Andrew S.(Andy) Grove wrote a phenomenally successful book
titled ‘Only the Paranoid Survive’ published in 1996. Soon, hard bound copies
of this book adorned the shelves of CEOs, aspiring CEOs and other worthies in
their succession list. Lo and behold, paranoia
overnight turned a virtue. Every CEO wanted her/his employees to be paranoid.
Yes, just to contextualize, those were the days Jack Welch was still the CEO of
GE. Those were the years every CEO and CXO wanted to be a Jack!
Not many decades ago paranoia was considered an abnormal
mental state by most psychoanalysts. English Thesaurus (UK) associates Paranoia (n.) with fear, suspicion, mistrust, obsession and terror. Not sure which of
these words would have prompted Andy Grove to say only the paranoid survive.
Maybe what he meant was an obsession for change or obsession for new technology
or innovation; certainly, not fear, mistrust and terror. Unfortunately, in the
last two decades of the last century and the juvenile years of the 21st
century generated a lot of these emotions into the corporate meeting rooms.
The life and
contributions of Andy Grove do not suggest that he was paranoid. A Ph.D. in
Chemical Engineering, Andy was one of the first three members of Intel though
not considered as a founder. He was instrumental in making Intel an innovation
machine and was a meticulous, ‘disciplined, precise and detail oriented’
operations head of Intel for many years. Andy who first coined the usage ‘the
devil is in the details’, in all probability, had a data based rational
approach to creativity and innovation.
Andy wrote a book titled ‘Physics and Technology of
Semiconductor Devices’ in 1967 and another book titled ‘High Output
Management’- originally published in 1983 and re-published in 1995. I wonder
how many CEOs read these two books. While the ‘High Output Management’ went
much unnoticed in 1995, the ‘Only the Paranoid Survive’ published next year
became an instant hit.
Why?
Is it that negative emotions sell better for books, movies
and even in management? For long ‘abnormal psychology’ ruled the lives of much
of the normal folks. People started believing that there is nothing normal. And
the abnormal is euphemistically called the ‘new normal’ in the VUCA (volatility,
uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) world of the Davos pilgrims. Shakespeare
must be laughing in his grave reading aloud from ‘The Tempest’, ‘fair is foul
and foul is fair’!
What if freedom,
cooperation, trust and kindness lead to innovation? May be some more
‘appreciative inquiry’ is needed into this question.
Not only the paranoid survive; others too!
At the end of it is just a passing fad, a fancy title for a best seller and some money made by the author. Ironically, most of the fad stories fail to continue their successes, including Intel. Another classic example is "Good to Great" by Jim Collins. Of the 11 companies listed as great in that at least 2 has bit the dust badly. I understand that there is only 1 company from that list which is now out performing index. So i guess the moral is :take away what you want from the book one reads , but dont go about aping it blindly; apply it diligently in the environment that one is in.
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