Up until this point, this book has focused almost exclusively on the positive side of UP!
Now, though, to help you UP! your business thinking even further, let’s take a quick look at the flipside, too.
You know what I mean.
The side where Business Geniuses occasionally go too far; the side where Business Geniuses end up crossing the line between exceeding and excess.
So here goes.
Here are the seven excesses to watch out for, especially if – as the business author Rob Parsons champions – your ultimate goal is to ‘make it in business without losing in life’.
1 EXCESSIVE EFFICIENCY
Improved efficiency is, and always has been, highly prized in the world of business.
After all, it’s what drives managers to achieve more with less: airport queues to become shorter, slow IT systems to become faster, and deliveries to be on time.
But what happens when Business Geniuses become too efficient?
Well, that’s when they become heartless. Or, to put it another way, so ambitious – in their quest to maximise output and minimise resources – their ambition spills into ruthlessness. Gengis Khan, for example, was ‘damned efficient’ (as the Australian billionaire Kerry Packer once remarked), but he wasn’t ‘exactly loveable’. So let’s look at John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil, as a case in point.
Rockefeller – according to author Stephen Howarth – started out as a ‘humble clerk and book keeper’. But, owing to his ruthless efficiency (i.e. careful accounting + merciless methods), he not only became the owner of Standard Oil, based in Ohio, he also became the richest man in history (i.e. 20 times richer than Bill Gates!).
But at what cost? Evidently, the ‘good sweating’ he used to give his competitors – until they either went bust or sold to him – prompted suicides and left families destitute along the way. Now, admittedly, in later years Rockefeller did manage to redeem himself somewhat by giving $500 million of his own money to philanthropic causes, but, here’s a thought. Shortly before he died in 1937 he said to Henry Ford, ‘I’ll see you in heaven,’ to which Ford allegedly replied, ‘If you get in.’
HOW TO AVOID IT
If you want to avoid excessive efficiency, keep reminding yourself that it’s perfectly OK to strive for excellence in business, yet also remember (as the former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani advises in his book Leadership) to ‘retain your humanity’, too.
2 EXCESSIVE ENRICHMENT
Money matters.
We all know that – whatever our profession, and whatever our personal politics – and, though it can’t always buy us happiness, it can often bring us ‘a more pleasant form of misery’ (as the comedian Spike Milligan used to say).
But what happens when money starts to matter too much?
Well, that’s when healthy enrichment (which allows us to support ourselves and our families) can suddenly morph into the Gordon Gekko world of greed !
Look at the Spanish Conquistadors, for example, who set off to find El Dorado in the 1500s.
Evidently, according to the historian Michael Wood in his book Conquistadors, Hernán Cortés was already ‘one of the richest men in Cuba’ before he headed off to plunder the home of the Aztecs, in modern-day Mexico. Similarly, his fellow opportunist Francisco Pizarro wasn’t exactly short of a few bob, either, when he set off to ravage the riches of the Incas, in modern-day Peru.
But to Cortés, Pizarro, and their well-armed motley crew, they wanted more! Much more! And this is why – according to Wood – the head of the Incas astutely observed: ‘Even if all the snow in the Andes turned to gold, still they would not be satisfied.’
HOW TO AVOID IT
Cultivate the art of chisoku (a word I first came across in a book on Zen called The Ring of the Way by Taisen Deshimaru). It basically means to know when enough is enough because, without chisoku, we will never be content, even if we sleep in great palaces. Or, as Deshimaru makes clear: ‘Whoever is not satisfied will always feel poor, even if he is rich.’
3 EXCESSIVE EGO
If it wasn’t for ego, many of the world’s top businesses wouldn’t exist today, and most of the world’s highest skyscrapers would never have been built.
But, what happens if a person’s ego begins to balloon beyond all proportion?
Well, that’s when they can become egotistical.
In the movie Gambit, for example (the remake of the 1966 classic), a photo of the billionaire Lord Shahbandar – played by Alan Rickman – can be seen on a giant billboard, proudly clutching his new autobiography.
And what’s the book called? It’s simply called …
Me!
And this says it all, really.
Egotists put themselves at the centre of the universe and choose to forget that ‘the self-made success story is a myth’, as Professor John Adair makes clear: ‘We all depend on others, as they do on us.’
Having said this, however, before we rush to judge narcissists (who have been ever-present since the time of Rameses II, if not before) here’s a thought: it’s tempting to assume that people in business with massive egos simply love themselves too much. In clinical psychotherapy, however, it seems that the complete opposite is much closer to the truth. People with massive egos don’t love themselves enough, and that’s the problem. They’re forever trying to compensate for an emptiness they feel on the inside, which is why they constantly crave attention, adulation and achievements (i.e. trophies) to bolster their fragile self-esteem.
HOW TO AVOID IT
To avoid excessive ego we need to ground ourselves by remembering we all have feet of clay. Besides, if the statue of Colossus in Rhodes (which was one of the Wonders of the Ancient World) could collapse in 224 BC following an earthquake, and Barings Bank (founded in 1762) could collapse in 1995 following the rogue trading of Nick Leeson, maybe we’re not so high and mighty after all.
Linked to this, better to strive for the confident humility of someone like Warren Buffet, who, in spite of his phenomenal achievements in business, he appears to have resisted the urge to ‘edge good out’.
4 EXCESSIVE ENTHUSIASM
Ralph Waldo Emerson (American poet, essayist and philosopher) once said, ‘Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.’
What happens, however, if business professionals become over-enthusiastic?
Well, that’s when they can become deluded.
Just look at what happened on 24 January 1848, for example, when James W. Marshall spotted a few little flecks of gold in Coloma, California. It sparked a Gold Rush in which thousands upon thousands of over-enthusiastic people left everything behind (including their wives and children, sometimes) in search of a treasure most of them never found.
Or think of Greek mythology and the story of Icarus, who became so enthusiastic about flying up, up and away (with the feathered wings his father Daedalus had made him), he ignored warning after warning that the wax on the wings would melt if he flew too close to the sun!
Or how about Captain Ahab – in Melville’s Moby Dick – whose unrelenting enthusiasm to catch the whale (that had gobbled up his arm in a previous attack) sent him on a monomaniacal quest to find it, leading to the eventual destruction of himself, his boat the Pequod, and most of his crew.
So, please note that, although enthusiasm is an essential part of Business Genius, we need to ensure we keep a sense of perspective, too. If we don’t, we can become gung-ho (i.e. wreckless with our risk-taking) or, in tougher times, even develop a bunker mindset (i.e. tell everyone to move the armies when there are no armies to be moved).
HOW TO AVOID IT
If you want to avoid excessive enthusiasm, remember that big dreams (unaccompanied by reality) amount to little more than delusions.
So strive to get the best of both worlds and – as Covey used to say – be sure that as you climb your ladder of success, it’s propped up against the right wall!
5 EXCESSIVE ENCROACHMENT
The world of business has always had its fair share of empire-builders (including the East India Trading Company, which used to account for about 50 per cent of the world’s trade).
But what happens when encroachment and conquering goes too far?
Well, that’s when some Geniuses can end up so busy conquering that they’ve almost forgotten what they’re conquering for.
Look at Alexander the Great, for example. By the age of just 25, he’d succeeded in expanding the Macedonian frontier beyond all recognition, and ruled an Empire stretching 6,000 miles! Added to that, he even ordered 70 different cities to be named after himself (and, yes, the seven excesses can overlap!). Yet, how many times did he visit Athens in his lifetime? Once!
Or how about Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902), the famous founder of the De Beers diamond business? Rhodes’s megalomaniac ambition was not only to build a vast railway from Capetown to Cairo, he even once said: ‘I would annexe the planets if I could!’
HOW TO AVOID IT
If you want to avoid excessive encroachment, don’t just focus on what you’re doing, keep reminding yourself why you’re doing it, too (because, as Jim Collins writes in his book How the Mighty Fall, many organisations lose sight of that).
For, if the real why is not just to conquer and annexe more and more resources through hostile takeovers, etc. but to leave a more meaningful legacy, there are plenty of decent ways of achieving that.
6 EXCESSIVE ELASTICITY
I’ve long been a champion of lateral thinking in business and the huge commercial and performance improvement benefits it can bring.
But what happens when Business Geniuses start to become too lateral or too elastic with their cunningly clever bending of the rules?
Well, that’s when decent Business Genius soon spills into dodgy Business Genius, where countless people from the Great Gatsby to Robert Maxwell, and Bernie Madoff to the former Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong forget to let their conscience be their guide.
And then, of course, there’s Enron, who took elasticity to a totally different level with what’s considered to be ‘The No. 1 white-collar crime of all time’ …
Now the story of how America’s seventh largest company (that was once worth $70 billion) collapsed in 2001 is so well documented it’s barely worth repeating.
But here’s a bizarre twist.
Most organisations get heavily criticised for not living up to the promise of their vision statement or catchy strapline. Enron’s problem, however, was that they did! And what was their strapline? ‘Endless possibilities’.
HOW TO AVOID IT
If you want to avoid excessive elasticity, keep reminding yourself that some sacrifices in business (such as Bill Gates reputedly never taking a day off work for the whole of his 20s to help build Microsoft, as referred to earlier) may well be worth it, but sacrificing your integrity seldom is. For as the Business Genius Oprah Winfrey once said: ‘Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did or not.’
7 EXCESSIVE ENVY
Finally, let’s take a quick look at excessive envy.
Let’s face it, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of friendly rivalry or healthy competition in business. But what happens when it goes too far?
Well, we only have to look at the experiences of Michelangelo to find out.
According to the author Bruno Nardini in his book Michelangelo: Biography of a Genius, Michelangelo’s arch-rival Bramante was deeply jealous of his talent and success. In fact, so much so that Bramante was the one who suggested to Pope Julius II that Michelangelo should be the one to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Why? Because Michelangelo was first and foremost a sculptor, not a painter, and so Bramante thought that by luring him ‘into an art that was not his’ it would humiliate him by forcing him to produce something mediocre.
As it happened, however, half-way through the process, Michelangelo stunned everyone – especially Bramante – by revealing the progress he had made. Although it was still unfinished, everyone could see it was a work of Genius; Michelangelo was now not only ‘the greatest sculptor of the age’, but also fast becoming the ‘greatest painter of the age’, too.
But was that the end of it? Was Bramante’s reaction respect or admiration? Nope. Far from it. The envy just got worse. Bramante even ‘tried to persuade the Pope to commission Raphael to paint the other half of the vault’; anything … everything … to make sure that Michelangelo didn’t get any more praise or recognition.
HOW TO AVOID IT
If you want to avoid excessive envy (or professional jealousy, as it’s frequently referred to), learn to value who you are. That way, you’ll learn to become more generous spirited, and feel enriched by the achievements of others, rather than feeling threatened by them. More importantly, however, you’ll have become what Alfred Lord Tennyson called an intelligent merchant because ‘No man ever got very high by pulling other people down.’
So, there you have it.
Yes, of course these seven excesses aren’t the only excesses but, hopefully – in a book this size – they’ll do for now.
OK, let’s now quickly move on to three final UP!lifting points.
POINT 1 BUSINESS GENIUS DOESN’T ALWAYS HAVE TO BE COMPLICATED
On the contrary. As we touched on earlier, Business Genius is all about the triple S of business success. In other words:
Seeing things differently
Like how Jeff Bezos noticed that internet growth was growing exponentially back in the 1990s, and promptly left his day-to-day Wall Street computer analyst job to set up Amazon.
Or like André and Edouard Michelin (who provided farming equipment in France back in the late 1880s) who noticed how long it took for the glue to harden after they repaired the punctured tyres of a wandering cyclist, and promptly went on to develop ‘a detachable pneumatic tyre that could be repaired in just 15 minutes’, which revolutionised the worldwide transport industry (source: Superbrands).
Like Josiah Wedgwood, who back in the mid-1700s found that his plan to become a thrower in a Staffordshire pottery was smashed to smithereens when he tragically had a leg amputed following an illness.
But did he quit? No. He came up with a smarter strategy and decided to become a modeller instead (which didn’t involve him having to stand around all the time). As a result, Wedgwood went on to discover highly innovative ways of making ceramics, and his china became famous all over the globe.
Striving differently
Like Irving Berlin (the Genius composer of White Christmas) who strongly believed that ‘Talent is just the start’.
Like the industrious Arnold Schwarzenegger who once said, ‘You can’t climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pocket.’
Or like the legendary film producer George Lucas who stated: ‘Working hard is very important. You’re not going to get anywhere without working extremely hard.’
POINT 2 BUSINESS GENIUS DOESN’T ALWAYS HAVE TO BE ‘BIG’
Again, on the contrary.
More often than not it’s the micro-improvements in our business thinking, and business behaviours, that can make all the difference.
For example:
- Think of the Business Genius Kirkpatrick MacMillan who, back in 1839, came up with the deceptively simple idea of adding pedals to bicycles.
- Think of the Business Genius Mary Anderson who, back in 1903, came up with the deceptively simple idea of adding windscreen wipers to car windows.
- Think of the Business Genius creative team at Saatchi & Saatchi, back in 1973, who came up with the deceptively simple idea of using one word – ‘probably’ – to help sell beer, inspiring the infamous slogan: ‘Carlsberg … Probably the best lager in the world’, which became one of the most successful slogans of all time, and ended up being used continuously for the next 38 years!
