According to bestselling author and leadership expert Jim Collins, successful people all have “prodigious amounts of productive paranoia”, which helps them succeed more than others. At the 2023 World Business Forum summit, Collins explained that this paranoia can appear in various ways in different people.
Collins described productive paranoia as something that helps many leaders. According to Collins, this paranoia makes people think about all the possible outcomes that could occur from any decision or action that is made.
So, someone who is preparing for a business presentation should be paranoid about the negatives that could happen during this presentation. According to Collins, this paranoia — which allows people to think about potential negative outcomes or experiences — doesn’t frighten people into not succeeding. Instead, Collins says it prepares them.
Highly successful people have 'prodigious amounts of productive paranoia,' says expert—here's what that means https://t.co/FwYjaimXES
— CNBC Make It (@CNBCMakeIt) November 20, 2023
Collins states that when people think about bad outcomes before they happen, they can find ways to prepare for them. So, if these negative outcomes do arise, he says they know how best to deal with it quickly and successfully.
Collins also says that truly successful people always are productively paranoid, in all phases of their life. This also includes their professional and personal life.
“The question is not if bad things will happen, it’s when,” Collins said at the summit. How you prepare for this “storm” allows you to realize just how you’ll recover from it, he explained.
Often, according to Collins, this paranoia makes people overprepare. However, he views overpreparation as better than just assuming everything will be okay.
Critics of this method do stress that you should never overdo any overpreparation or overthinking. According to Jenny Maenpaa, a New York-based psychotherapist, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, possibly because of your productive paranoia, you should take one task at a time.
She states that you shouldn’t overanalyze everything you have to do at once. Instead, she believes that it’s better to focus on one task at a time. In this way, Maenpaa believes you will be able to stop overthinking in a negative way that could become harmful to your mental health.
Collins did note at the summit that some may be critical of his view on productive paranoia. However, he stands by it — and believes that’s why so many people are successful in all aspects of their lives.
“Last time I was here, people thought I was some sort of maniac… because I said to everybody, ‘It’s sunny today, but the storm is coming,’” he explained. “But it is best to be a paranoid freak, because something bad is certain to happen.”
