More Zebras Saw than Unicorns
July, 2022
Given the caliber of the crises around us, and therefore in many of us, is it time to give new meaning to some of our basic concepts? One of the most irritating stasis is a success. What exactly is success to be achieved? There is no consensus on whether it should be completed with or without fairness, but it would be nice to have a more nuanced discussion. Success is tricky. Most people struggle to achieve it and are frustrated by it as well. In its wake, it can take you from the question “how much is enough?” to the inequalities that have grown to staggering proportions in the world in no time. We will have many problems until this concept is given a more balanced content.
Fortunately, some have started to redefine success, like the founders of the Zebras Unite movement instance. In 2017, they claimed that the zebra was the most noticeable species in the business world, alongside the unicorn. At least several of us have seen such species. They are sustainable small businesses, but not necessarily billion-dollar businesses in a few years. The founders who built modestly growing companies found it difficult to find business partners and investors because their ambition and expected success did not seem to be high. They are not in the minority in their challenge. They believe that chasing unicorns has created distorted expectations in recent decades. They wrongly place quantity above quality and consumption above creation. Unicorns are unrealistic and extremely rare. But the more agile, less brash zebras are very real. They are socially and financially useful. They do not sacrifice; they herd together to help each other. They have unmatched resilience and capital efficiency as long as conditions allow them to survive. As a result of accelerated change, there are more and more zebras today, yet we do not experience them as having any norm-shaping, liberating power.
The representation of the other side of success is still gigantic. Enviable wealth, prestige, high visibility. Concomitants and the measure of success. Often volume-based temptations, glaring exceptions. Why, moreover, does success become a prison for some? Several business people with a track record of serious success have recently opened up about depression and critical burnout. For decades, they have fought for even more significant achievement and recognition, pushing for it at all costs. And then, at some point, they do not understand what the success they wanted was, which at one point fell apart. Building a successful business does not go hand in hand with making a successful life.
Over the past six months, we have conducted nearly forty in-depth interviews with senior managers. We asked everyone what they would like to be said if they died. Most of them unanimously said they hoped they were a good person. However, no one listed their achievements, their wealth, their accomplishments. Is that success? That at least I did not harm? That I helped when I could?
A more personalized definition of success could be a resolution rather than a clear expectation of growth, progress, and advancement. It would require majority empowerment to assume success on a non-quantitative basis and not to consider it a failure to put together the scattered atoms of success and not to rebuild (or never rebuild) as much as expected. Success can be the balance of the path to success rather than crossing the finish line. Instead of achieving an award, a list, or a metric, it is to experience that everyday life can be lived and even enjoyed. There can be results that do not come under the public gaze for fifteen minutes. Success is trust, credibility, and humanistic leadership values that go beyond professionalism and endorsed operations. Or it is a success to stay mentally stable in the face of today’s challenges. Success also considers how many of our activities positively impact people’s lives alongside the growth numbers. It would be good to create new standards rather than exceptions so that the burden of making a living and succeeding is less of a shadow over the chances at life.
It is suspicious that as long as the glittering success stories are not accompanied by small-framed articles, almost as expected, stating what the price of that success was, then for many people, these successes are not an inspiration but a frustration. However, significantly more zebras have been seen than unicorns.
Original was published in Forbes Hungary print edition July 2022
