Didn't See It Coming by Carey Nieuwhof

Author:Carey Nieuwhof
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2018-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

3. You Encounter Problems with Success

Usually you become successful because you’ve embraced change. You found some competitive advantage and retooled it. You started something or were the first to market. That’s often how organizations and leaders flourish. But once they achieve a measure of success, a whole other dynamic kicks in.

Surprisingly, success makes you conservative. The more successful you are, the less likely you are to change. When you were starting out, had almost no money, and hadn’t accomplished much, what did you have to lose? Pretty much nothing. This is exactly why it was easy to take risks and forge ahead. Since you had little, almost any tiny step forward looked like big progress.

When success comes, you suddenly have something to preserve and conserve, whether that’s your net worth, your strategy and tactics, or your practices and habits. There’s even your reputation to think about. As a result, you’re far less open to change because you don’t want to mess with a good thing. You want to stick with the tactics that got you this far.

This is exactly how successful organizations become irrelevant. At one point, department stores were the biggest retailers in the world. Now, most are in steep decline. Rather than adapt, many executives couldn’t imagine a world in which consumers wouldn’t want to one-stop shop in a physical store. Their highly profitable model worked so well for so long they resisted change…until the internet changed everything. Now, Amazon and its ilk are the places for one-stop shopping.

Success often causes those once bold and brazen to become complacent and even fearful. What’s true for corporations and organizations is also true for individuals. Things are working so well, why vary the formula? Don’t rock the boat. Just stay the course. This is the danger point most successful people and organizations never see coming. That’s why the greatest enemy of your future success is always your current success.

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