You’ve probably heard the old maxim that success breeds success. [1] And yet the world is full of what the music business calls one-hit wonders – artists who had one hit record and nary a second. Why is that? Some possibilities:
- Good timing – they were just lucky.
- They changed the formula and the new one didn’t work.
- They were not as good as they thought they were.
- The world changed and they did not.
Each possibility involves a failure to understand why they had been successful the first time. Desire, belief and optimism while essential to success must be tempered with accurate thinking.
- A wildly successful technology reseller failed to invest in the next round of growth (middle management and information systems) and rapidly fell behind new competitors.
- An investment banking company followed competitors into a new field without understanding the risks and almost collapsed.
- A custom software consultancy shifted into the software product business without understanding the investments required to support customer installations.
Accurate thinking requires that you know the truth
– the good, the bad and the ugly – and act on the
basis of that knowledge. Anything less is merely playing roulette.
[1] This is the first article in a series illustrating the principles of The Success Process.
Comments