Drink the Kool-Aid? Yes, But Pick When You Drink It

In the business world, drinking the kool-aid refers to an employee’s willingness to commit fully, without hesitation and without cynicism, to their organization’s and boss’s objectives–to be a fully engaged team member.

I was thinking about a friend who recently changed jobs. He is a smart guy and always has two or things running in parallel–backup plans in case the primary activity fails. I had suggested that for the moment, he needs to drink the Kool-Aid on his primary activity. He needed to stop keeping options actively in play once he made his primary choice as maintaining options sometimes has its price. The idea was to stop thinking that the current gig was temporary. Was I wrong to recommend this?

HBR recently had a short article that suggested there is a real cost to making backup plans. The fundamental question goes something like this:

“When we think about what we’ll do if we fail to achieve our goals, are we less likely to succeed?”

The answer, according to Jihae Shin the principal investigator, is mostly a “yes.” His research concluded that people who made back-up plans achieved their goals less often than others who did not have back-up plans. But his findings did not say *not* to make back-up plans. Instead, you should be more thoughtful about the timing and level of effort you put into your backup planning.

That makes sense. Different people operate differently. For example, we want a backup plan for our son, who is focusing on a music career in college. But we do not want him spending a lot of time on the backup plan *now*. We do not want our son to be distracted from his focus on music *now*, in order to prepare later for a different career later which he may never pursue. We encourage him to think of options but to the point that at the expense of his current focus.

I think my suggestion makes sense specific to my friend’s situation. I was not suggesting that he forgo multiple threads running, but that he fully commit to the one in front of him and assume that this choice would be the solution for a very long time.

The idea is to take the opportunity as far as it will go and only then get the backup plans moving along. It was really a suggestion to stop thinking that the current objective would not be achieved and to avoid the distraction of trying to line up alternate plans prematurely.

At the right time, even temporarily, go all in, get the tee-shirt, buy the mug, think that your organization is great even if it has warts, adopt its strategy–drink the Kool-Aid. Pick a time, later, to consider options.