Frogs in Boiling Water

‘Fake it till you make it,’ they say. And every time they say it, I feel like asking “Ever heard of ‘shoving things under the carpet’?” When researchers say companies tend to make the same mistakes people do, nowhere is it truer than in denial of their failures. Ask any failing behemoth if they hadn’t seen the tide of change coming; more often than not they would’ve identified the undercurrent before anyone else. Yet all the while they have a. considered themselves immune to the risk or b. been a tad too self-assured that they can ride this one out or c. were simply too dumb, like Polyphemus the cyclops (befriended by Ulysses). But hey, that cyclops had Poseidon for his father; these companies don’t.

So, how come such huge bellwethers with ‘experienced’ managers and charismatic leaders end up falling flat on their faces? From what I see, it’s largely because these leaders have been in the companies far too long- so long in fact, that they are myopic to the failings of their own making. Alternately, some clever companies bring in outside leaders to magically turn around the wheels of their fortunes, but with sparse success.

Perhaps, this is what ensues of believing in those lies you tell the world yourself- all about how peachy everything is and how you are the hero the company deserves and the one it needs right now, all rolled into one. Or perhaps, it simply is a case of Cognitive Dissonance.

Now, why am I bothered by this? Anyway these are too technical to be thought of as arising out of a quarter-life crisis. But with all the bans and prohibitions on food, drink and freedom being imposed, when the (absent) laws of the land turn into laws of the jungle, when the spark of a protest turns into a media-fed frenzy, when a certain nationalist-tourist premier of the country is unusually quiet about many of said happenings- it appears to me just like someone has been believing too strongly all the lies they’ve been telling the world.

I’m not saying there is no upside to all this- new (& quite novel) stages are identified for fiery speeches and great oratory which I’m sure was last seen in Hitler’s time and in the Roman councils before that. Speakers blare. Heroes rise. Risks taken. Battles fought. Some won, many lost.

These heroes that claim to have emerged from the masses appear uncannily similar to the life-timer chiefs of megalithic companies that are struggling to survive. Ironically, both these kinds call themselves ‘leaders’, while all they are leading their charges into is a bloody mess.

This makes me wonder if we’re all a little too obsessed with infallible leaders, undefeated captains and unerring heroes. Perhaps it’s time we try some leaders that are more wary than they are audacious, that are more empathetic of their organizations’ and their own failings, that choose integrity over perfection, that are more human.

After all, history is written and retold by survivors; the story of a failed chief becomes a memoir while the words of martyrs are mere epitaphs…

-MaCh