what they know, what they believe, even if it is completely absurd, holds more truth for them than the reality they refuse to accept. This shielding mechanism, this search for comfort and security in an idealized version of the past, of the “good old days,” makes every new idea alien and dangerous. A threat. They begin to regard progress at best as suspect, and at worst as a betrayal of their “ideals.”
In the same way that children invent for themselves imaginary worlds in play, adults sometimes invent for themselves worlds in fear. We see this with religion and politics, with extremism. We also see it in the business world: Some of these adults apply this mechanism to their professions, often with dreadful consequences.
When I hear a C.E.O. scoff condescendingly at Social Business, aiming to belittle and ridicule it as “something the kids do,” something legitimate businesses don’t need, a waste of time, a fad, a pile of crap, I don’t feel frustration anymore. I feel pity. Pity for the man, pity for the organization, pity for its future. Hell, I feel sadness because I know the fear that lives at the heart of the attitude that nurtured the opinion behind the comment. More importantly, I know instantly that the organization “led” by this person is crippled by methods of failure. And because the pattern of such dysfunction doesn’t deviate all that much from company to company, I can start mapping it out on paper without having to hear another word.
Point #5: When you understand a leader’s weakness, you know how his organization is failing.
Organizations that shun rather than embrace progress, whose default position is to embrace new ideas in meetings but somehow never manage to implement them, organizations that refuse to acknowledge or enable change from within or without, these organizations are all the same. Every single one. Identifying them is the first step. Understanding them follows. Beyond that, expect a bumpy ride.
Word to the wise: Not everyone is cut out to be an agent of change. If you can visualize your career, imagine the path of least resistance. Now imagine the complete opposite. More often than not, change is war.
Time to revisit the definitions of insanity and failure
It’s been said that the definition of insanity is to repeat the same action over and over again, expecting a different result each time.
I disagree.
Perseverance, then, would be insanity. Tenacity also. I reject that definition. Conditions change: The same action repeated enough times can and often does yield different results, and we intrinsically know it. From adaptation to probability, we know that results may vary. We put it in fine print on just about everything.
The exact same spin of the ball in a game of roulette will have it land on a different number each time. The same lotto numbers played week after week will yield a different relationship to the winning numbers arrived at elsewhere. The same degree of effort on the field of practice will result in physical and mental changes over time. And so it goes. Because conditions vary, repetition in the face of failure alone does not constitute insanity. What I propose instead is this, that the definition of insanity is to repeat the same action you know cannot yield the desired outcome over and over again, expecting a different result.
Insanity is deliberately choosing a method of failure over a method of success (or even an infinite range of experimental methods) because in spite of all logic, it fits within a world view -an ideology – borne out of anxiety and false nostalgia rather than experience and reality. THAT is insanity.
Failure – systemic failure, that is – is engineered. It is built from the ground up, much like success, one broken brick at a time.
Point #6: Just as surely as a culture of success can take root in a company (Zappos, Apple, BMW, Google, and many more) a culture of failure can take root as well: Characterized by internal dysfunction, the utter absence of loyalty among its staff, low morale, a poisonous work environment and an absence of fire and passion even at the helm, cultures of failure are tough to turn around. And you know what? they are as tough to rescue as a drug addict who, while begging for help, still clings to the needle and the gutter as if his life depended on it. It’s heart breaking.
What I do: Light, shadow and the need for both
Helping businesses succeed is often a lot of fun. It can be easy. You come along at the right time, get to know them well, give them a little push, and there they go: Back on track, rocking it out. Those are the good ones. The ones that make me feel like a million bucks. The ones in which everyone clicks and has fun. It doesn’t even feel like work. I secretly wish that all of my clients were like this, but I know that this is weakness as well. For every perfect client, I need an imperfect one. We all do. We wouldn’t be professionals if all we did all day constituted play. We wouldn’t learn much. We wouldn’t improve. Delight is possession as well.
Just as often, helping a company succeed begins by teaching its management to stop failing. To stop mistaking mediocrity for success. To stop acting against their own self-interest. In some cases, the process boils down to dragging them out of their predicament, kicking and screaming the whole way. I’ve been insulted, threatened and even fired by clients who promptly offered to re-hire me the next day, only to fire and rehire me again. I’ve endured abuse at the hand of awful little children in adult bodies. What I do isn’t always pretty. It is intervention, pure and simple.
Dealing with a C.E.O. or manager possessed by the form of madness we’ve discussed today is no different from dealing with an addict fighting for his soul.
Point #7: Whatever we like to call “personal demons,” they destroy businesses too. As surely as what brought about a mid-life crisis can destroy a marriage or career, so can it shatter a business. It isn’t something we talk about much, but we should.
We can’t not talk about this. Companies don’t get fixed. Companies don’t win or lose. People do. What I end up doing, more often than not, is fixing people. Helping them find their way and be whole again.
Bad marketing and bad business decisions often find their roots in more than incompetence and accidental human error. In order to make sure they don’t happen again – or never happen at all – you have to go a little deeper than that. “Best Practices” are only the surface. Stopping there isn’t enough. You can’t stick to the edges and hope for the best. Sometimes, you have to go deep. Sometimes, you have to go all in.
What has been on my mind lately: Some clarification before we continue
I’ve been giving this and a dozen other related topics a lot of thought this past week, and how my chosen profession fits in all of this. How experience, knowledge, talent and insight have led me to become not only an advisor and educator, but also now a confidantz and a friend to individuals who don’t understand why their companies are stuck, unable to move forward as quickly and fluidly as they know they should. The human element to it above all questions of processes and best practices and clever ideas. How important to me this has become. The problem with becoming emotionally vested in something like this, in trying to effect real change, is that it consumes you. Theres no way around it. You have to let it.
While it sometimes seems that my job consists of coming up with cool ideas and helping companies divine insights from the fog of business, the reality is that I am more often than not a therapist. A business therapist, one might say, but there is no such thing: A business is a dream brought to life by a company of men and women who form its limbs and organs, and whose love for what they do is its lifeblood.
When I am called upon to help a company, an organization, a business, I end up helping people. Why? Because every dysfunction at the root of a problem with a business invariable finds its own roots in a personal dysfunction – sometimes, clusters of personal dysfunction.
In order to do what I do – and do it well – you have to be ready for that. You have to be ready to know when to bear the weight of it all, and when not to. You have to know your way around the human mind and the human heart. You have to know exactly what to do when someone with a serious problem tries to draw you into their drama. It can be emotionally exhausting. This line of work is not for everyone.
And I guess that is why I don’t like to call what I do “consulting.” Now I know why the term never sat well with me: “Consulting” is only a small portion of what I do, just like R.O.I. is only a small aspect of what I help shine a light on. Calling myself a consultant just doesn’t work. I don’t yet have a name for what I do, and I’ll admit that it’s a bit annoying.
I am telling you this because over the course of the next few weeks, I may write more about the role that human nature plays in adopting “best practices,” pursuing excellence and creating cultures of success than I have before, and I want you to know where all this is coming from, why these topics even matter, and how I came to want to discuss them from this unusual perspective. My mind is behind the curtain this week. Under the surface. I am looking directly into the nature of leadership, courage, curiosity, insight and the spirit of victory, which are at once timeless and very specifically connected. And if we are going to make any headway, it’s time we stopped focusing so much on the superficial aspects of business and brand management, and turned our attention to some pretty core elements without which Twitter, Facebook and all of the things we love to discuss here and on other blogs are little more than salon chatter.
And I hope this helps give you a tiny little glimpse into what makes me tick, why the way in which I approach certain topics might seem a little different from other blogs. Ultimately, everything comes down to people: Understand people, and you understand everything. It’s where every one of my blog post begins. At the core of every discussion we have here about brand management, Social Media, communications, R.O.I., etc. is human behavior in all its reality and relevance.
More to come.
Brand Building and Online Marketing Blog 
Holy shit.
So much to distill.
I see the woman with a beehive hairdo, Priscilla Presley makeup and polyester pants – because that’s the incarnation of her when she snagged her husband. She exists within that glory-days version of herself because it got results.
When I sit down with a client, I observe everything: the decor of the office, the combover, the awards on the wall. These are the indicators of what (s)he values, and from that, I have a beginning. I can make inroads into the mindset of who drives the bus. What are his/her motivations? Fears? Goals?
This is a great blogpost, all sunshine up your skirt aside, because it accurately reflects what we, who deal directly with clients, have to face each day.
We are Father Confessor, psychiatrist, cheerleader, babysitter, Muse…
Social Media and “Best Practices” are effects, not causal; further, they are detractions and shiny objects which enable those who fear change to delay decisions.
I have to re-read this. Good stuff. Solid. Thanks for taking the time to write it. Best, M.
See, it’s good to know I’m not completely insane. I’m glad you commented on this the way you did.
yeah, take your time. I’m traveling again in a few days, so this may be it for the remainder of July.
Dude! Wow. I mean, *what she said.*
All that build up and then, a piece of spam. I was not expecting that at all, yet I understand it completely. I admire what you do, not so much the business and marketing aspects of it, but the deeply rooted desire to help others live richer, more intrinsically rewarding lives.
A number of years ago, I sort of burned out as a gearhead. I’d come close enough to achieving my automotive goals to recognize that I’d not set the right goals in the first place. I had an epiphany.
I enjoy modifying the car *community* more than I enjoy modifying the cars.
I’ve restated that comment time and again in the years since. It’s like my own personal metaphor, even when I use it in simile as I’m doing right now.
I’ll hear or read something and that thought will come racing to the forefront of my consciousness. This is usually followed by an adrenaline rush on par with being in or narrowly avoiding a car accident. Fingertips go cold, palms begin to sweat, breathing gets shallow, heartbeat races, chills chase each other outwards from my core. Eventually, my brain shorts out entirely and I babble on and on like a cretin in a blog comment until I’ve gone for a walk away from the computer.
This is it! This is exactly what I’m trying to say!
Look!
Look, damn you!
Why isn’t everyone looking? Why don’t they get it?
It’s not social media.
It’s not marketing.
It’s not even business.
(It’s damn sure not cars.)
It’s connecting the dots, re-routing the wires, crossing the Ts, dotting the Is, getting the knots out of the rigging, greasing the joints, changing filters, getting everything sorted and ready to go – setting others up for success – then stepping back and watching THEM throw the switch.
It’s about helping others turn their backs on fear and march… Eff that – run – headlong into the light because, dammit, they believe in what they’re doing now and they’re on fire.
Hallelujah! Holy shit!
(Where’s the aspirin?)
/going for a walk
Instant blood brother. We’re drinking from the same cup, you and I. 🙂
Word. Here’s something you don’t see every day…
Shortly after posting my comment, I got a phone call asking how I would set up my department/division, were it up to me, what my ideal job looks like, and could I put that all in an email by COB. Talk about timing. Ended up staying half an hour late bouncing off the rev limiter in an I-can’t-type-fast-enough reply.
This morning, I was in a meeting hosted by a number of top floor types with “Chief” or “Vice” in their titles. They painted a picture of the organization moving forward which left me wondering if they had all gone over my email last night after hours or something.
I don’t really know what’s going on, but I like it.
Outstanding.
So you’re a business doctor…
That would require years of study and a doctorate. I’m at best a field medic with good instincts and lots of practice. 😉
This is a whole new level of goodness. The “safety in the myth of success” that pushes leadership teams and their organizations to continue to try harder at the same thing and do it in the same way is why so many organizations chug along and never push through to the next level. You captured this perfectly with the discussion of engineered failure – that it’s not something the just happens to a company but that it’s built, consciously or unconsiously – even sometimes fueled by very goals they set to achieve success.
There are so many great nuggets of wisdom here you have entered the psychological and philosophical realm. This post is, well, Blanchardian.
Okay wait, I have to read this again.
@KimBrater
I screwed up. This should have been a dozen blog posts. Or a book concept.
Aside from the fact that with every post you write, it only reaffirms my desire to have you lead/teach at Marylhurst, reading this was like looking at the last 10 years of my life and, more specifically, like seeing, even down to the CEO’s statements, what 2005-2009 was like for me trying to effect change in the NFP world.
Good, good stuff, Olivier.
😀 Yeah. Trust me. I can relate. Lots of us have observed the same thing, haven’t we. It’s almost epidemic.
A Book. This needs to be a book like The Five Dysfunctions. It can then be used as the text from which you teach.
Seriously, you need to start writing/teaching, too, Olivier. Every time I think about the next wave of students and the teachers they’re learning from, a bit of me dies inside because I know for all their good intentions, inherent in institutional education and academic environments is the tendency to do the very thing you just wrote about. How does that equip future workers/human beings? How does that effect change?
Le sigh 😦
I’m going to need to go back to school and get a PhD then… which takes me away from the real lab: Out here in the real world. Hmm. The conundrum.
Honestly, I don’t want you to teach till you’re retirement age. Still so much for you to learn by getting your hands dirty. You’re on the right path.
🙂
Retirement? I’d have to have a “real job” for that. 😀
A beautiful post, Olivier and one that I wholeheartedly agree with. Thanks for articulating it so nicely, as it is clear that you care deeply about this. The fact that you are able to remain passionately objective is a reason I keep my eye on you ;^)
The reactive stubbornness you describe is indeed pitiable but more so because it dramatically signifies that a major chapter in the way that we humans conduct ourselves is coming to a close and there are those who are deeply fearful of this strange new world of possibility.
These are the folks who’ve spent many years “mastering” their vocation to a point wherein they feel entitled to respect and reward. Instead they are confronted with a rapidly evolving, multi-dimensional social fragmentation that is shifting the balance of power from these Captains of Industry to the Audiences they once claimed to serve. Unnerving is putting it lightly. This is seriously scary stuff for a number of folks, especially in the advertising, marketing communications, public relations and creative fields who’re used to being the leading edge of these phenomena.
Maybe I’ve been reading too much Umair Haque lately but I swear that this transition into Social Business feels like a real chance for humans to recraft what it means to Be In Business. A chance to remove the profit-or-loss stigma from the endeavor in order to build quality relationships that sustain the endeavor more equitably over time. This opens up the possibility that what our endeavor is can now be more innovative or even egalitarian because the promise lies in how well engaged your audience/clients/customers with it. Actions qualify business objectives but it is this active base that builds brand value. Almost feels more like politics than business…oh, wait… ;^)
Heady stuff but the rules are still being written, or rather, unwritten. I believe we are still very much in an incubation phase, learning and applying but not doing more than experimenting. Again, I think there is some trepidation that holds things back. After years of communicating the latest product or service by “announcing” or “revealing” or “launching” it at people, no one even bothers to duck anymore. Look at the issues that Apple is going through as it tries to maintain its secrecy during product cycles for a perfect example of how this is unraveling.
I loved this line: Understand People and you Understand Everything << Testify!
And how do we do that? Stop Talking So Much and Listen but do it with Empathy. Give a damn! Take notes (then share with the class). Connect with your audience/client/customers needs enough to engage them beyond the initial sale. Seek out those who dismiss your endeavor/product/service and address grievances honestly. Generate critical conversations outside of the revision cycle in order to create a sense of dedication to sweating the details. Build trust by being human and sticking to defined principles. Get in the game people ;^)
No doubt this is HARD, possibly much HARDER than the 20th Century Status Quo. Then again, maybe its not. Maybe, just maybe, as we align our business practices to more slightly more altruistic models propelled by natural social rhythms we'll find we can't recall why anyone would've done things any other way.
Count me in as one who wants to see more in this direction, Olivier (and anyone else for that matter). Very cool!
Outstanding comment, Emanuel.
Yeah, it actually isn’t hard. No harder than the way it was done ten years ago. I’ve sat at those cubicles. I’ve endured endless conference calls and meetings and powerpoint presentations about NOTHING. People spending all day sending and answering emails along a pointless daisy chain of RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:… Hating their jobs, getting no sense of accomplishment, producing mediocre work when any at all. And the whole time, I thought to myself, why do we put ourselves through this? Why is business done this way? It’s completely insane. The only answer I’ve ever gotten from anyone was this: “That’s just how it is.”
My reply: That’s exactly what the cow would say on her way to the slaughtering chute at the abatoir.
We could all see how things could work. Should work. It was right there. Yet no one would move towards the solution. Everyone resigned themselves to continue on a pointless path of failure, because no one was prepared to say “Woah. Time out. This is stupid. Let’s retool.” No one at the top wanted to stick their necks out. No one wanted to risk missing out on their bonus. It would mean more work on the front end. The IT department scoffed at the idea. The middle managers looked up in a daze and asked “huh?” Lifers threatened rebellion at the water cooler.
It was easier to do nothing and work your ass off to get nowhere than it was to say “we’re going to try this another way.”
Well, I tried it another way, and it worked. Every time, it worked. And then things got easier, not harder. 😉
Part 1?…
… Guess I’d then echo earlier comments about this becoming a book, or something a bit more ‘lasting’ than these digital utterances?… even though it may take your attention away from the real lab for a while?
[GRINS]
Definitely your heart was speaking, one of your more ‘realistic’ and down-to-earth postings in the time I’ve been a subscriber, would love to have more time to spend on the insanity definition, “Social Business” (that a rebranding in the works?) and other points… the stuff of future textbooks? perhaps… are those future students reading this? hopefully.
And everything pointing back to people? Echoes a few musings of my own, as in the end, systems are nothing without the ‘users’ that interface with them, which is unfortunately a main rationale for many to both discard as well as to blame technology – if again, they were only equipped to ‘understand’ that it’s also coming from how other people saw a solution to an specific problem.
[HATS OFF!]
Thanks, man. The first book, ironically, will be about process. (The stuff I call here ‘superficial’.) It’s needed, and it isn’t a bad place to start. If that one does reasonably well, we’ll start tackling topics like this as well.
I like your observation on systems. I agree. I’ll make the anecdote I would have used in this reply to illustrate your point in Part 3 or 4. 🙂
I can easily tell you what you are, Olivier: a leader and someone who inspires. This statement isn’t drooling fanboy OMG glorification, but an honest sentiment. Posts like this prove it to me over again. Thanks for having the iron will and fortitude to make these observations, living up to them, and showing the rest of us how to make use of them. Bravo.
Wow. That was strong. I like it. 🙂
Thanks, Mike.
Lots to digest there but all good stuff. I am very interested in your personal nomenclature … you say you don’t like to be referred to as a consultant, so what would you prefer to be known as?
Well that’s just it. I don’t know. I don’t have a name for it. Mr. Black? I don’t know.
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Wow. Thank you for writing this beautiful post, Olivier. It really resonated with me, and was a little hard to get through, because I’ve witnessed this kind of delusional behavior in too many organizations, and I’ve seen and experienced the suffering and learned helplessness of good people who want to make change but are beaten down by leaders who cling to myths of past success.
Sometimes I ask myself why I care so much, why I am upset by these situations. It’s just business, right? Most of the time, I’m not emotionally invested in the organization’s mission, their customers’ needs or shareholders’ wallets. That’s a different, lesser kind of commitment. That’s ephemeral.
You crystallized it for me: It’s the people. They are why I care. Their aspirations and desires to find success, and the validation they need, validation that comes with being given a chance to try something new, something different, something uniquely theirs. Validation of their own ideas, their personal vision. Validation that says it’s okay to fail at something new, versus the more insidious and common kind of failure: failure of ambition, which is to fail (again) by doing things the way they’ve always been done. It angers me to see one person’s mediocrity praised while another’s creativity and enthusiasm are trampled.
Your courage in showing some of what makes you tick in this post reminds me why I keep at what I do: I’m fortunate to know a lot of smart, creative, enthusiastic people who are trying to make change and do new things. I’m inspired by these people and want to help them succeed.
Thanks again for a great post.
I learn as much from my own posts from stuff like this than I do from writing them. Thank you for that. 🙂
The “Big Idea” coupled with The Curse of Knowledge = fail. It is baked into everything resulting in huge misses, such as Kodak not acquiring Flickr, a big bank not acquiring Mint.com, a brewer like Miller or Bud not acquiring FourSquare…I could go on. All those opportunities are right under their noses but the fear of failure and the Curse of Knowledge cripples companies and the individuals who work in them…
Anyway, some more of my thoughts here http://www.north.com/html/index.php/latest/have-experts-failed-enough/
Kewl. Thank you. Yeah… People say that hindsight is 20/20, but much of this stuff isn’t hindsight, is it? It’s really a lot more about keeping eyes and ears open, and being clever about it.
Not everyone thinks like a hunter. 😉
“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them”…Henry David Thoreau
Your insights are fascinating to read because they obviously come from your own personal experience. Clearly you write out of justified frustration with some of the individuals you “consult” to. I commend you for the evidently sincere desire you have to help people get beyond their limitations and their fears.
But your insights are not new. They stem from the same observation HD Thoreau made in his above quote 150 years ago (and probably many people before that). They are, in fact, insights into human nature — human frailty, to be sure, but understandable as a core part of who we are as human beings.
An important difference between your rant and Thoreau’s quote is that his is made from a position of compassion for human nature, while yours seems to come from a position of contempt. It’s natural to vent, and you probably show more compassion and understanding when you’re dealing 1-on-1 with clients. But I would just caution you not to fall into the “us and them” outlook — where “us” is perceived as the enlightened few who “get it”, who are above human frailty, who are not encumbered with fear or failure, and who must struggle to drag “them”, the dullards, the failed, the unenlightened, into the light.
I think a more effective consultant is one who empathizes with the unenlightened client, who relates personally to their fear/failure because it’s universally human, who sympathizes with the desire to hold on to “the way it’s always been done” because trying something new takes monumental effort and a faith in the future they really don’t feel — at least not yet. Once you can empathize with and acknowledge where they are today, you can give more realistic and feasible advice and coaching on how to move forward. You don’t need to cater to the fear, but if you can relate to it, you’re more likely to relate to how big a step you’re asking someone to take.
Anyway, just a thought.
Contempt? Really? That’s what you found in this post? 😀
I’ll play along. Let’s say that this post was indeed about contempt. Or infused with it. Let’s say it was.
Unlike Thoreau, my profession isn’t writing poetry or peeling back the layers of the human condition. My profession is this: Getting results. That’s what I am hired to do. That is what I deliver. Empathy plays a huge part in what I do, but in order to do my job properly, empathy can only go so far. I want to be crystal clear about this: How I feel about my clients has very little to do with what I am sometimes forced to do in their best interest. I can hold hands and make them feel good about themselves, perhaps as Thoreau would. That isn’t what I am there to do. Tough love is sometimes part of the equation. Every other “consultant” is more than happy to blow sunshine up their arses and empathize with their weakness, as long as they get paid. I am there to show them a better way.
If indeed I feel contempt for something, it is wasted potential. Not fear. Not ignorance. Not the flaws of my clients, because I share them. Every flaw, every weakness they display lives inside me as well. To feel contempt for them would mean to feel contempt for myself. If I operated in this fashion, I wouldn’t be very effective. I feel fear like anyone else. I too have my moments of self doubt. We all go through the same things. How could I ever blame someone for feeling the way I do? 😉
But I do rise above it, and I do what I can to help my clients do so as well. Show them how to engineer success rather than failure. Get them into the wind again.
One last note: The worst of all, the few CEOs and managers I have met who were beyond help, beyond reason, beyond ethics and decent behavior (and there have been several) I may have disliked, but I never felt contempt for them. Pity maybe, but not contempt. I’m not that guy.
“Understand people. Understand everything.”
So true.
I’ll keep beating the drum until someone hears it: companies do not need to hear social media gurus/experts. Stop it already. Hire people who will help you understand people.
Start by hiring ethnographers.
Add sociologists.
Add anthropologists.
Add a few true artists.
By this time, you’ll know you won’t ever need a social media expert.
Focus on understanding the people.
It really is
just that simple.
Oops. That was supposed to be:
“companies do not need to HIRE social media gurus/experts.”
However, it seems the error works, too.
If one will stop to ponder those enduring authors now long gone, one might observe the enduring quality—focus on understanding self and others. Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie, W. Clement Stone, Norman Vincent Peale—their works endure because they focused on people.
If you can find Zig Ziglar’s story of Tom Hartness, you’ll be encouraged to hear Zig recount the journey from abject failure to heartwarming success. Between those markers on Tom Hartness’ path lie diligent study—theology and psychology (and listening to Zig Ziglar recordings a bunch; for me, I’d say listen to as much Zig Ziglar as you can and punctuate with as much Tom Peters live as you can find, too).
So, in all my posts, where people took issue with me and thought I was crazy, where I kept saying over and over “it’s not about the money,” the big point is the ancient truth—it’s all about other people.
“It’s not about the money” reminds me of investing. Don’t pay attention to the dollars. Pay attention to the rate of return and the dollars take care of themselves.
Same with people.
Understand the machinations and motivations of people and the results take care of themselves. Address the base need – the pain point – and the solution evolves of its own accord.
One must divorce oneself from any presupposed outcome and be willing to recognize opportunity/breakthroughs when dealing with people.
IMO the social sciences are more difficult in some ways than the “hard sciences,” because a two is always a two, regardless of the equation into which it is dropped. People are variables of the highest degree. Yes, they behave as whole numbers in the aggregate, but one-on-one? Wild cards.
Olivier–
The question of what to call oneself when working in the way you’ve described is definitely non-trivial. I haven’t found a phrase I’m 100% satisfied with either; in the meantime, I refer to myself a Strategic Collaborator.
There’s also the matter of the overarching category that a worker of this type fits into. You know, how carpenters and plumbers are both tradespeople and opera singers and heavy metal guitarists are both musicians.
To me, if you work with people 1-on-1 while keeping their needs and hopes and fears at the forefront of your mind, you’re a practitioner. I like this term because it reminds me that failure is always an option, that wisdom is crucial, that expert knowledge is generally irrelevant, and that like a professional athlete I need to practice my skills constantly in order to be ready when it really matters.
True. Still though… practitioner is accurate, but I’m not sure it’s evocative enough.
I guess ‘Business Jedi’ will have to do for now. 😉
The bit about therapy resonates.
I think the flipside to orgs that can’t see their past failures and the practices that cause them (and I’ve been in a few of them) are the orgs that have been successful only to have new management come in and throw the baby out with the bathwater – I’ve seen a department within an org go from being a fun vibrant workplace with people who take pride in their work to a disengaged hellhole where the staff felt they were being run into the ground – the major personnel changes being at the top. It was all the more shocking because I had been away for three years in between. Beforehand many of the top staff had recognised the need for technical changes to stay ahead (an international benchmarking exercise had shown that we were near the top and better than anyone in some aspects), however the subsequent changes were primarily ‘social’ changes for the worse, without fixing the underlying problems (technical or social). The shift from a senior manager who managed by walking around to one who was invisible to the staff was something that many hadn’t noticed, but over time I think it contributed to the feeling that staff weren’t listened to (whereas in the recent past the opinions of staff were welcomed). The odd thing is that talking to staff of longer service they’ve suggested that it was a return to how things felt in the early 90s and some have suggested that it might be cyclical. The amazing thing is how much passion staff have retained for the org and how much they still want to make a difference, not by turning back time but by retaining the knowledge of the business and rethinking how it can transition to something better without destroying things in the meantime.
Well, that’s my rant for this morning 😉
Many thanks for such beautifully expressed thought-provoking ideas.
Olivier, My man you had me at the first sit down conversation with your men. It took guts and lots of heart.
Your writing amazes me every time I come here to read it. I cannot come as often as I would like cause you write so damn long giggle.
You are definitely the steak on the plate VS those appetizers the rest of us serve up.
Do you feel we will ever get to the place where business will see that “It is ALL about business”. There is no personal and professional. That crappy comment at work when I was stupid enough to work for others always made me want to smack them upside the head. Who we are is what makes us perform at work. You take away parts of me you have a robot. Robots cannot make decisions.
I stopped trying to make sense of them all as listen to the drivel. It made my head want to explode.
Olivier, I love your ability to weave your message in your stories (She says sitting here in awe). Thank you for transmuting your experiences in a way that they are so powerful and deep.
what a wonderful post Olivier !! It’s such an interesting post and very informative. I really like it. Thank you and keep sharing.