The Curse of the Superfan

Superfan: A person with an extreme or obsessive admiration for a particular person or thing.

My son and I are semi-regular attendees of a certain team’s home games. We usually sit in the same section along with a handful of other familiar faces. While we don’t know these individuals in other settings, they've adopted unmistakable in-game personas. Namely, that despite the team’s demonstrable progress in recent years, nothing seems to please this group. Not the opponent. Not the referees. And not the team whose jerseys they wear ostensibly as a means of support. They revel in disapproval, and collectively vocalize these feelings game after game. While they fashion themselves supporters of the team, they're actually critics. Blind to the fact that their expectations are wildly divorced from reality. Groupthink has given way to a fatalistic echo chamber playing on repeat.?

I don’t know of an organization who wants anything other than to satisfy its customer base. We all appreciate five star reviews. Becoming a trustworthy institution only happens by doing what we say we will consistently over time. Accomplishing this can help us develop a devoted following eager to share our message with others who may want to join us.

And yet, there's a distinction between healthy affiliates and superfans. The truth is superfans' enthusiasm can be counterproductive. Here’s why: it’s hard to sustain or satiate the passion of a fanatic. When we wed ourselves (and at times, our identities) to a team, brand, or organization, we create an expectation. And when that expectation goes unmet, we don’t handle it well. Could this partially explain why the average tenure of an NFL head coach is roughly three years? Yes, this is a generalization which isn't exactly apples to apples, but perhaps you follow my thinking.

How, then, do we develop healthy environments that people actually want to be a part of? Well, it has less to do with adrenaline and more to do with predictability. While the uncertainty of an outcome is part of the intrigue for superfans, it also leads to a roller coaster of emotions. In an organizational setting, we introduce a compact with customers that hinges on upholding our end of the bargain. In this way, we’re aiming more for consistency than for buzzer beaters, encores, or walk-off home runs. Consistency may not yield peak euphoria, but that isn’t what we’re after.?

You see, senior leaders do better when their stakeholders fall somewhere in between slightly pleased and slightly displeased. This isn’t to say we strive for boring. Hardly! Generating excitement helps build community. And when our people fall into the slightly displeased camp, we seek to make it right, right away. Will Guidara says that if we deliver a negative eight experience, our response should be a plus nine. We should never strive to leave a bad taste in someone's mouth.

Ideal settings are stable. Stability is productive. A balanced equilibrium may not produce viral social media content, but those passing highs are ephemeral and rare. Chasing after them tends to be a poor investment of our most limited resource: time.

It’s been said that happiness is reality minus expectations. We cannot socially engineer customers that live according to this mantra. But, you can learn a lot about people based on how they respond to disappointment. And disappointment typically arrives when the expectations our organizations create fail to deliver.?

So, my friends, may we seek a better way forward. One that relies less on fickle exuberance and more on the steady delivery of our mission. Perhaps there's an alternative to the courtship of superfans. Maybe the answer has been right there in front of us all along.