Too Smart, Too Competitive…Too, Too Much!

Or, “One way to create discouraged, underperforming teams.”

If you are great at getting a startup company going, but struggle to retain great employees, this article might be for you.

Great companies build organizations. The best companies build individuals.

Starting a company requires a very different set of skills from building teams. More specifically, the strategies and tactics to build a company can be in complete opposition to building individuals.

To be a successful entrepreneur starting up a company, certain traits are required. Some of those traits are being smart, competitive, action-oriented, a fast learner, a deep passion and drive for success, charisma, being a connector, a visionary, a risk-taker, and a producer.

These are wonderful traits to start and build a business. With the right vision, resources, timing in the marketplace, and some lucky breaks you could hit a homerun, if…you don’t get in your own way.

How could such a package of entrepreneurial traits get in the way of astonishing success? Good question.

Sometimes the very qualities it takes to build the business get in the way of building the individuals you will require to work for you in order to grow your business. For instance?

The combination of being very smart and very competitive can become a problem if you believe that you must always be the smartest person in the room. In most (unconscious) organizational hierarchies there can be just so many people who are recognized as “the powerful”, or “wonderful” or “amazing”. There is just so much serotonin to go around, don’t you know? You have to understand the air at the top is rather rarefied and only the select few can breathe it or so goes the belief.

Certainly, you’ve worked hard. You deserve your feathered nest on top of the mountain. But what if your habits of always striving to be on the top peak inadvertently cut off the legs of those helping you get there? Do you start to see what’s going on?

Ask yourself, is this what I do? Could it be me? What if it is me? Have you heard comments made, directly or indirectly, about this topic referring to you whether in jest or otherwise?

Now, ask yourself, do you want teams that are discouraged and underperforming, or do you want highly motivated committed teams, performing and producing proudly at a top level of their passion and abilities? The answer is self-evident.

Your teams may be great in many areas and yet feel discouraged. Discouraged teams underperform no matter what it might look like otherwise. They might never speak out loud about that discouragement to you. Why would they? If every encounter your staff has with you is one of how smart and capable you are, especially in comparison with everyone else, how do you think they are feeling?

You might respond with, “Then why don’t they show me how smart and competent they are?” Makes sense in a way. But how many times will you be willing to have someone outshine you with how smart and competent they are? Probably not many, if you’re honest.

You see if you demand to be the top banana all the time, challenging your position becomes dangerous. Your claim for preeminence is communicated consciously and unconsciously throughout the organization that to challenge that (you) is dangerous. Because if you have to be the smartest and best in every room you walk into, then you will by default demand others perform at a level less than their best. Certainly, less than your performance.

It’s physics. It’s biology. It’s the top of the chain ecosystem. Great for predators, but do you want to be a predator within your own organization?

If you’re taking up all the air in the room, then everyone else is on respirators. There’s a good chance you did not even know you were the one putting on the brakes on your company’s performance. On the other hand, you might know that you have to be the top dog, but what you probably don’t realize is what it is costing you in profits, productivity, innovation, and turnover.

So, ask yourself now, when you pretty much consistently insist on being the smartest person in the room, what’s it costing you? Probably much more than you realize.

For more information about Corporate or Organizational Training contact Maikel at [email protected]

View his LinkedIn Profile and recommendations at https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/maikelbailey/