Escape From Excellence

Let’s start with a useful tool that supports a big idea: you can download a handy summary chart that outlines and expands the information in this blog postby clicking here. Look for the document entitled Costs of Failure, Mediocrity and Excellence.

We always say that mastery, and specifically Leadership Mastery, is different than excellence in kind, not in degree. So today we’ll talk about how excellence differs from failure and mediocrity in degree, not in kind. In other words, excellence is on the same continuum with failure and mediocrity, it’s quantitatively different from them, but not qualitatively different (like mastery is). And so excellence is always threatened with devolving back to mediocrity or even failure. Being excellent means riding a roller coaster.

If you’re excellent, congratulations. Unfortunately, you are now in the Excellence Trap. Excellence is the largest hidden cost in business. I discuss that in detail elsewhere, but here I’ll just show you what excellence looks like at 30,000 feet compared to failure and mediocrity. Here are a few examples…Return on Investment: In failure, we have lost whatever we have invested. Poof. In mediocrity, we settle for a weak returns, just getting by, barely keeping up. But in excellence, all is not well either. Of course it’s much better than failure and mediocrity, and should be aspired to. Nevertheless, as we experience the Five Costs of Excellence, achieving anything more than marginal returns or incremental change proves elusive, and too often we then seek substitute or compensatory rewards (status and wealth markers, perks, ego strokes, power, escapist activities, pointless distractions, political gain, and sometimes self destructive behaviors).

 Resources: In failure, resources are inaccessible. We simply don’t have “credit” of any kind. In mediocrity, our resources our reduced; personal resources are on a low burner, and access to resources follows suit. We’ve found our level, and that’s that. But in excellence, we have resources and access to even more resources, but as the Excellence Trap takes hold, our resources become over-taxed, stretched too thin, leading to depletion and all the other Costs of Excellence.

Alignment: In failure, we are unaligned. No vision, no alignment. In mediocrity, we are misaligned. We have plans and skills, but we lack the vision, focus, expertise, and attraction to align ourselves or others in any effective way toward any meaningful goal. But in excellence, once we cross the Falling Point and succumb to the inevitable Costs of Excellence, alignment is elusive and fleeting, because it is usually a function of mere effort and will (not energy and attraction). So in excellence, we are counter-aligned, because each person we know seeks to align us with their own agenda, not their vision, and we do the same to them, until someone “wins.” This isn’t aligment, it’s conformity. And conformity kills…innovation, proactivity, enthusiasm, and more. Organizations are full of counter-alignment and conformity, and it’s the job of Leadership Mastery to get past it.  

You get the idea. As we reach excellence, it’s up up up. But once we get there, and the Excellence Trap takes hold (which it always does, by definition), we find that we are hitting a wall on many fronts. We try the Five Failed Strategies of Excellence, and then Leadership Mastery beckons. It’s then time to make a qualitative shift for exponential change and limitless resources.

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