Tag Mediocre

The Problem with Rewarding Mediocrity

Steve Keating 1 Comment

This could be the longest post I’ve ever written if I actually listed all the problems with rewarding mediocrity. But in the interest of time I‘ll just talk about the biggest one. 

First of all, Authentic Leaders do not, ever, reward mediocrity. They hold their people to a high standard. Not an unreasonable standard but one which will require their people to push themselves from time to time. 

Lessor leaders and people who merely occupy a leadership position often do reward mediocrity, even if it is unintentional. They can’t push themselves so the standards they set for themselves are not exactly high either. Since they accept their own mediocre results they are more willing to accept them from others as well.

But that does not benefit anyone. Not the supposed leader. Not the people they supposedly lead. Not the organization where they are working. It especially does not benefit people who already possess the desire, energy and motivation to push themselves towards greatness. 

Those people will only tolerate watching the mediocre performance of others being rewarded for so long. Soon enough they take their efforts somewhere else. When mediocrity is consistently rewarded in an organization it results in many of the organization’s top performers heading for the exits at the first opportunity. 

Years ago when I was working with the Dale Carnegie Organization we had a company we were working with that was concerned about the disparity in the pay between their top performing salespeople and their poor performing salespeople. So they decided to put all of their commissions into a pool and divide them evenly between all the salespeople. 

Their thinking was that it would build a greater sense of team. They believed that the salespeople would hold each other accountable for greater effort. They were certain it would make their sales organization much more collaborative. 

We tried to dissuade them from this plan. They were convinced it was a great idea. They could not have been more wrong. A plan like that looks good a paper, I could understand why they thought it could work. But plans made in a vacuum hardly ever survive their first contact with air. 

When the company’s leadership introduced the plan the poorer, mediocre salespeople were thrilled. The top performers were dead set against it. I don’t know anyone who couldn’t have predicted that response from the people working their butts off to succeed. 

Within weeks of the plan being implemented not a single salesperson who had hit their quota in the past 24 months remained with that company. Mediocrity had been rewarded and mediocrity was all that remained. 

If you’re going to Authentically Lead your people you’re going to have to figure out, often by directly asking, what motivates them and then use that information to encourage them to push themselves forward. 

You’ll need to hold everyone accountable to the standards of excellence that lead to success. And you can only reward the people who meet those standards. 

When you reward mediocrity you will get more of it. If you reward it often enough then one day you’ll wake up to discover that mediocrity IS your new standard of excellence. Except you, and your team, will be a long ways away from true excellence.

Want more of LeadToday? I’m changing things up on my Twitter feed for subscribers. On March 2nd I began publishing two videos each week focusing on an element of Authentic Leadership. I’ll post these videos each Tuesday and Thursday morning. They will be about 10 minutes long so we can get into the topic in a more meaningful way. The investment for subscribers in still only $5 a month. That’s for at least 80 MINUTES of quality video content on leadership a month. 

If you’re interested in taking a look head on over to my Twitter profile page. If you’re not a follower yet just hit the follow button. It will change to a subscribe button and once you hit that you’re on your way. You can cancel at any time you’ve decided you have nothing left to learn about leading the people who you count on for your success. 🙂

Here’s the link to my Twitter… https://twitter.com/leadtoday 

Good Enough Seldom Is

Steve Keating 8 Comments

One of the greatest obstacles to success in life is the acceptance of “good enough.”

Once you allow “good enough,” also known as mediocrity, into your life or business you will most certainly have aspects of your life or business that are mediocre. You may believe or you may have been told that “good enough” is just fine but it is not fine. Are you really okay with a life partner who is “good enough?” “Good enough” becomes a terrible habit that holds you back from the life that you deserve. “Settling” for less than you know you’re capable of is a bitter pill to swallow. It’s aftertaste is even worse. It’s nearly impossible to get rid of the taste of mediocrity and the sad thing is, it can’t get into your life unless you allow it. 

If you want success, however it is that you define success, then don’t allow mediocrity into your life. 

That little sentence there, the one just above this one in italics, that sentence is 1000 times easier to write than it is to accomplish. Moving past “good enough” on the road to success is hard. It’s tiring. It’s complicated. It’s expensive, both in terms of commitment and sometimes financial expense. Most of all, it can be lonely.

It can be lonely because despite the fact that nearly everyone claims to want success few are actually willing to do want it takes to achieve it. The “extra mile” is the part of the road to success that never sees a traffic jam. 

The hardest part of that extra mile is the very first step. But what a great step it is. When you take that first step you have instant separation from all the people gathered at the “good enough” camp. With the crowd thinned out you can see just how bright your future really is.

The secret to advancing to the extra mile is a well thought out set of goals. To achieve your full potential you will need goals in several areas of your life. You’ll need financial goals, career goals, family goals, health goals, self-development goals and perhaps spiritual goals.

You need goals in several areas of your life because however you define success for your life you will almost certainly want some balance in your life. I’ve known many accomplished business people who had horrible family lives… in their heart of hearts they would not call themselves successful. Goals truly provide you with the opportunity to succeed in multiple areas of your life all at once.

If you do a Google search you’ll find many programs that can help you set and achieve your goals but be prepared to invest some serious time on this process. Setting meaningful goals requires a good understanding of your core values, those principles in your life that truly matter. 

Once you’ve identified what’s important in your life you’ll know where to set your goals. Once you’ve identified what’s important to you you’ll also have a much better chance of achieving those goals. 

The vast majority of goal setting fails because people don’t first identity their core values. Don’t make this common mistake, when your goals matter to you personally your much more likely to take that first step on the extra mile. 

Mediocrity is a choice, it’s a choice you most certainly do not want to make….so don’t!