How to spot CEO arrogance/overconfidence
“We spend tremendous effort looking for signs of arrogance; it’s the most common attribute of failure, even rising above complacency, and those who succeed seem to find a way to encourage humility.” - Scott Davis, Carter Copeland, Rob Wertheimer; Lessons from the Titans
Three years ago I made this presentation on the dangers of CEO arrogance/overconfidence using the case study of Just Eat Takeaway. Whether you have followed that story or not, this is worth your time.
Recognize mistakes and adjust the strategy (“a moment of self-awareness”);
Example #1: Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Apologizes for Mishandling the Change to Qwikster [1]
Example #2: Matt Maloney @ Grubhub (recognized mistakes and tried to reverse strategic
direction but it was too late) [2]
Example #3: Elon Musk @ Tesla (despite numerous instances of arrogant behaviour Musk has been
successful so far)
I thought this was funny, basically you can be arrogant if you are successful a la Elon Musk. (which is true)
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