(2016-11-19) Cutler Success Theater

John Cutler o Success Theater. You just know what it means. It’s hearing you hit the quarterly goal, but knowing the corners you had to cut (and the people who will have to clean up the mess), listening to someone rattle off vanity metrics that say nothing, but claim everything, or being told you’re not a team player for having some doubts about a recent “win”. (Reality Distortion Field)

We want desperately for things to work, and need a small dose of delusion just to keep going. But …

Success theater undermines the long-term potential of your team (and organization).

But what can we do about it?

If optics matter to the external world — they usually do — have frank discussions on why that is the case, and how external messaging cannot dictate the internal dialogue.