Talent is critical, being One of Us is everything. Number Two

Welcome to my weekly column on the nuances of success in business.

The critical knowledge for success in global business is beyond the technical tools, business models and software is the capability to understand and apply the stories, the analogies of western history and the historical case studies which your peers readily have at hand.

We rightly celebrate success in our working endeavours, but Hubris is the sin of those exceeding these boundaries by a long and undeserved level. It is used as a warning to those who sometimes have secured repeated success, often without excessive hard work on their part, and then continually tell their peer colleagues about their apparent great ability, over and over. This could be said “well done on that project, watch out this does not reach to Hubris”

The Greek gods always worked to inflict retribution on those with Hubris – there is always your Nemesis –this is the unescapable agent of your downfall. It tends to be a rival who takes great pleasure in spectacularly ending your Hubris by inflicting a sudden reversal of fortune leading to an ever greater failure.

This was delivered by the god Adrestia – your Nemesis is inescapable when it is decided that your Hubris is such that everyone can see your deserved downfall coming, probable except you.

This would be used as “his rise in the company was spectacular as he would be the first to tell you, then his Nemesis delivered demands which he could not deliver and his success came to an end, an event not widely regretted”.

These are ways to highlight and to warn your peers who run well beyond their deserved successes in a way which shows you are one of us.

Remember this and try to use it soon.

Dr David Arelette is the Professor of Practice Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the La Trobe University Business School in Melbourne, Australia and a consultant to S t u dyCo i n Collins St Melbourne. You can contact him on d.arelette@latrobe.edu.au