I have spent two decades observing the same pattern. Unstoppable companies. Brilliant leaders. Continuous growth. Many times it only takes a single shock. For the fall to begin.
The silent enemy is already at work. It does not show up in financial statements, it does not appear in metrics, but it destroys from within every decision.
Ego tends to awaken in moments of success. When sales grow, when recognition arrives. We stop listening. We spend less time learning. What we once questioned becomes certainty.
I consider myself an expert in crisis. Many companies call on me to accompany them when they realize that scale is turning into free fall. And in a large number of cases, it was not the business model that failed, nor the execution, nor the product. It was the ability to accept and manage uncomfortable information.
Warnings were ignored, critical voices were dismissed. Bad decisions multiplied as the focus was lost.
Ego does not only damage businesses. It breaks bonds. It fractures partnerships. It corrodes culture. Valuable teams are the first to perceive it. And the first to leave.
At Scalabl Books we work on How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins. Collins describes five stages of organizational decline.
1. Hubris born of success: Achievements become a feeling of invincibility. We stop asking ourselves why it worked.
2. Undisciplined pursuit of more: Ego demands expansion. More markets, more products. Packard's Law is relentless: no company can grow faster than its ability to develop capable people.
3. Denial of risk and peril: Numbers are reinterpreted optimistically, external culprits are sought.
4. Grasping for salvation: Silver bullets appear. Anything but returning to the core and facing the real problem. Collins clarifies that up to this stage, recovery is still possible.
5. Capitulation to irrelevance or death.
With Scalabl's global expansion in 2018, I experienced firsthand the stage of hubris born of success. We opened 20 countries in 2 years. Two major partnership problems and a pandemic showed me that expansion carries enormous risks.
Ego can confuse us, especially at our best moment. It may be doing so right now.
