Here's An Idea: Avoiding the success paradox
Past successes do not define who you are in the present, they explain who you were in the past.
Being a winner versus having been a winner:
The Paradox of Success: How success can breed failure
Welcome to Here’s An Idea, a newsletter from Chadwick Drive. The purpose of the newsletter is to share ideas that you might find useful, something worth taking a moment to pause and think about. Though they are just ideas, I am dedicated to sharing meaningful insights. No noise. No fluff.
Here’s An Idea:
Too many times we oversimplify the path to glory or victory by attributing it to excellence alone. But sports, like life, are not that simple and straightforward, with losers and winners divided by ability or the lack of it. Things are not that black and white. There are also shades of grey.
Teams will lose because of poor form, injuries and plain old luck. Similarly, teams will win because of purple patches, favourable conditions and plain old luck.
Therefore, if teams want to give themselves a chance to win again, they should try to learn as much about what led them to success and also what prevented others. They should venture out of the bubble of being "defending champions." That is something they did, not something they are doing. To repeat the feat again they need to not only apply the best practices that led them to glory but also seek to add new best practices that they can learn from other teams. For instance, a writer can write one good article, but for them to consistently write good articles, they need to stop basking in the glorifying reviews of the previous article. Instead, they need to apply the best practices that led to it AND apply other best practices they pick from other writers. This is the only way to achieve consistency.
This week’s articles:
Sometimes success can give rise to biases that create barriers to collaboration and teamwork. Biases like the self-serving attribution bias. These biases create a fertile ground for finger-pointing, blaming, lack of accountability and shirking responsibility. All of which erodes trust and team culture. - The Paradox of Success
Peter Atwater, author of "Moods and Markets: A New Way to Invest in Good Times and in Bad", studies how changes in confidence affect our inclinations, decisions and actions. He looks at things like books, music, architecture and food preferences when researching social, political, financial and business mood. He says that it’s during times of high confidence when kingdoms enjoyed success, that they erected great castles, college buildings and sports stadiums. And interestingly, in the case of empires, these buildings almost always precede the beginning of their demise. - The Success Disease, Transitions and Complacency
An article from the archives:
Once told of the stereotype, the athletes will be consumed by the idea, and an intense drive to discredit the stereotype that they invest, unnecessarily, more brainpower in attempting to debunk the stereotype and forget to simply focus on what they are good at. - Distractions (Part 2): Stereotype threat and how it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy
If you enjoy the content here and on Chadwick Drive, there are a couple of ways you can show your appreciation.
You can Buy Me A Coffee. You can buy several coffees if you like (simply change the number of coffees to your preferred amount). All coffees you buy will be greatly appreciated.
Alternatively, please encourage anyone you think may be interested to subscribe to this newsletter, the blog or both.