A friend and I were talking about organizational behavior recently, and one of her observations stuck with me. Public markets are unforgiving. When performance slips, the market notices, and that pressure, assuming reasonably mature leadership, tends to force a culture of accountability.
Take that pressure away, and the opposite tends to happen. Without real consequences for weak performance, culture drifts toward the performative. More politics. More energy spent covering yourself than doing the work.
It reminded me of Richard Parker, the tiger in Life of Pi. Pi Patel’s fear of the tiger sharing his lifeboat is constant and real. But he also shared his gratitude for that same fear because it kept him alert, focused, and alive through an impossible ordeal.
Consequences drive behavior.
