Mothers and Success...and More
I hope all of you mothers out there had a most joyful celebration of your motherhood yesterday. Speaking of mothers, mine totally rules. Four boys in five and a half years? I can't even imagine!!! We were little monsters running around in SuperMan underwear, peeing on my dad's records, and generally destroying anything and everything we could get our mits on. And if you think this sounds bad, you should have seen us before high school. I hereby nominate inBubbleMother for Sainthood. It's just too bad we inBubbleBrothers didn't always treat our mother like the saint she is. We took for granted that she and our father would run around the country making sure there was always someone at our games. We sometimes tested her sanity even as she was doing her best to sustain ours. She always did (and continues to do) her best to ensure our success and was the glue that held our family together. But we sometimes overlooked what a marvel she was. She was steady ol' reliable, and we bratty boys didn't put in the necessary effort to ensure our family grew even stronger.
Think about your company using my family. Family = Company. Mother = What made your company a success (strategies, products, etc.). The question now is what equates to "ungrateful sons". I'll tell you. Just as we took our mother for granted and often didn't contribute to lasting family success, a lot of companies rely on what got them to some level of success but don't do what it takes to continue being a success, or to get to the next level. So, Ungrateful Sons = Stagnancy and Reliance on Previous Success. According to Robert Herbold, companies that act like my brothers and me have been Seduced by Success.
This book should be essential reading for anyone who makes decisions because success can be, and often is, a company's most devastating vulnerability. Soooo many companies attain some level of success but then become complacent - they stop creating new products; they aren't continually experimenting with new ideas; they rely on old approaches and systems. When this happens, once great and successful companies loose their mojo and profits plummet.
Herbold talks about how we can all avoid the nine biggest traps that infect and doom business of all shapes and sizes. The nine traps are: Neglect, Pride, Boredom, Complexity, Bloat, Mediocrity, Lethargy, Timidity, and Confusion. The first two traps listed are pretty straight forward. Neglect = Sticking with Yesterday's Business Model, while Pride = Allowing Your Products to Become Outdated. But what about "Bloat." Bloat is what most companies do the second old successes are no longer working. Bloat is visible when leaders start "defending yesterday" and "Rationalizing your loss of speed and agility."
Even if you fully understand how important it is to continuously tweak your products, branding and systems, this book is still really valuable because it really helps avoid these landmine traps; it helps you create a culture where change is good, ideas are welcome, and processes don't become set in stone. It helps you grow upon your successes instead of relying upon them.
So understand how important your MOTHER is to the FAMILY, but make sure YOU consistently put in new effort to make the family even stronger.
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