The First Stage of Decline

Given the conditions in our world today, I observe leaders eager to assign blame to outside forces beyond their control. Jim Collins writes… “Whether you prevail or fail, endure or die, depends more on what you do to yourself than on what the world does to you.” The following post is the first in a series of posts based on Collins’ most recent book How the Mighty Fall.

I sometimes wonder why church leaders ignore the wisdom of outsiders and insist on turning only to fellow MDiv’s for insight. I am suspicious of the Christian leader who prefers to keep only Christian authors on his or her bookshelf and seemingly refuses to consider the insight of leaders from the private and public sectors as well.

How the Mighty Fall is Jim Collins’ most recent quest in the search for why organizations rise and fall. Good to Great, one of Collins’ earlier books, notoriously stands in bright-red binding on office bookshelves everywhere I go and causes me to suspiciously raise the question of whether they have ever been read. My copy, assigned by both a college and a grad school professor, stands on the bookshelf at home.

In his new book, Collins identifies five stages of the decline of organizations, the first of which we will now focus our attention on. Collins refers to the first stage as Hubris Born of Success.

Hubris is defined as excessive pride or arrogance. In Ancient Greece, hubris was considered the greatest of sins and often resulted in a blatant, sometimes violent, disregard for others. According to Collins, organizations who find themselves in this early stage of decline often believe their success is an entitlement and, consequently, overestimate themselves and their capabilities. Collins accuses such organizations of being guilty of arrogant neglect. Collins outlines five indicators to self-diagnose this stage of decline.

The first indicator is success entitlement and arrogance. This is seen when leaders of an organization believe they are entitled to indefinite success. This is not a matter of whether or not a leader will make changes; rather, it’s whether he or she believes that success is inevitable either way.

The second indicator is neglect of a primary flywheel. This is seen when leaders of an organization disregard the core driver of their past and current successes. Whether they are bored with their progress or simply prefer to explore new opportunities, leaders cannot lose sight of what got them where they are to begin with.

The third indicator is that “what” replaces “why”. This is seen when leaders of an organization no longer recognize why their organization exists and prefer to do what they believe they do best. It is more important to understand why an organization exists as opposed to what an organization does.

The forth indicator is the decline in learning orientation. This is seen when leaders of an organization write their own books- literally and figuratively. The healthier learning organization is led by those who prefer to be lifelong learners and encourage their people to be challenged by continuous learning as well.

The fifth indicator is discounting the role of luck, or, as those in Christian ministry might prefer, discounting the role of God. This is seen when the leaders of an organization become so convinced of their superior qualities that they begin to ignore the presence of God working in and through them. As the headlines continue to remind us, when organizations shift their dependence to man, they are inevitably bound to fall.

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