Arrogant Organizations
Time to balance the scale.
After yesterday’s post about what happens when insecurity becomes a trait of not just individuals but of an entire organization it seems right to offer some thoughts about the opposite danger.
Just as an organization can make fail by being too insecure, they can also mess up by being too confident. When we are too certain of our success we are just as vulnerable.
Organizational Arrogance happens when we are too short on self-doubt. (Of course, as with individuals, arrogance is usually just an avoidance of dealing with our experience of insecurity). When we believe we are so right that we are invulnerable, impenetrable, and beyond question.
This is a risk after a period of sustained success, when we start to believe we have things fully figured out and our approach is appearing rock solid.
In my 20s I was an avid whitewater kayaker and paddling instructor. One of the most essential skills in that sport is the ability to roll a kayak; that is, to turn yourself upright again if you should (deliberately or accidentally) flip upside down in the rapids. Without a confident roll paddling a serious river is terrifying; but with this skill it becomes great fun.
I remember talking to some expert paddlers and one of the group talked about having a “bombproof” roll. The assertion was that their skill was so reliable they couldn’t imagine any circumstance where it wouldn’t work. A more experienced kayak instructor commented that there is no such thing as a truly bombproof roll. There’s always the potential for something to happen that prevents you from succeeding. That proved true for me on a couple occasions when I dislocated my shoulder in the river and was unable to use my right arm properly when I tried to roll back up.
No organization is bombproof. No success is certain. No system is perfect. No team is immune to conflict.
Perhaps it’s a good thing that in the increasingly fast pace of leadership we are constantly facing new difficulties. It’s rare to have extended periods of easy excellence even for the best organizations. The constant changes and challenges make the vast majority of us aware of our need to stay alert and engaged.
In general it’s far more common for leaders to become excessively confident than entire organizations. This is a case where dealing with the pattern among individuals is the best prevention.
That’s not to say that organizational arrogance doesn’t happen. I see it occasionally when people believe that the approaches that brought the past and current wins will continue to produce into the uncertain future. We’ve all witnessed what happens when success leads to stagnation in many sectors.
Changing donor demographics, economic instability, deeper understanding of unintended consequences, and the constant advancement of technology are among the factors that make organizational arrogance unsustainable.
Much like organizational insecurity, the heart of the problem here is the focus shifting from addressing the cause we claim to be committed to and instead giving all our attention to what our organization is doing.
If you sense that your organization is at risk in this way, there are plenty of accessible ways to shake things up.
-Reward those on your team who ask challenging questions and poke holes in the status quo. Make going with the flow more uncomfortable.
-Bring on more diversity in leadership roles, not only demographically, but in life experience and perspective. But be prepared that it takes real commitment for it to work.
-Do, or better yet have an outsider do, a real assessment of your outcomes. You may be surprised at how things have changed.
-Spend a full day doing scenario planning with your leaders; considering what would happen if something major changes within or external to your current operations. The opportunities and threats you explore may prove to be more real than it first appears.
One more note for charity leaders: In most cases your board may be more at risk of becoming stagnant than your staff are. Boards have a natural tendency to seek stability, and they spend a lot less time thinking about the organization than you do.
It may be helpful to have an interested outsider take a look at things to catch any tendency toward organizational arrogance or insecurity well before it does serious damage.