Hard-earned success has many rewards but comes with a common price. Too much success or over-the-moon expectations can create complacency.
When leaders and team members get comfortable with a high level of performance, they lose the edge in order to sustain it. This overconfidence and feeling of security can lead to massive failure. The U.S. military has an even more straightforward message: Complacency kills.
The symptoms of complacency are well known. High performers go on auto-pilot and disengage when things get hard. Teams get less critical about the little things essential to superior performance. The focus on details slips. Mistakes and the corrections necessary for high performance get overlooked or ignored. Shortcuts to critical tasks become acceptable. Leaders disregard patterns, facts, or triggering events. Excusing deficiencies and mistakes becomes commonplace.
Because of those well-worn signs, the word “complacency” produces fear and trepidation in the hearts of all great leaders. Good leaders want their teams to feel confident but never comfortable. Staying hungry for top results is always the game plan.
The best leaders overcome complacency through challenge. They help team members to set specific performance goals that make them just a little bit nervous. By pushing others toward harder goals, leaders crush the self-security of the complacent mindset. When new goals are not enough to shake people up, good leaders change up assignments and roles to give team members a fresh look at creating high performance.
As legendary NBA coach Pat Riley reminds us,“Complacency is the last hurdle standing between any team and its greatness.” The best leaders kill it before it kills them.
