When success is a false positive

“Deliver the results!”

The boss was very clear about the desired outcome and expected tangible, measurable results.

And we delivered:

• Initiate every customer interaction with a personal greeting and warm, genuine smile? Check
• Ensure every transaction complies with policy and internal controls? Check
• Get the monthly financials closed on time with relevant, actionable summary information provided to the execs and Board? Check
• Facilitate a fruitful, forward-looking strategic planning process resulting in clarity for the path ahead? Check
• Close the transformative acquisition? Check
• Finish the massive system conversion—on time, under budget, and with all—or close to nearly all—the intended benefits? Check, check, check

We “got ‘er done!”

And we carefully, intentionally took these and other steps to ensure we did so:

• Made sure expectations were abundantly clear—starting at new-hire onboarding and in the position descriptions of the newbies, and extending through planning for the various specific routines, tasks, and initiatives.
• Communicated effectively with all parties involved and affected.
• Developed specific, measurable goals.
• Maintained accountability feedback loops.
• Performed a thorough, no-blame postmortem on the initiative or the recurring material process to capture ideas for improvement and wins to celebrate.

Sounds like success to me.

But what if—just maybe, perhaps—there’s more to the story? What if the signals flashing “Success!! Success!!” are false positives and we really didn’t succeed as much as we think, or at all? What if we won the battle but simultaneously suffered a significant setback in the broader war?¹

There is more to the story

While we were pursuing and succeeding at all these things with tangible results, we were also operating within and having effects on lots of significant intangible realities.

• Our culture—our lived shared values
• The quality and extent of collaboration
• The level of trust (or lack thereof) in the organization
• Relationships

What if, in the intense focus on tangible results, we actually (and almost certainly inadvertently) caused harm in one or all of these intangible realms?

What if the benefits of the “what” we accomplished were accompanied—and maybe more than offset by—the consequences of the “how” we went about the “what”?

• We communicated clearly in a post-mortem but did so with a tone that chipped away at the trust within the team.
• We personally got lots done and made sure everyone was aware of our own individual contribution, downplaying (or possibly taking credit for) the contributions of others involved.
• We drove hard to the goal line, but damaged vital working relationships along the way.

We accomplished the massive initiative—system conversion, IPO, material acquisition—but lost sight of the “why,” and especially as it related to the organization’s fundamental aspirations and non-negotiables.

Production, production capacity, and people

The intangible damage along the way to the success with the tangibles may be subtle, may feel insubstantial. But it’s worth paying attention to.

Two reasons:

1. Production and production capacity.

Stephen R. Covey explains these in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: “Effectiveness lies in [a] balance—what I call the P/PC Balance. P stands for production of desired results, the golden eggs. PC stands for production capacity, the ability or asset that produces the golden eggs.”²

We clearly accomplished the ”golden egg” in our significant tangible result. But any damage to trust, collaboration, culture, or relationships will have negative effects on egg production in the future. Maybe not immediately. But inescapably.

I pushed things through over and despite the expressed concerns of a colleague? Oh well: I still “got ‘er done” and I may believe I had to do so to get it done. But how likely am I to find that colleague collaborative (or even cooperative, or even cordial) for future shared projects?

Conversely, even if tangible results didn’t quite hit the mark, perhaps successes on the intangible side of the ledger set us up for strong lasting results in the future. Integration of the acquired company didn’t go as smoothly as hoped and planned for? Not a blemish-less win. But if we and the folks at the acquired company developed trusting, collaborative relationships while working through the integration struggles, that sets us up really well for meaningful wins in the future.

2. It’s all about people.

The fundamental “why” behind everything we do should reflect the reality that everything we do touches real people in a real way. Culture? Check. Collaboration? Check. Trust? Check. Relationships? Obviously, by definition.

When we fixate on the tangibles we can measure and drive directly, we too often ignore the amorphous, vague intangibles we are affecting (maybe transforming, too often damaging)—and the real, live people in the blast radius. The cost of this kind of success is much, much too high—very much a false positive.

A practical example

Will Guidara’s brilliant and inspiring book, Unreasonable Hospitality, describes the intense, focused drive he and his team deployed to build a best-in-class restaurant. (Check it out; the lessons are applicable in any leadership setting.)

And they made significant progress in their quest for a consistently sublime quest experience. (I’d love to check it out in person someday.) But along the way in their quest for hospitality excellence, they realized they needed to restore some balance:

The entire dining room team was so polished, so eager, it became almost a game to see what tiny service detail we could improve by making it more complicated. In the kitchen, Daniel and his team were adding ever more intricate components to the dishes. Prep lists were getting longer, techniques more complex. We were doing whatever it took to push the experience to the next level.

We were on fire.

Then, one night at eleven p.m., a cook who worked the morning shift ran through the doors in a panic. In her sleeplessness and stress and disorientation, she thought she was late for her nine a.m. shift; in reality, she was ten hours early.

There had probably been other indications we were going too fast, but that one made us pull up and say whoa. In that moment it became clear: our ambition had gotten the better of us. The nuclear reactor was melting down.

We’d been so focused on managing the guest experience, we’d forgotten to manage our culture.

We’d lost our balance and we needed to get it back.³

Would that all of us would have the same awareness (even if better late than never) to discern a deep problem lurking behind a false positive.

It’s something to think about

Steward leaders deliver results. And think about the long horizons. And the vital intangibles. And especially all the people involved and affected along the way. It’s a lot. But it’s why we’re in the role. Let’s do it well.

Eric R. Alexander

March 2026

No A.I was employed (or harmed) in the creation of this content.

© 2026, Six Arrows Consulting. All rights reserved.

 ¹ See the definition of “Pyrrhic victory: a victory gained at too great a cost.” The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, The Unabridged Edition (Random House, 1969).

 ² Page 55; emphasis in the original.

 ³ Pages 155-156.