Mindsets and the Burnt Star Syndrome
The Burnt Star Syndrome
Have you ever hired someone who seemed to check all the right boxes, had the right chemistry during the interviews, and had a stellar resume only to find out they had lackluster skills? Maybe you have experienced the reverse, where you thought you were joining what seemed like a fantastic company, but it turns out your new team was living in the past?
If so, you’re not alone. I see these kinds of situations come up all the time in organizations that have built excellent reputations. We often talk about “fixed” versus “growth” mindsets, but we do not often address why the symptoms occur in the first place. This is why I like to consider the notion of a “fixed mindset” as being a symptom of what I call “Burnt Star Syndrome.” Burnt Stars are people or organizations who have achieved great success in the past but have lost their intrinsic ability to stay current or relevant with their value proposition.
Let’s be clear, Burnt Stardom is not inherently a bad thing. It is a natural progression of career experience. We must maintain the mindset that there is always a way to reignite that star, if it is even needed at all. Some industries get along just fine without a growth mindset. I call companies like these, “Dim Stars,” because they are neither burnt nor need to burn hot (undergo huge growth).
How Burnt Stars are Made
Let us define what intrinsic and extrinsic abilities are in the context of mindset:
Intrinsic abilities are abilities that have the potential to create value and are within a person or organization’s direct control.
Extrinsic abilities are abilities that have the potential to create value and are not within a person or organization’s direct control.
Knowledge, skills, and actions are examples of intrinsic abilities, like knowing how to write a computer program. Extrinsic abilities emerge as a result of brand perception, reputation, and other factors that give those intrinsic abilities momentum.
Perhaps you can imagine that a mainframe programmer in the 1970s may have built a legendary reputation for their mastery of the punchcard. Their intrinsic ability is weakened if they are still programming 70’s-era mainframes with punchcards in the year 2022. Their reputation and legendary status (extrinsic ability) are not necessarily diminished, but the relevancy of their intrinsic abilities have. They have become a Burnt Star.
(Note: From this example we can derive an alternative definition of innovation. Innovation is the process of establishing and sustaining relevance through the adaption of intrinsic and extrinsic abilities.)
More Realistic Examples
The mainframe programmer example was an extreme case of how a Burnt Star is made, but it is not so straightforward in most cases. Let us look at two scenarios that you may be familiar with. 1) You hired a stellar candidate that later appeared to have lackluster skills, and 2) you joined a team that is losing relevance without them knowing it.
Former Star, Lackluster Hire Case
In the first case, it is certainly possible that the candidate was very good at marketing themselves. This is an example of using their intrinsic abilities to influence, but not directly control, their extrinsic abilities (e.g., personal brand perception). The candidate could otherwise be a Burnt Star. They had the necessary foundational skills for the job, but they are struggling to adapt those skills to your specific needs. In other words, their intrinsic abilities have weakened in the new context.
How do you deal with this kind of situation? First, accept that they are not a horrible person for wasting your time (after all, hiring is a joint effort). Second, accept that they have previously been successful for a reason and likely received reinforcement on their methods and abilities over an extended period of time (e.g., positive feedback or product sales). They actually are valuable. Third, accept that hiring employees is an investment and their value appreciates over time. Would you expect a stock purchase to pay out a huge dividend and double in price in a week?
Actions to Take
As a leader, you have a responsibility to send signals to the team. You need to establish trust and provide authentic support for your struggling employee. Some actions to take in this case are provided in Table 1.
| DO | What this Signals |
|---|---|
| Give the Burnt Star time and resources to understand your team’s culture and specific needs. | You understand that people need time to internalize the mission, which is prerequisite to taking ownership of any job. |
| Be proactively transparent about factors that impact the team’s ability to deliver. | Clarity on expectations and necessary behaviors to achieve the mission. |
| Implement the right incentives by monitoring growth-related metrics. | You are interested in inserting values into your trade, not just meeting your revenue target. |
| Have a clear innovation strategy in place that signals what business will look like in the future. | Adaption is built into your business model and are prepared to face it. |
Creating the right environment involves more than these four things, but the activities and messaging surrounding these concepts will give you a good start. How to implement your leadership, especially with the new hire, will certainly change over time (you have a duty to adapt too, right?).
Actions to Not Take
There are negative signals that you could be unknowingly sending your team. Some actions to not take are provided in Table 2.
| DO NOT | What this Signals |
|---|---|
| Complain, argue, or gossip about the Burnt Star’s difficulty to adapt. | A respectful, cohesive, and professional work environment is not important. |
| Expect your new hire to adapt overnight. | If the hire does not understand the business like you do, they are doing something wrong. See egocentric empathy bias. |
| Simply email the new hire a PowerPoint or brochure and expect them to hit the ground running. | You are not interested in how well they integrate with the business and team. |
| Give up on them to see if you can find someone else who is better. | You prefer to buy synergy at the company’s expense rather than lead to achieve it. It is easier to reignite a Burnt Star than to train a new one. |
Doing these non-recommended actions will send the wrong message to your team. For the last item, job hoppers (employees) may be perceived as having rigid or insatiable standards. Job droppers (employing manager) use up valuable company resources to get nowhere while affecting the company’s image in the talent marketplace. There could be more at stake for the job dropper. Do not let it be you.
It is important for you to see people as what they can become, not just as what they are. Tell me, who do you want on your team, the person who worked 18 hour days to feed. Perhaps more importantly, as a leader you must be able to do something about it. You will have found mutual success if the Burnt Star has reacquainted themselves with their stardom at their new company.
Joining a Team of Burnt Stars
Hiring a Burnt Star is an easier scenario to deal with compared to being hired into a team of Burnt Stars. In the former case, a leader can create an environment that helps ignite the new employee. Being hired into a team of Burnt Stars requires a much bigger flame to reignite the stakeholders above you. However, before considering how to tackle this scenario, we must first understand why a team or even an entire organization could be considered as a Burnt Star.
Burnt Star teams can occur in companies that serve slow moving markets and have been around long enough to establish their best practice. The company continues to find success without ever needing to change their approach and they get comfortable without fearing disruption. Farming, for example, is an industry that competes on operational excellence. The products are commodities, and many of the innovations related to farming practice have made the job more scalable and efficient rather than changing agrobiology. Farming is therefore what I would call a “Dim Star” industry because it neither burns hot with growth nor is it burnt out. The agricultural technology industry, however, does compete on innovation where growth matters.
Note: Burnt Star companies may be good candidates for private equity acquisition. They have the right assets, but need market realignment, a change in leadership, or something else that is less costly than turning the whole organization upside down.
Recommended Actions
We can consider a Dim Star government contracting company where a segment of its market has been disrupted by a shift in government priorities. Thinking like a visionary is not enough. The disruption requires a response because the company’s intrinsic abilities are weakened in the disrupted segment. If not addressed, the company’s extrinsic abilities can run dry. Here are some recommendations when developing a course correction strategy. Some recommended actions are provided in Table 3.
| Recommendation | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Ask questions and learn about the organization before jumping into instituting change. | You were probably not hired to shake up process. There may be a good reason for why things are the way they are. |
| Get to know what is in the pipeline or work backlog. | Some industries move at the speed of contracts, which means growth may primarily occur in waves. |
| Build social credibility to earn trust. | If you have earned trust, people will be more open to your ideas and it will be easier to challenge the status quo. |
| Keep track of opportunity costs and other data that will build your case. | Attaching dollar signs to your ideas can make some convincing arguments. |
| Do your customer due diligence. | There must be an obvious stakeholder demand to motivate the change. |
Following these recommendations will yield you a wealth of information. Quantifying what you have learned, especially in terms of money, can give you the clout that you need to get people on your side. However, it is often a catch-22 because it can take a lot of time to prepare a business case for change on top of your normal day-to-day duties. It is this dilemma that will frustrate a growth-minded employee and eventually lead to their departure.
Preventative Measures
One of the biggest issues that I see with companies across the board is the lack of clarity on how to innovate. Innovation is a practice that inherently deals with changing expectations and objectives. So it is no surprise that teams with a fixed mindset will struggle to innovate, especially in the face of disruption. As a leader, the tone you set around this practice is critical for establishing an adaptive culture. Furthermore, you can simultaneously build a growth-oriented culture while preparing a business that is resilient to disruption if you integrate workforce development into your innovation strategy.
Keep those stars burning!