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Harvey Mackay
Column
For the week
of August 2, 2010
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Never Confuse
Arrogance with Confidence
In ancient Greece, Alcibiades
was telling Pericles how Athens should be governed. Annoyed by
the young man's tone and manner, Pericles said, "Son, when
I was your age, I talked just the way you are talking."
Alcibiades looked Pericles in
the face and replied, "How I should like to have known you
when you were at your best."
Ah, the arrogance of youth.
To put the story in context, Pericles is often referred to as
"the first citizen of Athens" for his many achievements:
his promotion of art and literature, his championing of democracy,
and his sponsorship of an ambitious building project that included
most of the surviving structures on the Acropolis, including
the Parthenon. Alcibiades, on the other hand, was also a statesman
and orator, but his encyclopedia entry is only a few lines.
And in the dictionary, Alcibiades
could define "hubris." |
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Hubris means extreme haughtiness,
exaggerated pride or arrogance. Hubris often indicates being
out of touch with reality and overestimating one's own competence
or capabilities, especially for people in positions of power.
As I've written many times before,
arrogance is one of the deadliest of human failings and can destroy
a business or a career. Today's headlines illustrate hubris to
the extreme: the disgraced governor of Illinois trying to defend
his actions . . . the CEO of BP complaining just days after the
oil rig explosion and resulting massive oil spill that he wanted
his life back . . . the teenage "barefoot bandit" who
was finally captured three years into a crime spree after he
crashed a stolen airplane.
All are examples of losing touch
with the real world, of assuming they were above scrutiny and
that somehow their actions were acceptable. Because all had enjoyed
a measure of success, they assumed people would give them a pass.
They had hubris.
What a difficult lesson they
all learned. They confused confidence with arrogance. Confidence
in one's ability is a critical element in the willingness to
take risks while still steering the ship. Arrogance takes risks
by assuming everyone will get on board even when the boat has
a hole in it.
How do you know when you're
getting arrogant? When the only people you care to listen to
or deal with are either at your own level or above it. BP Chairman
Carl-Henric Svanberg added fuel to the oil-spill fire with his
comment that, "We care about the small people." Whether
lost in translation or arrogance personified, his language managed
to insult the people he purported to care about.
He could have benefitted from
the advice of the late Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart. He said,
"If we ever get carried away with how important we are because
we're a great big $50 billion chain -- instead of one store in
Blytheville, Arkansas, or McComb, Mississippi, or Oak Ridge,
Tennessee -- then you can probably close the book on us."
As the saying goes, nothing
is so hard to do gracefully as getting off your high horse.
Early in the development of
flight, the Wright brothers (Orville and Wilbur) were largely
dismissed at home in America, and had to go abroad to get proper
recognition for their aeronautical achievements.
The French government gave the
brothers an opportunity to demonstrate what they had done. But
the French were obviously jealous of the two modest Americans.
At a banquet in Paris to honor
the accomplishments of the two Wright brothers, the chief speaker
at the dinner devoted most of his remarks to claiming that France
had led the world in aviation exploration and would do so in
the future. However, he said very little in praise of the two
American guests.
When Wilbur Wright was called
upon to speak, he said: "I am no hand at public speaking,
and so I must on this occasion content myself with a few words.
As I sat here listening to the speaker who preceded me, I heard
his comparisons made to the eagle, to the swallow, and to the
hawk as typifying skill and speed in mastery of the air. But
somehow or other, I could not keep from thinking of the parrot
which, of all the ornithological kingdom is the poorest flier
and the best talker."
Clearly, hubris didn't fly with
Wilbur Wright.
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Mackay's Moral: |
Hubris is an odd affliction. It
makes everyone else sick. |
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The Author  |
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Harvey Mackay is a nationally
syndicated columnist for United Feature Syndicate. His weekly
articles appear in 52 newspapers around the country, including
the Chicago Sun Times, Rocky Mountain News, Orange County Register,
Minneapolis Star Tribune and Arizona Republic.
http://www.mackay.com/
Copyright, Harvey Mackay. All rights reserved. |
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