Tall Poppies

New Zealanders often lament our “tall poppy syndrome”, our tendency to cut successful people down, when they get ahead.¹ Is it really a “syndrome”? There are countless Kiwis who have achieved success in different fields – from business, to sport, to the creative arts – who are celebrated and respected and admired. How have they all escaped this treatment? Perhaps we can be more specific in describing the behaviour we actually try to weed out.

We put a lot of weight on how success is celebrated. We prefer people who, after scoring an amazing try, put their head down and jog back to halfway ready to receive the next kick-off. We don’t rate or tolerate people who need to pump their fists and dance about taunting the opposition in those moments.²

We talk down anybody who talks themselves up. We use a complicated code: Things that are great are described as “pretty good”. Things that are terrible are “pretty average”. We’re generally suspicious of anybody who strays outside of that limited range. This trait isn’t unique to New Zealand and Australia. For example, in Nordic countries this is called the Law of Jante.

However, we reserve our harshest judgement for people who celebrate extravagantly before they’ve even scored the try, claiming the credit before they’ve earned it. We don’t have much tolerance at all for showboating ahead of actual achievement. I’ll be honest: I find it difficult to be upset that these are our preferences, given the alternatives. When people say “We need to celebrate our successes more” I hear “Vive la inequality!”

I do give contradictory advice about this. On one hand, I’ve found we’re generally better off keeping our aspirations to ourselves until we’ve got something concrete to point at. On the other hand, fresh eyes on plans nearly always makes them better. It’s much harder to get people to care enough to listen to ideas than to cope with their negative comments. It’s good to tell your story.

The distinction is the difference between intentions and actions. If we’re announcing our intentions (or worse, celebrating having them) we’re probably better off keeping our mouth closed and our head down until we have some actual progress to point at. There is even some evidence that, especially for introverts, sharing goals in advance makes it less likely that we will achieve them.³ But once we have a plan, or even better, some early results, then it’s time to tell everybody who will listen and ask for their help.