There’s a lot of mediocrity in the working world. I would like to say that it’s a new thing, that maybe unions helped to create it or promote it, but I can’t. I would like to say that it’s the byproduct of our generation, that Gen-X’ers don’t care about anything anymore, but I can’t. I would really love to blame the educational system for this lack of skill or initiative, but I can’t.

Mediocrity
mercurialn via Compfight

When all is said and done, and history is evaluated, one has to realize that mediocrity is not only the norm, but a necessity. Without mediocrity, nothing gets done. It takes great brains to design a skyscraper that can withstand an atomic blast, but it takes a lot of mediocre people to put that skyscraper together. It takes a lot of education to design a vehicle that will get 50 miles to the gallon, but it takes a lot of mediocre people to put those cars together.

Some might want to argue the point about mediocrity, but when you think of things in a certain way you come to some truths that just can’t be debated. For instance, no matter how many people become doctors each year, someone had to be the lowest ranked person in class. The same goes for lawyers; how many of them barely passed the bar?

Many years ago, I took a civil service exam for a position that I already had, and I got to keep that same position because I was the only one who passed the test, barely. The test had nothing to do with the work I was doing, so I was lucky. No matter how outstanding I might have felt about the work I did, I had to say that I was mediocre on the test, but it was good enough to maintain the position I was already in.

Why the dissertation on mediocrity? When we look at why there are problems with leadership and management in business today, why there are so many bad decisions, you can’t begin that discussion without taking a look at the people who are making those decisions. I have seen estimates that say that in an average organization of 200 employees or more, the percentage of employees who are considered as outstanding, not separating upper management (they never evaluate themselves in public) is less than 3%. This means that for a company with 200 workers we’re saying less than six. If you then look at one figure which states that, nationally, the ratio of employees to managers is 8:1, and you apply it only in numbers to that 200 figure, it say that the opportunity for outstanding personnel to be in management is less than 30% (6 of 22), and if you say that at least one of those outstanding employees is a regular employee, you’re now down under 25%. I would venture to say that you’re lucky if you’ve got half and half in each, which would bring my figure down even further, to around a 14% chance (3 of 22).

That’s not good, but it’s not overly condemning either, because outstanding is a difficult concept to get around. Just what does outstanding mean? Let’s use the Mensa figure, which means that outstanding means you’re in the top 2% across the board. Who wouldn’t want to be in the top 2% of anything? How many folks can say they’re in the top 2%, or have been in the top 2%, of something in their lives? Obviously very few; I’m glad to say that I’ve made the top 2% a few times in my life, including when I wrote my one book, where estimates are that less than 2% of people have completed a book they’ve started.

So, if you’re not in the outstanding category, are you mediocre? Possibly. Is it such a bad thing? Well, it depends on what you want to do with your life, or how you want to work with others. Mediocre doesn’t win championships. Mediocre doesn’t earn as much money. Mediocre does sometimes achieve positions of leadership, but only because the numbers dictate they must. Every once in awhile, mediocre makes it even further, staying under the microscope, and will attain the top positions; they never seem to last long, though.

Let’s come back to this word ‘mediocre.’ Being mediocre doesn’t mean you don’t want to learn anything. Being mediocre doesn’t mean you don’t have dreams and goals. Being mediocre doesn’t mean you’re not capable of doing good things, even great things at times. Being mediocre isn’t always a bad thing.

But if you’re going to be a true leader, mediocre just doesn’t cut it. People don’t like to follow mediocre; people want to follow someone they feel is strong, outstanding, dynamic, treats them fairly, and gives them opportunities to grow. No one aspires to be mediocre, and when they work for someone mediocre, people tend to believe they’re better than that leader, whether they are or not. If you’re working for someone you feel you’re better than, you’ll either try to work harder so that you can pass them, or not work as hard because you don’t feel you’re going to get noticed or respected, especially by someone they don’t respect as much because, well, they’re mediocre.

Let’s go back to the term of outstanding then. Are you in that special 2%? Have you tried to determine just what part of 2% you’re in, if you feel you need to get there? Let me say this; though I mentioned Mensa, you don’t have to be with the most intelligent people in the world to be outstanding. Many Mensa members lead very unproductive lives. You don’t have to know it all. You don’t have to be all to everyone. You don’t have to be perfect; even the valedictorian of your class probably got a B somewhere along the line.

What do you have to do? You have to try to be the best you can be at all times. Believe it or not, just trying to be the best you can be puts you in the 2% category. The great wisdom of Yoda will say “Do or do not; there is no try.” Since I’m not as wise as Master Yoda, I’m going to say that trying to be the best you can be is a pretty high goal. There are many people who really believe they’re trying, but they’re fooling themselves.

I had an employee once show me a letter she was going to send to a customer. I said it was unacceptable, and she said she tried. I disagreed, and I pointed out the mistakes. Many words were misspelled; the format was horrid. She hadn’t addressed the issue properly, which means she hadn’t answered the question. When I asked her what she was trying to say, what I got back wasn’t close to what she’d written, but was accurate. I asked her had she really given her best effort, or was she just trying to put something out so that she could say the issue was resolved? She took the letter back, rewrote it, and brought it back to me. Every word was spelled correctly, she had written down exactly what she’d said to me, and even the formatting was proper, because this time she had looked at some examples of office memos I’d written, always in proper business format. I praised her for the new letter, and said “See what you can produce when you really try?”

In my opinion, that day she learned a good lesson, and she took the step up from mediocrity towards being outstanding. No, it didn’t last, because she lacked the drive to want to continue being outstanding. And that’s sometimes the problem with mediocrity; a person has to always continue wanting to be more, and sometimes they just aren’t ready for it at the time. It takes a lot of work to try to be outstanding. But that was okay, because she wasn’t a supervisor or a manager; she was an employee, and I needed employees, aka workers.

Mediocre, or outstanding? Which one would you prefer to be? Even for a moment, being a two-percenter isn’t such a bad thing. For that matter, according to my friend Kelvin, being a three-percenter isn't such a bad thing either.