Don’t Let Success Breed Complacency

Pete did what nobody thought he could.  He won the district high school golf tournament.  He was the fifth best golfer on his team when his junior year season started, but with his hard work, long hours of practice, and goal-orientation, he not only became the best golfer on his team, but he was also the best in the district.  The local sports writers started doing stories on Pete and his prospects for getting a golf scholarship to college.  He was a “feel good” story in the community, and he was feeling pretty good about himself.

He had reached the level where he could go out and shoot in the low 70’s whenever he wanted.  He started to wonder which college would benefit most from his talent.  Would he be an All-American at Oklahoma State or Ohio State?  Oh, decisions, decisions.

By the start of his senior year, he had been contacted by many colleges, and had considered them all, but something bad happened on the way to a full scholarship, All-American status, and going pro to compete with Tiger Woods.   He started thinking that he was so good, that he didn’t need to practice as much.  He started to quit analyzing his game so much and – instead – focus on the excitement of college life.  He started to miss putts.  He started to hit drives into the woods.  He started to shoot higher scores.

Pete’s success had gone to his head, and his game had gone to the proverbial toilet.

There are a lot of “Petes” in business.  They are the organization that won an industry award for customer service.  They are the organization whose growth has exceeded budget for two years in a row.  They are the pro sports team that wins lots of games and sells out most every night.  They are the staff that receive kudos from their bosses.

Where these successful individuals and businesses become “Pete” is when they feel they don’t have to spend so much time researching customer needs and wants because they’ve gotten to the point that they intuitively know their customers.  They become “Pete” when they don’t invest in training any more because they won that customer service award, and they don’t need to improve.  They become “Pete” when they got the kudos and therefore assume that if they keep doing what they’re doing, that they will always be a top performer.  They become “Pete” when they assume that that revenue growth or those sellouts mean there’s no reason why a current customer would leave and there’s an infinite backlog of new customers just waiting to take their place.

They become complacent.  Once you cease to listen to the voice of the customer, cease to improve, cease to change, then watch out – your competitors will blast right by you.