We've all heard that "success breeds complacency." But what if we're wrong?
Back in the 1970s, a team of researchers at UCLA discovered a fascinating quirk about the way our brains respond to success. They gave people a test with some very tricky problems that had no clear right answer — leaving the test-takers to simply hope they guessed right.
So, imagine the test-takers' surprise and delight when the researchers revealed the results: They crushed it!
But then came a twist.
There would now be a retest. But because of the obvious talent the test-takers demonstrated the first time, the researchers suggested they should easily be able to meet, if not exceed, their previous performance.
Does this sound familiar?
So far, this experiment has been a near perfect replica of how high-performing teams feel after they score a big win the previous year (can you believe we pulled it off?!?)...only to then face the sobering reality that they are expected to do it again next year (uh-oh).
Deep down in the dark corners of our mind, most of us feel like a big chunk of our success can be chalked up to chance. We secretly suspect that we got kind of lucky the first time, and that we aren't quite worthy of the high expectations people now have for us.
So, what do people do in this situation? This is where things get weird.
Before the retest, the researchers offered the test-takers a choice between two herbal teas. One tea, they said, was known to enhance mental performance. The other tea inhibited mental performance.
Which tea would you choose?
If you're like many of the test-takers, you would actually choose the performance-inhibiting tea.
Lead researcher, Edward Berglas, labeled this bizarre phenomenon "self-handicapping."
A few years later, while a faculty member at the Harvard Medical School, Berglas wrote a book about successful business leaders, called The Success Syndrome. “For the self-handicapper," Berglas wrote, "the fear of being exposed as ordinary is so intolerable that failure by one’s own hand feels safer than success by chance.”
In other words, self-handicapping hurts our performance, but protects our pride. I think this gives us an important clue about why so many talented teams appear to be "complacent" in the face of change.
If I downplay the need for change, or write our plan off as just another "flavor of the month" strategy from our out-of-touch execs, then when we fail, I can say "see I told you so." And nobody will ever have to find out that I wasn't quite as "talented" as they thought I was.
It's the business equivalent of the loser's limp—when athletes conspicuously hobble onto the court, rubbing that lingering knee injury so that they have a ready-made excuse in case they get beat.
It's like when our teenaged-selves pretended not to be interested in the person we were secretly in love with so that we didn't have to risk rejection.
Complacency is often the mask we wear to hide our insecurity.🍎
Here's why this matters for leaders:
If you think your team has a Complacency Problem, you'll try to show them why they must change.
But if you see that your team has an Insecurity Problem, you'll try to show them why they can change.
Instead of burning platforms, dangling carrots, and swinging sticks to shake them out of their complacent slumber; you'll reach for an entirely different set of tools to build their confidence.
🍎You'll orchestrate little wins.
🍎You'll praise tiny steps of progress.
🍎You'll talk about experimenting more than executing.
🍎You'll push them to hunt for insights first, on the way to desired outcomes.
Instead of cranking up the pressure, you'll snowball their confidence.
Instead of making them feel lazy, you'll make them feel safe.
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NOTES
1. The UCLA study from 1978 is here.
2. If you're hyper-committed to a deep dive/update on the topic, you can fork over $122 and read the 2013 textbook, Self-Handicapping: The Paradox That Isn't written by Berglas' research partner, Stephen Higgins at Kansas State.
3. Not-So-Fun Fact: Guys loser-limp more than gals. The original Berglas and Higgins' study found that males were far more likely to self-handicap than females. I naively assumed this finding was just a product of the era, and that the burgeoning feminist movement coupled with the enlightened generation of men that followed (I was just a twinkle in my my father's eye when the UCLA study was conducted) would have by now erased the gender differences. Much to my dismay, studies as late as 2016 continued finding the gender discrepancy. Is it still true in 2025? I'm not sure. I had to stop researching because that old knee injury started flaring up again.
