My parents told me many times while I was growing up that ‘pride comes before a fall.’ I am very often reminded of the truth of this aphorism in my later life. Whenever I think that I am getting the hang of ice-skating backwards, for example, I will almost inevitably promptly fall over. Exploring some tombs near the pyramids at Giza after the latest AUCBM conference in Cairo, I fancied myself as a modern-day Indiana Jones, striding over the dunes and uncovering lost treasures. Until, that is, I forgot to duck low enough going through an ancient doorway and struck my head on a 5000-year-old door lintel - which was inscribed with hieroglyphs which I now imagine spelled out ‘Mind Your Head.’ Being momentarily poleaxed, I fell down and badly twisted my knee. Pride, once again, came before a literal fall.
Even Luke Skywalker can be prone to the sin of pride. In the original Star Wars film, he begins to enjoy shooting down Tie-fighters above the surface of the Death Star from the Millennium Falcon’s gun turret: Han Solo tells him, “great kid, but don’t get cocky.” That’s great advice to anyone (even someone who lived a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away) who thinks that things are going well: don’t get cocky kid.
In our galaxy, this, of course, is not a new concept. In ancient Greek tragedy, hubris is the personality trait of extreme pride, overconfidence or arrogance, which invariably leads to the downfall or nemesis of that person. The Bible’s Book of Proverbs states ‘pride goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.’ It seems that to act hubristically, with overconfidence, arrogance and a lack of humility has been a common facet of human personality for thousands of years.
In the British General Election that has seemingly confirmed that Brexit will happen at the end of January 2020, one of the minor party leaders, Jo Swinson, started the campaign by declaring that she could be the next Prime Minister. Not only did her party lose a number of seats, but she personally was defeated - and so is obliged to stand down as her party’s leader. It is possible that her initial boast - or possible delusion - actually led to her downfall and to the downfall of her party.
Perhaps we feel a sense of schadenfreude - pleasure in another’s misfortune - when nemesis comes about. When a Ferrari, Porsche or McLaren passes you on the motorway or autobahn at 200km/hr, sometimes it can be hard to suppress a smile to see them pulled over by the cops further down the road.
The Curse of Sports Illustrated is perhaps another example of hubris: Many teams and sportsmen that are featured on the cover of that magazine for having excelled at their sport then find that they become injured or rapidly lose form. Perhaps it’s just reversion to the mean (in performance) - but there are many examples of it happening.1 It’s possible to see this reversion to the mean in the performance of ‘star’ fund managers who have a few stellar years of performance, rake in lots of funds and then crash and burn, losing everyone’s money in the process (but usually getting paid themselves all the same).
In the cement industry, it is possible to see examples of hubris with alarming regularity. The current global clinker overcapacity crisis is classic hubris: everyone aims for self-aggrandisement through adding and adding new capacity, but in the end they suffer, as does everyone else. Perhaps humility is the way forward. When Jeans Jenisch, CEO of LafargeHolcim, sold the company’s assets in Southeast Asia, it could have been seen as a loss of face, since these were previously thought of as almost the family jewels. However, seeing the assets instead as a loss-making, CO2-producing liability makes it easier to bite the bullet and to redirect the cash elsewhere.
What might the industry look like if everyone acted with humility? Perhaps competitors might recognise the ultimate futility of fighting against each other, and make a much earlier tie-up (at more realistic valuations), in order to enjoy more synergies and savings (and profits). Perhaps today’s competing cement companies might combine their capacities, closing the most expensive, most polluting and/or least profitable plants, and concentrate on making cement with lower environmental impact and higher profitability. We are starting to see some hints that this could be a new trend, reflected in our monthly news. It requires some humility on the parts of the participants in any deal, but everyone would win in the end.
If you don’t believe me, look at China. From a situation of overcapacity from small, inefficient and low quality plants, the government obliged the industry to rationalise and this has now resulted in technologically-advanced production from large and now very profitable cement plants.
If pride comes before a fall, then perhaps humility comes before success.
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_Illustrated_cover_jinx
