Leadership

Paranoia

I have a phrase on the whiteboard in my office:

"Paranoia undoes greatness." 

It’s been there for about a year and is a constant reminder that anytime we spend a significant amount of time worrying about losing what we’ve got, it’s quite likely that it’s already slipping through our fingers anyway.

I can name many instances of "backward-looking" behavior killing momentum and thwarting progress. This can be especially rampant in the "up or out" world of organizations. (Pay, prestige or process - we’re all motivated by one or a combination of these.) Organizational paranoia discourages the risk-taking required for innovative behavior. A "group-think" mentality sets in, along with a sense of invincibility, and where there was once promise there is now dissonance.

This plays out in our personal creating as well, no? My paranoia about the response to a piece of work will inhibit risk-taking and new-form-making behavior.  

These are all, of course, self-fulfilling prophecies. When we think we’re "losing it" and behave accordingly (reactively) we’re bound to live out the consequences of our fears. (This isn’t psychobabble, it’s simple cause-and-effect.) 

I’m working hard to rid myself of paranoia. I’m also working to rid it from anyone I interact with.

(Maybe then all of those men in black helicopters will stop following me…) 

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