Hello there
In my previous post I talked about what makes a great leader, used Aristotle’s modes of persuasion and expanded them to show that these modes also make a great leader, not only a great rhetor. Today I will like to discuss why leaders and companies fail and the three factors, which I believe are responsible.
1. Arrogance
We daily recognise arrogant behaviour everywhere. When we deal with customers, with friends sometimes, with civil servants etc. Probably you feel like me, ready to start a fight, though we don’t most of the times, because of the arrogance we see in others. Now think of a company, so successful that feels invincible. If this company feeds on its current success and doesn’t plan ahead, because it is “THE PLAYER” in the field it will certainly fail. Think of so many companies, like Sony, Kodak, Nokia, Olympus and of course Lehman Brothers. Sony was the Everest of consumer electronics and not only. Now it shrinks every quarter more or less. Who would have thought that Kodak would go bankrupt? The other days a friend of mine told me that he was talking with a mobile operator who tried to sign a contract with him. My friend told the employee that he wanted to have more minutes to all mobile and landline networks. The other person told him: “You don’t need that, we have the most subscribers, why should you?”!!! Now if this is not an arrogant behaviour and an alarming notice for a company then what is it? If you remember my post about the values of companies, I pinpointed that failing to stick to your values will make you lose the game. In ancient drama there was a clear path shown: power leads to arrogance, arrogance leads to hubris and hubris leads to nemesis. CEOs and managers have to always remember that and not think that consumers or customers will always have the same behaviour towards them. Therefore, they should remember John Lennon’s words: “At the hight of Beatlemania, when we were going over our heads, we just looked at Ringo and remembered that we are only humans”.
2. Shortsighted
By shortsighted I don’t mean of course the people who are myopic, but people who don’t look into the future. A real leader should be ready to shape the future if needed for his company or country even. Did you know that the first tablet was designed and created by Nokia? And guess what they thought; “Nobody will buy it”. So please welcome Apple and iPad people and the rest is history. Another example that hurts more as a European, it shows the mentality here, is that the inventor of mp3 file format was a German guy and couldn’t find funding in Europe, because companies and institutes weren’t interested. Guess where he went.. USA of course. When companies think they have made it and they will just sit and cash will continue floating in, then is exactly when they fail. In today’s world, the present is already past and we have to always plan ahead, form a solid long-term strategy and always think as though we haven’t done anything, in order to keep the fire burning inside.
3. Lack of human resource management
My last, and certainly not least, factor is the lack of proper human resource management. This doesn’t mean not having an HR department, but lack of actually managing your employees. In every company there are the A-players, the B-players etc and a leader’s obligation is to make them work efficiently together, satisfy their needs and give them space and opportunities to show their true capabilities. Now, what happens in many companies is quite the opposite. The result is that the actual “stars” leave the companies to pursue their needs and dreams elsewhere and the companies realise how important they were when it’s already late. Do you think that Apple, for example, would be so successful if it didn’t pay its employees generously? Most companies just think that they are invincible and don’t care about the pure reason of their success, their people. Unfortunately. they realise it when it’s too late. In Greece for example, with the high unemployment and the huge pool of great prospective employees, companies don’t care about satisfying their employees and think that if someone leaves then someone else will fill in his/her shoes and that’s fine. Of course this leads to a disharmony that can result in losing valuable assets for the companies.
Leaders and companies fail frequently and today I talked about three reasons I think are the most important. For my next post I will discuss a topic that excites me and I’m most passionate about. Telecommunications and the future. So stay tuned and have a wonderful time!
Savvas Kosmidis 