Earlier this year I wrote about the so called ‘success trap’. Whilst ordinarily we tend to regard success as a good thing, a study from London Business School reminded us that it can often result in us growing overly attached to things or ways of working that are no longer relevant.
The authors identified three distinct forms of success based inertia within companies:
- favoring the familiar over the unknown
- preferring what is established over what is new
- failing to search for new solutions
The success trap
It’s a finding echoed in a recently published paper from a team of Stanford Business School researchers.
“Self-confidence and growth are usually good, but they have some negative consequences,” they say. “You don’t want to avoid them, but you’d like to avoid the negative consequences. How do we grow without growing?”
The focus of the study was the RAND corporation, who famously made their name in defence, before then turning their hand to a wide range of disciplines.
A fundamental part of this successful diversification was the ability of the organization to create heterogeneous groups of researchers who could bounce ideas and knowledge off of one another.
Far from the intellectual diversity of lore, the group all had a tight bond and recruited largely based upon fit with the group and personal recommendations.
The slippery slope
Of course, sustaining prolonged success is a significant challenge for any organization, and the same was the case for RAND.
“When you’re highly self-confident, you don’t pay much attention to evidence to the contrary,” thereby cutting off certain ideas, the authors say.
As the organization grew, the culture of innovation went into decline. With the workforce growing five fold, the close bond between employees naturally reduced, with cliques beginning to emerge as employees stuck with others they were familiar and comfortable with.
“The larger organizations become, they become better and better at eliminating that element of innovation, unless they work to save it,” the authors say.
Stopping the slide
So how can the slide be averted? The authors suggest that the first step should be to emphasize the importance of long-term thinking, especially for more revolutionary innovation.
“In general, the returns of exploratory activities tend to be long term,” they say. “If you can get people to look further ahead, you’ll probably help exploration because it is in the long run that exploration pays off.”
Alas, reversing a decline in innovation is notoriously difficult, as all manner of companies all too readily show us each year. This is especially so in larger organizations.
Does this study help organizations to stop the slide? I’m not convinced, but do check it out and let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
