The paradox of success

Inspiring thoughts by author Rosabeth Moss Kanter:
"... All too often, long periods of continued success are undermined not by the competition but by self-inflicted wounds. I uncovered common patterns in business, sports, leadership, and life in research for my book Confidence: How Winning Streaks & Losing Streaks Begin & End.
Winners become sinners when confidence turns into complacency and arrogance. They over-estimate their own invincibility and under-value mundane disciplines. Whenever someone feels on top over a long period of time, they are tempted to neglect the very fundamentals that helped them succeed in the first place. They might even start to feel that the rules don't apply to them.
Success means that people or teams or organizations survive long enough to need maintenance, repairs, and reinvestment. Winners undergo natural aging processes, as people get older, slow down, leave. Facilities, tools, and bags of tricks get older, deteriorate, and run down. Newcomers might get less rigorous training while long-timers forget what they learned. As momentum runs down, people and buildings begin to look run down. Neglect takes on tangible physical manifestations, such as out-of-shape bodies or broken windows. Add to this the pressures in a recession to cut costs and defer expenditures.
Erosion begins by removing a process or discipline. Let's defer those roof repairs for another year... Let's cut out one practice; we already have so many... Let's save time by eliminating the weekly team meeting... The Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster was said to be caused by engineers neglecting small portions of routine safety checks because they had done so before, and nothing had happened. Oops.
Whether you head a company, lead a good cause, or coach your children's soccer teams, your job is to root out complacency. Remember to:

Keep up the essential disciplines every single day, not skipping a single one.

Keep checking everything carefully.

Repair, renew, relearn, and reinvest regularly.

Don't rejoice in others' misery, because you could be next.

Thank anyone who points out flaws. Listen to disgruntled customers or disaffected constituencies.

Treat even small setbacks as occasions for redoubled efforts.
"Winning is great, but sometimes it takes a loss to get you motivated again. It humbles you down to reality," said a high school athlete in my research. That youth speaks truth! Although he might not be old enough to drive a Toyota, he is headed in the right direction...
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Comment: Rather than assuming that one can handle decline by following Rosabeth' well-meant advice, I'd say that failure is inevitable for any organization that actuates in any complex game when played long enough, and that this holds for individuals as well. And this is good so because otherwise there would be no hope for the losers. And even more so: isn't it nice being on the top and at least for a while you can afford to be lazy and negligent and generous with time and money? That's what we want to from success, won't we? What would success be worth, if one had to continue to struggle even when being at the top? The world is cruel, but it needn't be that cruel that even at the top you're not allowed to have fun.