Do you know anyone who has had a heart attack?  Have you ever had a heart attack?

Not fun.

Heart attacks seem to sneak up on people and…bang, you’re down.  My mother died of a heart attack when I was a boy.  I have inherited her condition and would be dead of a heart attack if not for a wonderful drug called Crestor.

Heart attacks don’t really “sneak up” on people though.  Sure they catch people by surprise, but what ultimately causes the heart attack takes a while to build up – they tend to happen after years of neglect.

In most cases, heart attacks are caused by the build-up of “plaque” in arteries.  Likewise, in the heart of our organizations, there can be “P.L.A.C.” build-up in our corporate arteries that causes a heart attack.

What is the “P.L.A.C.” that causes an organizational heart attack? What are those things that cause our organizations to slowly die?

“P.L.A.C.” represents Pride, Laziness, Apathy and Complacency:

Pride:  Personal and corporate pride stops us from learning.  It causes us to be unteachable and uncoachable.  Pride in leadership doesn’t receive input from others and feels threatened by other people’s competence.  Pride causes us to stagnate because we don’t recognize the need to keep learning and growing.   Pride will stop us from admitting mistakes.  Great leaders and great organizations are marked by humility – a willingness to learn and grow, a willingness to receive input from others, a willingness to admit mistakes and not try to cover them up.

Laziness:  We may recognize our need to change and ask for help, but not be willing to put the work in to move into greater competence and personal growth.  We are in the grip of passivity.  We must choose to work hard until the job is done.  It has been said that the only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.  Nothing will work unless you do.

Apathy: Apathy is the “absence or suppression of passion, emotion, or excitement, and the lack of interest in or concern for things that others find moving or exciting”.  Apathy hamstrings our passion.  We must choose to engage, and choose to care.  Sure, sometimes our emotions can feel very dead, but we can still wield our will well and choose to walk in openness and vulnerability, choose to take action, choose to engage, and choose to be with others who carry a passion that we want to carry.

Complacency:  Complacency is “a feeling of quiet pleasure or security, often while unaware of some potential danger, defect, or the like; a self-satisfaction or smug satisfaction with an existing situation or condition”.  It has been said that the complacency of fools will be their destruction.  Complacency in the attitude that things are “good enough”, and all the while we are slowly dying.  There is often pride wrapped up in complacency because we can think we are “right”, or “good” and all the while oblivious to our impending bankruptcy.

Let us choose to combat the “P.L.A.C.” in our lives and organizations.  Stop the slow decay and death of the heart or your leadership and organization by choosing humility, working hard until the job is done, choosing to care, and choosing to live in humility and openness to combat a self-satisfaction and lack of awareness of the issues in you that others can see so clearly.

Remove the “P.L.A.C.” in your personal and organizational arteries so that the lifeblood of true success can freely flow in and through you.