Escape From Excellence

Daniel Plainview, the character brought to life in a staggering performance by Daniel Day Lewis in Paul Thomas Anderson’s celebrated new film, There Will be Blood, is an outsized character of mythic proportion. So, while we are unlikely to meet someone like Plainview in real life, he presents a lesson, example, archetype, or “plain view” that speaks to all of us. I saw the movie recently, at the precise moment when I was searching for an easy way to communicate what the Excellence Trap is like, and how we come to be ensnared in it. Enter Daniel Plainview.

Daniel Plainview fancies himself a leader, a self-made man who will create something huge, create jobs, make history, and maybe even start a movement. When we first meet him, prospecting for oil, he embodies the Five Virtues of Excellence: Effort, Proficiency, Commitment, Expertise, and Acumen. He displays vision, tenacity, a willingness to take risks, and an admirable individualism and determination. Failure and mediocrity are simply not on his radar. At first, I like this guy, until he opens his mouth, 15-20 minutes into the movie, and we meet the monster he will become. While most people trapped in excellence are in no way monstrous like Plainview, he does show us, on a grand and mythic scale, what we are bound confront if we aloow ourselves to think that excellence is the end of the road. If we are excellent, we are unlikely to turn into the likes of Plainview, but we will confront the same dynamics, each in our own way. You can bank on that in the same way Plainview banks on himself and his oil.

Plainview’s problems set in when he reaches the Five Limits of Excellence, those built-in ceilings which undermine the positive aspects of excellence:

• His Effort is limited by his physical limits: he is merely a man and, to drive the point home, he is hobbled for life by an on-the-job injury. He reached this limit early on.
• His Proficiency won’t set him apart. He knows this, and so looks with seething rage upon anyone who has a measure of proficiency in his chosen profession of “Oilman,” from the executives of Standard Oil to, eventually, his own adopted son.
• His Commitment saps his strength, and in Plainview’s case, his soul as well. His mono-mania about success cuts him off from other people almost completely, he is often drunk or at the verge of rage, and he subjects himself and others to unnecessary hardships and dangers, far beyond any practical reasoning or benefit.
• His Expertise lacks vision. Early in the film, he appears possibly to have the makings of a visionary. But his ego, fear, greed, and paranoia cause him to miss opportunities or to see the larger picture. His isolation increases with each major episode in the film, as he manages to sucker people into his plans, but fails to attract anyone to a vision, because there is no vision to be seen.
• His Acumen reduces strategy to tactics. His obsession about competitive jockeying takes over his entire person, and he ends up bitter, alone, and un-admired (he calls his butler his “closest associate”). He has no allies, defenders, zealots, partners, and no lasting legacy other than violence, deceit, and hatred.

Once he has passed the limits that strain the virtues that are so admirable about excellence, we then see how quickly Daniel Plainview is taken over by the Five Corruptions of Excellence: Entropy, Technocracy, Fixation, Rigidity and Cunning. He has now reached the Falling Point. While the oil flows, Plainview the man fails. For all his riches, the film lets us know that he’d likely be much richer in business itself, as well as in life, if he had made wiser choices, had a larger vision, and inspired, rather than triumphed over, the people around him.

• His Energy has become Entropy. Rather than feeding him, his labor starts to tear him down and apart. The constant friction within him and around him contributes to his undoing.
• His Proficiency has been corrupted into Technocracy. He focuses on the mere technique of success, in his case a series of lies, because he knows that his skill to bring oil up from the ground is not unique to him. He loses vision and focuses on whatever it takes, rather than on what could be. He doesn’t innovate, he merely dissimilates.
• His Commitment has declined into Fixation. If there was ever a fixated man, it’s Daniel Plainview! Absolutely everything in his life, all values, all resources, all talents, are subservient to his fixation on black gold. If he succeeds, it is through willpower, but at a higher cost and for a lesser return. He fails to see this. Whatever he is serving, it is not business efficiency or sustainable growth.
• His Expertise became Rigidity (or Rigidness). Plainview will listen to no one. He refuses to hear his son, and threatens to murder a would-be business partner for offering some benign advice. He also delays and increases the personal and financial cost of a golden opportunity because he refuses to meet the man who could provide access to the land he requires.
• His Acumen has been corrupted into Cunning. As the movie progresses, he loses points for strategy; he doesn’t outsmart his competitors, he merely outfoxes them, or let’s himself think he does.

Once the Corruptions have set in, the Five Costs of Excellence are not far behind: Depletion, Compromise, Misalignment, Incrementalism, and Egoism. Taken together, these costs can hobble a business as surely as Plainview is hobbled. The business may continue as a going concern, and even achieve excellence vs. the competition, but it will be a shadow of what it could have been, and eventually its day will pass.Plainview at least has the insight to say, “I’m finished” when the movie reaches it’s brutal, but logical, conclusion.

• Near the end of the movie, Plainview is Depleted. Physically, he is hobbled, and morally he is crippled. He has no relationships, no positive legacy, and no remaining life force other than unsatisfied rage.
• Plainview Compromises himself utterly, failing to pursue a singular vision, make a unique contribution, or leave a lasting legacy because he has invested too much in his need to have the upper hand, when he has no basis for having the upper hand, no real or legitimate strategic advantage.
• Misalignment defines Plainview’s business. He fails to cut deals honestly. He fails to cut timely deals with most of the people who could help him, such as Standard Oil and the rancher Bandy. On a personal level, he has a huge house and no one to visit him in it. He is fixated generally, and very much focused on the wrong things.
• Once Plainview’s expertise became rigid, he can have no broad vision, and so he must settle for Incremental change, ever scouring the landscape for more suckers, more available deposits, and more marginal advantages over his adversaries. His bid to build a pipeline is a self-serving grasp at independence, not the bold, visionary move that he would prefer to believe.
• Plainview has given over entirely to Egoism. Even with his riches, he only becomes animated when his ego is threatened by someone he perceives as competition. He banishes his well-intentioned son in a maelstrom of hurled insults, and prances about manically as he lectures his nemesis, the false prophet-preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), that because he is the only person with a straw, he will, in perhaps the film’s most memorable line, “I drink your milkshake!”.  The film’s brutal climax follows.

If Plainview had taken counsel, he might have avoided the slippery slope of the Excellence Trap. He could have evolved to Leadership Mastery and become a mythic hero, rather than a mythic villain, his legacy just to become cautionary example.

• His herculean Effort could have evolved to sustainable Energy
• His generic Proficiency could have evolved to unique Expression
• His fixated Commitment could have evolved to creative Intention
• His narrow Expertise could have evolved to powerful Perspective
• His slithering Acumen could have evolved to galvanizing Wisdom

Daniel Plainview’s case is extreme, but powerful myths and great art often provide extreme examples in order to capture our attention and show us the way (or the wrong way). This great film gives us a way to understand that every great leader needs to avoid the Excellence Trap and get on the path to Leadership Mastery before the limits are passed and the falling point is reached, before the corruptions set in and the costs are incurred.

Lastly, the man who brings Plainview to the screen, Daniel Day Lewis, gives a masterful performance; his work is itself an example of Mastery. No one can give a performance like this based on the Virtues of Excellence alone. Clearly, Mr. Day Lewis is operating at a level that is an order of magnitude beyond most others in his profession. In his work, we see the Five Pillars of Mastery in action: Energy, Expression, Intention, Perspective and Widom. It’s high time that senior leaders, and anyone else who seeks to lead in business, get access to this level of performance in the same way that actors, athletes, warriors, and sages have long had available to them.

Categories: Escape from Excellence, Film, Five Corruptions of Excellence, Five Costs of Excellence, Five Limits of Excellence, Five Pillars of Mastery, Five Virtues of Excellence, The Excellence Trap | Comments RSS | Leave a response | Trackback |  Email This Post |