Have You Ever Wondered Why Your Top Performers Start to Show Worsening Performance? Here's Why!

I often read many posts shared on LinkedIn about the importance of appreciation to the team, but somehow, I never find any post sharing concerns about the negative impact of the appreciation itself. Many top performers I know gradually stop delivering excellent results after receiving promotion, performance bonus, or as simple as compliments from their managers. 

How could that happen? I can spot a couple of reasons:

1. They think they've done enough and they stop making improvements despite the fact that environment nowadays change so quickly;
2. They think they know everything and it makes them incredibly hard to communicate with; 
3. They become arrogant and stop accepting feedback for their own improvements; or
4. They are too proud of who they are and it makes them easily look down on others until at some point, that attitude backfires to them.

I still remember that back in school, one of my teachers told me, "It's easier to achieve your first win rather than to hold on to that victory." And now I find it so true! It's very hard to many of us to be a consistent top performers (and don't get me wrong, I too sometimes stumble with this problem). 

How do I deal with this? I simply tell myself to keep doing my very best, keep looking for new improvements, and the hardest one, to stay humble. And this is too, the expectation I share with my subordinates, and now I'm sharing this thought with my LinkedIn connections. 

Hope it's worth 10 seconds you spent to read this post!