In 1983, I read In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman. This iconic business book featured case studies of successful companies. Forty years later, many of these companies are no longer considered “excellent.” Some are no longer in business. Many organizations that once stood as industry leaders started operating on autopilot, allowing standards to slip, not paying attention to the competition and not keeping up with their customers’ expectations.
I recently interviewed John Rossman, a former Amazon executive, on Amazing Business Radio. We discussed the business challenge of sinking into mediocrity that he writes about in his new book, which he refers to as a manifesto, The Pig, the Lipstick and the Playbook of Champions.
One of the intriguing sections in his manifesto is titled The Tragic Tale of Competitive Advantage, where he refers to Kodak, Blockbuster and Xerox as “examples of once category-defining companies that could not move beyond the success that made them disrupters.” These are the types of brands whose leaders could have benefited from reading this short but powerful work.
Below are several key takeaways from our interview. These are leadership principles that can help us avoid mediocrity—or worse, failure—and improve our chances for success.
Leadership: The Pig and the Lipstick
Rossman explains that the “pig” in the title of his leadership manifesto refers to a successful business. The “lipstick” represents the lies we tell ourselves. For example, leaders say, “Next year, we’ll grow more.” “Next year, we won’t disappoint customers.” “Next year we’ll innovate.” These lies create two challenges that businesses face today:
- Once a company becomes successful, it has an increasingly difficult time reinventing its value proposition.
- A gradual acceptance of mediocrity in how the employees work together, serve customers and measure success can creep in. Over time, mediocrity doesn’t just become acceptable. It becomes the target.
Embrace Humility
To break free from mediocrity, Rossman emphasizes that change must begin with humility. Companies must be willing to admit their shortcomings, whether they’ve disappointed customers or employees or failed their own ambitions. He recommends instituting a formal Voice of the Customer program and paying close attention to disappointed customers. Rossman says, “I truly believe in humility as a starting point for change. Recognizing where we fall short with customers is crucial to being able to innovate and thrive.”
Don’t Play Defense
Rossman talked about “gold standard” companies that slipped from playing at the top of their game, including Boeing, Intel, Nike and Starbucks. Rossman referenced an interview with Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, who summed up what happened as the company started changing its model. Schultz said, “The worst thing that a company can do, like a sports team, is start playing defense because you’re afraid to fail. That’s a disease.”
Rossman’s response to companies in that situation came from his Amazon days, when he learned about the concept of Big Bets.
Taking Big Bets
The concept of Big Bets is about ambition. Rossman explains, “The concept of big bets at Amazon is that the ‘big’ is the ambition, not the size of the bet. Everything is an experiment with the intention of winning, realizing that many won’t. Understanding that failure comes with the game of innovation is a critical mindset.”
In other words, an innovation mindset comes from running many small experiments with big intentions, knowing full well that many will fail, but also knowing that the ones that succeed will keep you competitive and can potentially transform the business. You must constantly place these bets, or your successes may eventually fall to the level of mediocrity as competition catches up and potentially passes you up.
A Perfect Ending
Toward the end of the manifesto, Rossman shares a Michelangelo quote that sums up his way of thinking and is a perfect way to end this article: “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low and achieving the mark.”
Read the full article here
