Complacency – and its harmful effects – surrounds us everywhere.

Consider the politics. Democrats held a Senate seat for 47 years and assumed they would win again in 2010, but they didn’t.

Consider sports. 2010 is the first year since 1993, that’s 17 years, that the two number one seeds, arguably the top two teams, meet in the Super Bowl.

Consider business. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, a composite of 30 of America’s largest and strongest companies, has seven new members since 2000, and only five (DuPont, Proctor & Gamble, ExxonMobil, United Technologies, and General Electric) have been on this list. ready. for more than 70 years.

Consider your business. Have you lost a Client that was a surprise because “he was with you forever” or “he loves us”? Have your profits fallen a year after a strong performance?

To be sure, in all these cases there are other factors at play besides complacency. However, it is equally true that at least part of the reason for the above results is the insidious, sometimes undetected or underestimated factor called complacency.

The good news is that complacency often comes after some success. The bad news is that it can spread quickly and significantly reduce future success. The best news is that it can be defeated. Here are six steps to help you.

acknowledge it. Doctors know that it is difficult to treat a patient until a diagnosis is made. Complacency can start with a quiet confidence, which most would see as a positive, and slowly turn into a problem with the early stages going unnoticed. What do you see different in people’s (or your) habits and approach? Are you taking the little things for granted? Are you doing less of the things that led to past success?

Put it in context. Complacency probably won’t happen until you’ve had some success! Complacency comes from success. So recognize and celebrate success first, then challenge complacent thoughts and actions. Help people remember the feeling that came with success. When you can emotionally connect with that feeling, you can use it to avoid complacency and focus on the next achievement.

Set new goals. If previous goals were met and no new ones were set, you have a problem. Now is the time to involve others in setting new goals. Create them with the same excitement and anticipation you had in setting past goals that you and your team met. Make sure new goals are challenging enough to inspire the energy to combat complacency.

Keep the purpose clear. Goals are great, but it’s the underlying purpose or “why” that will really drive discipline and performance and be a natural antibiotic for complacency. Remind people of your purpose. Connect people with the emotions of success and achieving purpose. If the purpose or vision has changed due to past accomplishments, reframe that purpose as meaningfully as possible.

Create healthy competition. Human beings love competition, either with themselves or with others. You can combat complacency with creative competition. Create ways to help people compete against themselves or the goals they exceeded last year. Allow teams to compete with each other (although not in a destructive or disabling way) in pursuit of common goals. Define an external competitor as the source of your energy and effort.

Remember history and human nature. Like the examples at the beginning of this article, history shows that complacency is part of the human condition. Recognizing this helps you deal with it personally and as a team or organization. However, when you feel it or see it, do not resort to guilt or guilt; rather, acknowledge it and use all of your mental and emotional energy to focus on getting over it instead of worrying about its presence.

Complacency; avoid it at your own risk. When you choose to attack it before it spreads in your mind or in the mind of your organization, the steps above will help prevent the spread and, with consistent effort, eliminate the current outbreak.