Winston Churchill once said “There is no worse mistake mistake than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away…”
Reality and facts are better than dreams. And you must have the courage, will, and humility to face it.
There is a universal truth that became clear to me from Jim Collins’ bestselling book Good To Great. This is a chapter and one of the most important lessons from it: You must be willing to confront the brutal facts…
Why do I say it’s universal? Because this concept is true NOT just for businesses. It’s true for individuals, families, societies, civilizations. Micro to macro...
Once you get clear on this concept you, your business, and your life will begin moving in the direction that you’ve always wanted it to…
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In Good to Great Jim Collins’ studied companies that outperformed the overall stock market by 6.9x and sustained that for a period of at least 15 years. He researched what they did differently and put all of it into the book. One of the most important things he found was that the most successful companies who were able to go from good to great were ones that had a culture and climate where the truth is heard…. What does this mean?
Collins’ found that the most successful companies had created a culture where speaking up about problems was encouraged. They engaged in dialogue and debate, not coercion. Important. They asked questions and didn’t pretend to have all of the answers. If someone thinks they know everything, it just shows how little they actually know… right? Challenge to norms and ideas, questioning direction, and going back and forth to find the most desirable route forward among credible individuals who had the organizations best interest at heart (this is critical) was an essential aspect of a businesses success.
In his memoir Shoe Dog Phil Knight described what they called “butt-face” meetings which were periodic meetings among the founders of Nike where they would argue, bash everything the company was doing, question each other, sometimes even fight, etc. in passionate striving for the company to make it.
Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater associates became famous over the last few years as he published his book, Principles which he writes about he built Bridgewater into one of the largest hedge funds companies in the world. One of the major themes and ideas from the book was the idea meritocracy he established. Basically he created a culture for credible individuals to have their say in company decision and direction. He created “player cards” for each person in the organization and the attention given to that persons ideas or opinion was based on their past history of decision making and stats. He wanted credible and competent individuals speaking up so that they could “triangulate” to the best decision.
This is such a crucial principle for your business and life… My wife and I have a family creed as we are instilling a culture in our home. One of the lines is “we tell the truth, even if it’s hard…” We want ourselves to be strong enough, and humble enough to face reality even if, no, even when we don’t want to, it’s hard, or it’s inconvenient. Jordan Peterson said something that punches right at this concept, he even said this could be truest form of prayer: What is that thing that I know I need to give up, and if I gave it up I could move toward the person I desire to be? Ask that about your business, family, etc. Here’s the thing, asking the question is one thing… doing and executing on it is what makes you great… Personally speaking when I got my alcohol consumption under control it allowed me to break free. I had to face the facts that social binge drinking was holding me back from the man I wanted to be. And I had to sacrifice that in order to move forward… That is confronting the brutal facts.
Building a great life and business is not a passive thing. If you want to move from good to great you must be willing to confront the brutal facts…. What are you currently doing that is working? What are you currently doing that is holding you back? What are you currently doing that you could be doing better? Where do you have waste, weakness? Where is your strength? And you must be willing to face these answers objectively so that you can correct, adapt, and move forward.
Of course this is true for business, and yeah it might be a brutal reality. But this is how evolution works… Those species, individuals, organizations, civilizations that are willing to confront the brutal facts of reality head on, and make the proper adjustments are the ones who win, increase, and move toward greatness. I say move toward because nothing is permanent. As soon as you stop you start moving from great to good, from good to average, from average to poor, from poor to rock bottom.
To have the ability and mindset to confront the brutal facts is humility. To refuse to remain open to correction and close yourself off always results in destruction. This is precisely what a tyranny is. People can be tyrants of themselves, their families, their companies, etc. We all know that person who is closed off, unwilling to change, defensive, can’t laugh at themselves, you have to walk on egg shells around.
How many tyrants throughout history acted this way? How many tyrants do you know if your life? What is the tyrant within you preventing you from becoming who you could be?