Complacency

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘌𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘱𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘯 𝘍𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘺 23 𝘖𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘣𝘦𝘳, 2020 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘒𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘌𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘤 𝘋𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘺.

There is nothing wrong with enjoying a nice success, the satisfaction of a hard deadline met, a successful project or a good contract concluded after a hard negotiation. The problem starts if you stay content with the good situation for too long. The danger is high that complacency kicks in, this feeling of satisfaction with yourself and your achievements.

I believe that complacency, inertia and procrastination are deeply rooted human behaviors. They might be evolutionary artefacts from when we were hunters and gatherers and lived from one day to the other without the need to prepare for the future. With the rise of an agrarian society, humans were forced to learn from past experience and to take into account considerations about the future. They had to prepare for future activities based on gained knowledge. Agriculture itself would have been unimaginable without a concept of the future: preparing for seasonal changes, trial and errors with new crops, develop strategies for droughts and heavy rainfall. There was no room for complacency.

Most of us are not farmers anymore but work in a company. A company never runs perfectly oiled and without any fault. There is all the time something that is not quite right, something that can be improved. If you fix something, then something else is about to break. If it were not the case, then why do you need a management team and dedicated workers? I see it as one of my most important tasks as a manager to develop a sense of urgency for opportunities and threats and act thereupon. There is no room for complacency. My organization, “Switzerland Global Enterprise” is a government agency which is run like a corporation with commercial targets. Despite Covid-19, we had a very successful business year here in Korea. We achieved all our targets in difficult circumstances. Our team in Korea was praised by our CEO. But now, after a short sweet period when we were enjoying the success, my uneasiness is kicking in again. Everything runs according to plan, but I get nervous. Covid-19 accelerated the digital transformation in our organization and we did comparably well so far. But have we really initiated the right projects? Are we reading the future correctly? Or have we missed a weak signal that would indicate a problem or an opportunity? Covid-19 will stay for longer than we were expecting so we have to get this transformation right. My colleagues here in Korea and in Switzerland might hate me for my constant uneasiness with the status quo.

Some say that I am overly critical and never satisfied. But I strongly believe that we should not just gloss over situations that can be improved. There is no room for complacency.