What Does Success Feel Like to You?

Whenever I reflect on the way I make sense of the word success, I notice this springs to mind. Throughout much of my life success has always been defined by what others believe I needed to have that would be good for me. Good grades throughout my education. A good job. Career prospects built on delivering key performance indicators. A growing bank balance and net worth etc.

Others’ expectations are well intentioned, of course, and, useful once met, both for me and them. On reflection, however, they speak more of achievements – what we have as a result of our endeavours, which earns us the right to be described as successful. What they don’t do is speak to how we need to be to become successful in the first place.

When I’d consider future success in terms of what I will have, I would often find myself being anxious. These unhelpful questions, which I took very seriously, would show up in my consciousness.

• What will people think of you if you fail?
• What kind of homeless future awaits you if you don’t succeed?
• What if I fall short, don’t make the grade, get found out, or otherwise get it wrong etc.?
  In other words, unknowingly at the time, and in all innocence, I looked at success through the lens of failure. That’s why I was anxious. Self-doubting. Suffering Imposter Syndrome – call it what you will. Depressed too.

Since then, and after looking at the why-do-I-experience-life-as-I-do question in more depth, I now pay closer attention to the meaning I attach to words that I once never questioned, and just took for granted. I do so because I know my experience… of whatever I’m focussing on … be it a critical, calm or compassionate one, is connected to this sense making.

Having success and being successful

Take the way we each judge someone else as successful by what they have. The cut of their clothes, the car they drive, their address, status, social media profile, qualifications etc. On what basis do we make these? I don’t know about you but it seems to me that one way of answering this question is with reference to win-lose gaming theory. It goes something like this…

…we assume there are finite resources in the world and that individuals will be rational actors when it comes to decision making and conflict resolution. Their likely choices and outcomes can be modelled and predicted. If you can understand the model, therefore, you can game what they’ll do to win and ensure what you do is better so that you win and they lose.

This win-lose idea is ubiquitous in (western) societies. We pass or fail exams, win or lose in sport, get jobs or be rejected for them, watch heroes defeat villains in films, come out best in negotiations or come off second best, and so on. It was front of mind for my parents, teachers etc. They wanted me to stand a good chance of winning, or succeeding, in this game they called life.

I once heard someone say “Children don’t always hear what you say, but totally get how you are. They pick up on your mood or way of being while you’re conveying a message to them”. If true, what I picked up on, as a young boy, in the way my parents and teachers encouraged me, was their fear of what would happen should I fail. This is what entered my brain. Unknowingly. It created a neural pathway, which shaped my sense making of success thereafter.

You might say my hidden fear of failure, like many others’ I’ve since discovered, meant I’d got the wrong end of the stick. True. Perhaps. I just hadn’t noticed this. My system simply did what it does sub consciously – note the fears that sat behind encouragements to succeed and internalised them without telling me!

Having what success gives us, I learnt, depends on our way of being with ourselves first and foremost and others secondarily. If we interpret failure, for instance, in less fearful terms, more as an opportunity to learn, it can’t grip us so tightly and helps us be more curious and experimental. Free of self-limiting self-talk about failure, we find listening to what others need and want easier. We get to enjoy the puzzle that is helping them get what they value. They feel we understand them and are rooting for them. In turn they reward us, financially, emotionally, in kind etc., which brings us back to the start – the success we have.

Virtuous cycles like these can be created in teams, families and networks. First though, we need to surface the fear-based mindsets that key influencers in these groups operate from, unknowingly most often.

I have a way of helping you do that, which I call the…

..The feeling test

It’s premised on the idea that when a thinking habit you’ve had for some time, but didn’t realise you had, is no longer helpful, your body’s pretty good at letting you know. You’ll feel an unease. Whether it’s because the context in which you’re working changes, or colleagues around you have ways of doing things that aren’t optimal, or whatever else, my encouragement is to tune into what you’re body’s trying to tell you, rather than brush it off.

The opposite is true too, of course. When the thinking you’re living in resonates with those around you and the context you’re working in, you’ll feel great on the whole.

Below are representations of two mindsets that reflect similar, but subtly different understandings of what success and failure mean in an established team. As you read or listen to each, I invite you to notice which resonates most with you. See what bubbles up in you with respect to Mindset A and B and what you feel about each.

Mindset A

Success in this team is measured by the money people earn. It reflects the rewards people get from taking risks in a competitive environment. It’s rooted in the idea of survival of the fittest. The most talented of our members will always rise to the top. They are good at predicting what clients want and controlling employees and suppliers to deliver in ways others can’t. Failure occurs when clients’ expectations are not met and rewards dip below plan. Extrinsic motivators like promotion, commission and bonuses mitigate the risk of failure. They’re awarded when a job is well done and so bring a sense of wellbeing to those who contributed to it.

Mindset B

Success in this team is measured by wellbeing: the extent to which our employees and partners are free to think. It’s rooted in the idea of survival of the friendliest. Talents and potential are abundant. When free to think, we are innately collaborative creatures. We sense what’s needed and organise to respond to what clients really value. Failure is useful, it signals freedom to think is absent, teams are stuck in ruts and learning needs to be stimulated. Intrinsic motivators such as care for one another and pride in a job well done mitigate the risk of catastrophic failure. That’s how we attract clients, investors, and employees to us and why we’re financially successful.

What showed up? Did one resonate more than the other?

Much of the work I do is with project directors and their multi disciplinary teams in the Construction Sector. The Sector has an unhealthy reputation for delivering overspent projects late, time after time. It operates from a fragmented, litigious culture that isn’t always conducive to collaborative working. Many of my clients want help to turn that around.

Before we begin working with each other in detail I ask them to do this simple feeling test. Most conclude their daily lived experience resonates more with Mindset A – but – they intuitively feel much better when tuning into and contemplating Mindset B. By looking at each one in more detail we uncover a number of unspoken, hidden assumptions that we can all carry around with us, which unknowingly drive our behaviour. For instance, both mindsets contain assumptions we all hold about…

• Success – a financial must have or what flows when a team is in a being well state?
• Failure – cause for punishment or a chance to learn?
• The nature of human nature – based on survival of the fittest (competitive) or friendliest (collaborative)?
• Talent – is it scarce or abundant?
• The future and present – predictable and controllable or emergent via sensing and responding to changes?
• Motivation – carrot and stick extrinsic motivators or intrinsic ones based on care and pride?
• Wellbeing – the by product of a job well done or integral to it?

I’m not suggesting some assumptions are better than others, because context is all important. More that by bringing those that are often buried to the surface, teams realise they needn’t behave in a one-dimensional way. They see they have more options than they might otherwise have imagined. And, more importantly, can now wonder which assumptions, if changed, might be a game changer.

For instance, depending on what a team is trying to achieve, questions such as these arise …do the benefits of doing the following outweigh the costs and risks…

• Creating the conditions in which sense making, choice making and action taking is decentralised?
• Making collaborative, not transactional relationships central to how we compete?
• Working from principles rather than setting targets?
• Building on strengths rather than focusing on weaknesses?
• Focussing more on prevention than fire-fighting cures?
• Changing our own perceptions first, before demanding others change theirs?

See you next time, where I’ll look at the different ways of thinking about the culture in groups, and which you find most helpful.

Kindest,

Roger