Escape From Excellence

We see it all the time. Hardworking, achievement-oriented, capable, and experienced people experiencing the pain in the Excellence Trap. This means enduring the Five Costs of Excellence that add up to the largest hidden cost in business (and in life): Depletion, Compromise, Incrementalism, Misalignment and Egoism. No one likes this very much, so humankind has developed five popular strategies for dealing with it. The problem is, they all fail to deliver us from excellence. In fact, they only make it worse. We call them the Five Failed Strategies of Excellence and will discuss them in detail below.  The good news is this: if you are experiencing the limits of these strategies, you’re ready to escape from excellence and experience Leadership Mastery.

The Five Failed Strategies are these: Denial, Toughness, Acceptance, Escapism, and Balance. Let’s discuss each of them…

Denial says “tune out.” It ignores the reality of the limits, corruptions, and costs experienced in the excellence trap and merely treads water. This is the strategy of the weak.

Toughness says “tough it out.” It merely confronts the problem rather than solves it. Unlike denial, it accepts the reality of the challenge, it just ignores its impact. This is the strategy of the strong but foolish.

Acceptance sees “no way out.” It accepts defeat and diverts attention to focus on future fantasies, exit strategies, and lowered expectations. This is the strategy of the dreamer.

Escapism wants to “drop out.” It leaves the game rather than working to change it. This is the strategy of the quitter.

Balance is a “cop out.” It is the mother of all failed strategies, but very popular these days. If you are “seeking balance,” stop now! You have been sold a bill of goods. Balance juggles everything and accomplishes nothing. It seeks to manage the situation rather than change the game. This is the strategy of the duped.

We can spend a lifetime working with these failed strategies, but the only way to get past the costs of excellence is to escape from excellence, by making the qualitative shift to Leadership Mastery.

Categories: Best of This Blog, Excellence Trap, Five Costs of Excellence, Five Failed Strategies, The Excellence Trap | Comments RSS | Leave a response | Trackback |  Email This Post |