With confidence comes complacency
"Complacency is the last hurdle standing between any team and its potential greatness" Pat Riley
There is nothing like doing something you are totally confident doing or watching a team perform with full confidence. It is what we all strive for. Confidence in your job brings order and comfort. The hardships experienced while training for proficiency and confidence are mostly gone. However, with confidence comes complacency. In combat we watched this closely. Lives were on the line and any complacency which creeped in could result in disaster.
Dictonary.com defines complacency this way, "pleased, especially with oneself or one's merits, advantages, situation, etc., often without awareness of some potential danger or defect; self-satisfied." Cocky is another word for it. When we or a team become complacent, critical steps are overlooked or skipped all together, safety is marginalized, and communication decreases. These are warning signs.
Our duty as leaders is to manage confidence and address complacency. We must be on the look out for cockiness and complacent behavior. We may be the only ones to detect it and address it. Here are some ways you can detect and address complacency.
Take notice. Again, as a leader you may be the only one who notices. Step back from the busyness of the moment and examine what is happening against what should be happening and if people or teams are overly confident. Compare what should take place against what is taking place and pick out missteps and or deficiencies.
Teach your people about complacency. While complimenting their gain in confidence offer warnings and provide real or fictitious stories which highlight the dangers.
Knock'em down a few notches. Be careful with this approach. You'll need to have a tightly-knit, resilient group but every now and then a team (or an individual) needs to know, point-blank, that they suck. Often this can happen after an error which is caused by complacency. Attempt to shed light on the complacency so that an individual or team can see it for themselves and understand its implications.
Break up the team or add new people. This approach helps rearrange the players forcing individuals and teams to return to the standards of a task and teach others how things should be done.
Complacency is a natural phenomenon. It happens to the best of us but its consequences are real and it needs to be dealt with, ideally before tragedy happens. Defeating complacency and its effects takes leadership.
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Rob Campbell