Quotes of the Day – On Success Trap
Before I started my own company, one seasoned entrepreneur friend gave me a sincere advice that “Startup is harder than you imagine. And if you are lucky enough, your company may get acquired which means that you are back at working for a big company.”
He has a point, but my mid-life crisis was too big to overcome. I ignored the advice and joined the start up world anyway. Why do people like me who want to try a “riskier” path instead of being content at a stable and reputable company? Fundamentally, this comes down to some simple reasons as one can expect:
- Be personally challenged
- Building something to be proud of or leave a mark in a greater world, if you will
- Freedom & control of one’s destiny
- Creating a fun & compatible team
- Financial rewards
It has been several years post my mid-life crisis period. My journey has been fun and challenging, to say the least. My company is still thriving and enjoys a healthy growth. But like raising a child, there are challenges in every stage. Raising a teenager is no easier than raising a toddler. It seems like, by its nature, success is always a work in progress and one can never be too content.
Irving Berlin, an American composer said, “The toughest thing about success is that you have to keep on being a success.” Bill Gates also pointed out, “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”
A book by Marshall Goldsmith, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There goes over 20 bad habits, of which Mr. Goldsmith believes most entrepreneurs could exhibit one or few of them that hinder startup’s next stage growth.
I grouped the 20 habits from the book into the following buckets:
Over-competitive: The competitive survival of the fittest instinct that successful entrepreneurs posses is one of the many reasons that got a startup to survive at the early stage. However, as company gets bigger, the over competitive nature can start alienate the employees as it prevents empowerment and delegation that is necessary for a company to scale up. The bad habits include:
- Winning too much: The need to win at all costs and in all situations.
- Telling the world how smart we are: The need to show people we’re smarter than they think we are.
- Making destructive comments: The needless sarcasm and cutting remarks that we think make us witty.
- Starting with NO, BUT, HOWEVER: The overuse of these negative qualifiers which secretly say to everyone that I’m right and you’re wrong.
- Withholding information: The refusal to share information in order to maintain an advantage over others.
- Refusing to express regret: The inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit we’re wrong, or recognize how our actions affect others.
Egotism: There is always a danger to fool oneself to believe that the reason of startup’s success is due to founder’s brilliant vision or execution. They overvalue their contribution to the early success. The reality is that it is never a single person that can make the company. Most often than not, successful founders attract people that help them become successful. It takes a very talented team to fine tune the original idea, to prototype, to engineering and to service some early set of customers. Founders and key early employees must remain humble. Some of the bad habits that entrepreneurs could exhibits include:
- Claiming credit that that we don’t deserve: The most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success.
- An excessive need to be “me”: Exalting our faults as virtues simply because they’re who we are.
- Passing the buck: The need to blame everyone but ourselves.
- Failing to express gratitude: The most basic form of bad manners.
- Failing to give proper recognition: The inability to give praise and reward.
Prejudiced: Entrepreneurs must recognize that to grow into the next stage of the company, some changes must be made. New set of talents must be brought in and early employees must be re-recruited. The key is to grow the team without losing the startup spirit that made the company successful at the first place. Some of the bad habits by entrepreneurs could be:
- Clinging to the past: The need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past; a subset of blaming everyone else.
- Making excuses: The need to reposition our annoying behavior as a permanent fixture so people excuse us for it.
- Passing judgment: The need to rate others and impose our standards on them.
- Making destructive comments: The needless sarcasm and cutting remarks that we think make us witty.
- Speaking when angry: Using emotional volatility as a management tool.
- Negativity or “Let me explain why that won’t work”: The need to share our negative thoughts even when we weren’t asked.
- Not listening: The most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for colleagues.
- Playing favorites: Failing to see that we are treating someone unfairly.
- Punishing the messenger: The misguided need to attack the innocent who are usually only trying to help us.
The common theme of these 20 bad habits is really about people. It is people that make the vision a reality. People are the key to the continued success. The ongoing transformation of a growing organization needs to enable the growth of the people who make up the organization.
“Every day, people will tell you how to be successful. All you have to do is listen. And then – act.” - David Carter, How to Become an Overachiever
The past success may not guarantee the future success, but the present choices can certainly affect its chance. By being aware of our own personality weakness and interpersonal behavioral habits, we have a better chance to avoid the success trap.
“Being more successful means becoming more of who you are capable of being. Each of us defines for ourselves what it means to be more successful.” – Spencer Johnson, the Present
