Every ounce of reasonable thinking says that mediocrity and excellence cannot co-exist. Yet many businesses in T&T continue to test this principle. The verdict is clear. Far too many businesses oscillate between mediocrity and excellence. Some days they function superbly and on other days, even the simplest task seems impossible. Anchoring firmly on the excellence end of the scale remains elusive.
Escaping the gravitational pull of mediocrity is a real challenge for many businesses. Why? Because it requires low effort. It’s not the resource rich investment in people, systems and culture, demanded by excellence. Additionally, when low effort continues to attract acceptable levels of revenue, whilst still maintaining market competitiveness, there’s less urgency to pursue a superlative goal. Being in the crosshairs of high and low performance becomes a comfortable space. There’s a catch though. Comfort breeds slippage into complacency. Over time, the degradation is so innocuous that it’s easy to go undetected. That is, until it becomes seemingly overnight, a big problem.
Comfort breeds slippage into complacency.
In this pendulum-centric landscape, customers are the biggest losers. They face unpredictable experiences and become trained to live in the space between mediocrity and excellence. Businesses often miss the reality that customers evolve faster than they do. This lag means the experience usually trails expectations. Customer experience is seldom approached from a design perspective. People, processes, systems and technology, must be engineered to co-exist as moving parts in an ecosystem that delivers delight. A good idea would be for leaders to commit to design thinking.
To escape experience mediocrity, businesses must possess a hunger for excellence, leadership finesse and patience for the long game of disciplined effort. Episodic bursts of enthusiasm for short-term wins should be rejected. Instead, leaders must embrace the slow build-up of long-term, best practice. Discipline around accountability for high standards and reinforcement of cultural norms, must become daily practice.
Mediocrity thrives in cultures where low effort, inconsistency in standards, irregular performance practices and operational drag, are tolerated.
Mediocrity thrives in cultures where low effort, inconsistency in standards, irregular performance practices and operational drag, are tolerated. It thrives where hunger for continuous improvement is absent. Most of all, it thrives where excellence is not associated with the identity of a business or its people.
A word of caution. The will to drive excellence as a way of life, is not a common leadership feature. Many leaders pursue high-stakes targets that are centered around profitability, revenue and sales. Sales success becomes associated with professional survival, while other domains of leadership are neglected. Leaders must broaden their definition of success and stop equating survival with sales, in a disproportionate way.
Moving from persistent toggling between mediocrity and excellence, requires that war be declared on comfort and complacency.
Transitioning to excellence is never a walk in the park. Leaders often preach change. They extoll its benefits and position themselves as champions of the new way. Yet many lack the credibility and expertise to lead transformation. Some are so entrapped in the comfort of their own dominance style, that they fail to model new ways. They isolate employees who resist change. They adopt task-oriented approaches, rather than human-centered ones.
Moving from persistent toggling between mediocrity and excellence, requires that war be declared on comfort and complacency. These are enemies of growth. The leaders who are brave enough to lead this charge, will be those who make excellence a cornerstone of their identity, and by extension, the identity of the businesses they have the privilege to lead.