The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

I’m not. I get it.

Not only that, while age and knowledge have some level of interconnectedness … I’ve met countless young people who are bloody brilliant [not relative to their age, just bloody brilliant] as well as plenty of people with ‘experience’ who, frankly, aren’t.

What I’m talking about is the blinkered confidence some companies place in their people simply because they’re their people.

On one hand I suppose I should celebrate it, given its not that long ago that companies overlooked internal capability for the external shiny and new.

And while this post does not reflect any of the clients I specifically work with directly, I am seeing and hearing more and more companies go to this other extreme and worse … enabling a level of arrogance in their people that results in any objectivity they face – regardless of the knowledge and expertise of the person delivering it, let alone the desire to help make things more successful – as a threat.

Complicity is the name of the game these days.

Blind acceptance that whatever the person ‘in charge’ says, is right.

A belief internal employees are better informed about every topic than people who are experts in specific topics … so companies can feel great about themselves.

Of course, the issue with this approach is that when things go wrong – or don’t go right enough – everyone else gets the blame. Not just by the person in charge [which you almost expect] but by the company they work for, despite the fact the only reason they gave this employee the project is because they knew a bit more about a subject than senior management, so they saw them as [1] an expert in the field and [2] a cheaper option that bringing in external expertise.

Now you’d think the fear of this outcome would ensure people would stand up for what they believe is right.

Not because they’re arrogant, but because they know their experience and knowledge can disproportionally benefit the end result.

And some do. At least the really good ones …

But even they are under increasing pressure to go along with the whims and wants of certain people/companies … because the whole industry is seeing more and more work being handed to people and companies who simply say yes to whatever is wanted.

Or said another way, convenience and fawning is more valued then expertise, knowledge and standards.

Now of course, it’s human nature to believe we can do more than we actually can.

We all like to think we are ‘special’.
We all like to be acknowledged as important.
We’ve all heard the ‘fake it till you make it’ philosophy.

But the truly special are the ones who know that however good they are, having people around them who are better than them – in different fields – can make them even more effective.

It’s why the World’s best athletes have coaches.

It’s why the World’s best musicians have producers.

It’s why my brilliant ex-NIKE/FFI client, Simon Pestridge, said: “middle management want to be told they’re right. Senior management want to know how they can be better”.

The reason I say all this is that I recently reached out to one of the best organisational psychologists in the World. They work with the CEO’s of some of the most respected and successful companies in the World including Apple, NIKE, Ferrari and Electronic Arts to name a few.

This is what they said when I talked to them about what I was seeing:
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“I call them professional imposters and the reason so many succeed in corporations is because they target other imposters. It becomes a co-dependent relationship where they ensure their ego, status or promotion opportunities won’t be challenged.”

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To be honest, I was not shocked by their view, I was more shocked by the acknowledgment.

Of course, I probably shouldn’t be. It’s hardly a new phenomenon and we also had one of the most successful shows in TV history shine a light on it …

Succession was a celebration of the role of co-dependence and complicity within organisations.

As I wrote recently, Tom was the epitome of it.

But this post is about Tom before he ‘won’ [even though he is still a pawn to the real power] … this is about Tom when he just wanted to please to win favour. Where he thought nothing of being vicious and vindictive to those beneath him because he knew that didn’t just please the people above him, it let him feel he was above everyone around him.

And so Tom eventually gets promoted beyond his capability …

Where the illusion of power and external fawning is more important to him than pay checks.

Where his belief is he is superior to all, regardless of knowledge or experience.

Where his understanding of situations is the only understanding of a situation.

Yeah, it’s bleak. It’s fucking bleak. Because while Tom was fiction, Trump got to be President of America. And what makes it worse is we all see it. Hell, we’ve probably all been exposed to it. And yet it goes on.