Repetition of the same behavior with expectations of a different result is at the root of why many entrepreneurs fail.
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Same Behavior Equals the Same Result

I hate to resort to pop psychology, but some things are just plain true regardless of their source like, “The definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior over and over again and expecting a different result.”  I’m not sure if this definition can actually be found in any recognized psychology textbook but one thing I do know is that it is at the root of why many entrepreneurs fail. 

 

I once had a partner on a project that seemed sane enough when we got started but it wasn’t too long before I realized I had a problem on my hands.  We were doing a real estate development together.  I was going to raise the capital and he was going to do the day to day stuff.  He had a long background in retail real estate and I was soon to find out, this had absolutely nothing to do with development.  He made a huge mess of it for lots of reasons not least of which was basically an inability to multi-task. 

 

Anyway, a lot of time and money went by with no result and the real estate market overall was starting to sour.  I called a meeting between us to discuss shutting it down.  Knowing that he was enamored of details usually to the point of getting lost in them, I prepared with the help of professionals who knew their stuff, all the details including budget, timeline, and projections that showed that we would run out of money and lose everything in less than six months.  I thought that if he could see the futility of going forward we could sell the land and get out of the mess in one piece.

 

To make a long story short, he would have none of that.  He kept repeating that if I would just give him more money for marketing, another $35,000, he would “sell our way out of this”.  This he asked in light of the fact that to that point we had spent over $7 million with no results.  As you might imagine, I was not buying into that argument.  In the end I had to force him out and it was a mess.  He was just too emotionally invested in what he was doing to quit.

 

The moral of this story is just as I stated at the beginning of this missive:  If you keep repeating the same behavior and expect a different result, you are nuts.  It just isn’t going to happen.  And this means that if you want to turn around a business and expect to do it by just working harder at what you have always done, it just isn’t going to happen.  In fact it is likely that everything that you attempt as a new path is probably just another version of the same old thing.  The problem is that it hard - if not nearly impossible - for us to see ourselves clearly and just as tough to see that what we are doing over and over again wrong.  It all seems to make such good sense in our heads!

 

There are two solutions to this; either you are honestly gifted with the ability to stand back and take a hard look at yourself in a detached manner, or get some help.  For most of us mere mortals, the second solution is going to be the best answer. And if right now you are thinking to yourself that you cannot afford to do that and you are going to figure it out for free, well, go back and reread the first paragraph. 

Posted by Herb Kay on Thursday, December 13, 2007

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