Definition and Success
Our culture is dominated by success. There are lot of magazines that are full of content about fame, fortune, and other topics. Inc magazine publishes its annual “Richest People In America” special issue. These businessmen and women like Arif Bhalwani Net Worth are role models for everyone. Are they?
It all depends on your core values. Success is the highest criteria if your bottom line is your greatest value. This is the standard wisdom in business. Inc publishes a special issue each year on America’s richest people. Financially, the richest people are those who have achieved financial success.
Inc’s list could be viewed as role models. But are we going to want to model every attribute of Inc? No. Since 1995, I have been working in leadership development and have had the opportunity to consult all types of leaders during and after the dot-com boom. Too many leaders are obsessed with success, but they end up aiming at the wrong target.
Success in America is about the bottom line. American businesses don’t care about how you do it. But they do care about your numbers. Wall Street constantly evaluates a company’s financial statements every day.
Short Term Vs. Long Term Success
However, success is not guaranteed by short-term numbers. It is not unusual for CEOs to sell their company long-term to make sure they continue to produce good numbers in short-term. Jack Nasser was formerly with Ford Motor Company. Jack, a.k.a. Jack, a.k.a. Jack the Knife in Ford circles, was a pretty impressive CEO. When he resigned, the board of director gave him a handsome bonus. We can see the impact of Jack Nasser’s shortsighted vision on Ford’s future.
This and many American companies have a short-term goal, which can lead to failures in the long-term. Reporters and analysts at the Detroit International Auto Show repeatedly said that Ford and other Detroit-based automakers must make an impression and outsell their competition to survive. It seems that this is what has happened. Like many team leaders, Nasser was successful but not very effective during his tenure.
Success vs. Effective
We Americans are late to the game of effectiveness. Success was seen as the peak, the summit of the mountain. We were wrong. Stephen Covey, a business personality who is most well-known, makes the case for effectiveness. His book, The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, was not called that. Why? He knows success is not enough.
Let’s look at what makes success and effective. The ability to accomplish the task quickly is what success looks like. It is often described as “We came in on-time, under budget, and we met our goals.” It is hard to argue with the fact that the team wasn’t successful.
However, effectiveness is more about the long-term, the relationships with others, and repeatability. It’s great to achieve success once. It is great if you achieve success once. But, can you continue to do it over and over again?
Many team leaders I’ve worked with were not only successful but also ineffective. Because they were intelligent enough to complete the task at hand, they were successful. They thought that all they needed was a few “mini-me’s”, and they would have the best team. They spent time directing people and engaging in political gamesmanship in order to force people to do what the successful but ineffective leaders wanted.