Do you believe the hype?

What happens to us, and the companies we lead, when we start believing what people are saying about us. Does it matter if we are constantly being told how great we are, or how terrible? 
This topic was raised in a Norwegian discussion forum I recently participated in, and it made me start to think a bit about how easy it is for us to start believing the hype.


What then, does constant praise and incessant messaging about one's individual or collective superiority do to a person's or organization's psyche? Does there come a timet when we actually start believing the hype, and what happens then?


As we help guide our organizations along, we constantly seek objective assessments of our performance; what we do well, and where we can improve. We praise our employees when they do well, and reassess when things don't go as we planned. We spend millions on customer satisfaction data, and sometimes we actually utilize this data in productive ways. 


But what happens, when we are constantly reminded by outside sources that we are infallible? What happens when we launch a product line that truly captures our customers' imagination and the hype around the product, and our organization, reaches such a fever pitch that it seems we can do no wrong? Have we then attained the ultimate corporate state of being? Have we received the compliment of compliments? Can we now rest on our laurels?


Although I am a firm believer in praising good results and accomplishments, I also believe that constant praise, especially when unwarranted, does more damage than good. I believe that when organizations are constantly reminded, from internal or external sources, that they can do no wrong, then disaster may already have struck. 


I think constant praise prevents clear judgement and objective assessment, because who among us doesn't like to be told how great we are. However, when praise becomes a constant, it also becomes insincere, and once we start to place significant belief in our infallibility, then we become more prone to failure than at any other time.