Michael D. Moberly    December 17, 2013    ‘A blog where attention span matters’!

Arrogance is a ‘negative’ intangible asset’!  For many, that statement is certainly not ‘rocket science’, and obviously it conveys I am no fan of arrogance regardless where, how, or why it manifests in a company, organization, and among its leaders and management teams members. 

Arrogance however, is not a characteristic that resides solely with the higher echelons, that is, in some instances, it can be quite company culture pervasive and exists at most every employee level.

Through my not-so-inexperienced lens, I, probably like many readers of this blog, see managerial centered arrogance as being destructive and unconstructive to a company’s bottom line, that is, this negative intangible asset can manifest itself adversely in any company through expressions of its intellectual, structural, and relationship capital.

In my research for this post, I found an interesting piece, published in a December, 2010 issue of Business Week, titled “Twelve Signs Arrogance Is Running Your Company”.  I have taken the liberty of adapting and re-prioritizing the piece…

• through my lens as an intangible asset strategist and risk specialists.
• as being emblematic of what I, and numerous colleagues routinely experience when articulating the relevance, contributory value to company management teams of the business necessity to utilize and exploit intangible assets.

From the above cited article, the following represent ‘signs that arrogance is actually running a company’, that is, when

1. innovative ideas, coming from outside the company, are deemed to hold little, if any value, and thus, are seldom given consideration, assuming the company holds a monopoly on all great ideas, thus the ‘not invented here’ attitude is a prominent and permanent fixture throughout the company’s conference and board rooms.
2. it rationalizes mistakes and miscues instead of learning from them.
3. it puts forth little or no effort to become a genuine partner to a merger, but instead, has designs of dominance, thereby losing the value of the culture and intellectual and structural capital (intangible assets) the other company possessed and would have otherwise delivered.
4. management team members are observed patting themselves on their back when the company succeeds financially, when in fact, their success really derived from market forces, rather than the performance of its human, intellectual, structural, and relationship capital, each of which are intangible assets.
5. it focuses almost exclusively on financial success with little regard for legacy and social impact, in other words, company responsibility and sustainability are given short shrift.
6. management team members dictate far more than they listen.
7. it hires and develops intelligent professionals, but then ‘turns a closed ear and blind eye’ to their input if it appears as nonconformist thinking, i.e., contrary to existing – past practice.
8. it lobbies against sound regulatory reforms because of the assumption that if passed, will add complexity to the company’s currently operations.
9. company leaders and management team members believe the company can’t fail.
10. it underestimates, minimizes, or does not recognize today’s globally competitive, aggressive, and predatorial business transaction environment
11. accessing top company leaders requires maneuvering through multiple layers of gate keepers, ‘chains of command’, and bureaucracy.
12. it is observed that management teams’ focus is on amassing accouterments symbolic of success.

Arrogance, of the types noted above, by business leaders and management team members alike, can drain the bottom line, in part, because these individuals are frequently purported to be poor performers themselves, who endeavor to cover up their insecurities by disparaging subordinates, a by-product of which can produce organizational dysfunction and employee (intellectual, relationship, and structural capital) turnover.

To at least partially address this, what I am referring to here as an ‘intangible asset dilemma’, the industrial and organizational psychologist and professor Stanley Silverman developed The Workplace Arrogance Scale (WARS) which will be the subject of an upcoming post.

This blog post has been researched and written by me with the genuine intent it serve as a useful and respectful medium to elevate awareness and appreciation for intangible assets throughout the global business community.   My blog posts focus on a wide range of issues related to intangible assets and intellectual property.   Respectfully, each post is not intended to be quick bites of  unsubstantiated commentary or information piggy-backed to other sources.

Comments regarding my blog posts are encouraged and respected.  Should any reader elect to utilize all or a portion of my posts, attribution is expected. While visiting my blog readers are encouraged to browse other topics (posts) which may be relevant to their circumstance or business transaction.  I always welcome your inquiry at 314-440-3593 or [email protected].