Escape From Excellence

Thsi weekend, I devoured Walter Isaacson’s bestselling biography of Albert Einstein. This excellent book does a great job of helping us to understand both the science and the man. While Einstein was imperfect and a bit eccentric (he hated socks), his mastery is unquestionable. There were many excellent scientists in his circle who got close relativity, but Einstein had the decisive breakthrough primarily because he had escaped from excellence. He led with energy more than with effort (although his effort was herculean), and with intention rather than mere commitment. He also went beyond proficiency and expertise to attain true expression and perspective. And, even though his strategic moves are legendary, acumen was child’s play to him; he always sought wisdom in his science and denigrated science that lacked this wisdom.

But late last night, while in the last chapters, the elements of a new equation that explains so much of Einstein’s mastery leapt off the page at me. Here it is: C+A=W>M. To have fun wth symbols, let C be curiosity, let A be awe, and let W be wonder, with M as, you guessed it, mastery.

Einstein had a boundless curiosity, but it was always accompanied by an almost religious sense of awe. He was no mere puzzler, but needed to see to the heart of things. This curiosity and awe added up to a sense of wonder, a humble and almost child-like sense of that ’something more’ that transcends the mundane. And this wonder, even more than his technical genius, his brain, or his independance, is the driving force of his mastery. He had a sense of the beauty, of the possibility, of the sublime in nature, and he saw it as both his mission and his gift to understand nature, from atom to cosmos, and be devoted to it. He saw this as an act of artistic creation. This was his Dynamic Essence. He couldn’t not follow it. He built his life around it, and achieved mastery. The results were exponentially greater than what had come before. He also enjoyed, in his reknown, legacy, and “profit,” an exponentially greater reward. And with his unfailing good humor, he demonstrated that the costs of excellence were left far behind.

What a guy.

Like millions of others, I was shocked and saddened by the sudden and tragic death of NBC News Washington bureau chief and long-time Meet the Press host Tim Russert. As I took in the coverage from his passing to his memorial, and had a chance to listen the comments of his family, friends, and colleagues, it quickly became abundantly clear that Russert had escaped from excellence and achieved mastery, in a big way. Those who knew him were not merely mouthing the appropriate pro forma testiments to his professionalism, character, and success that we’d expect in circumstances like this. This was much more. This was another level. As a way to pay tribute, and to extend his legacy by holding him up as an example of mastery, let’s take a closer look.

First, Russert was clearly excellent. He is given wide credit for his effort, proficiency, expertise, commitment, and acumen, which together  comprise the Five Virtues of Excellence. His work ethic, preperation, knowledge, savviness, determination, standards, and skill are legendary.

But Russert was more. Close associates referred to his uncanny ability to build genuine relationships, to his unflagging good humor, to his inspiring yet demanding leadership, and credited him with those rare human qualities that clearly set the great ones apart. And former GE (NBC parent) CEO Jack Welch said he made sure Russert made more money too.

Russert was a master: he manifested the Five Markers of Mastery (fearlessness, gracefullness, generativeness, effortlessness, and intuitiveness), in spades. And he clearly had shifted to the Five Pillars of Mastery: Energy (the guy never lost his enthusiasm, and loved where he was and what he did; he never seem to tire); Expression (he was his own man, followed his own path, and spoke his mind, with dignity and joy); Perspective (he saw to the issue, beyond the facts, and mantained personal and professional vision); Intention (he used soft power, a feel for the truth, and a sense of mission to stand up to anyone and ask tough but fair questions, and was able to attract the people and resources to perform at his best), and Wisdom (he never lost sight of his task, his responsibility, and as a result got the job he was born for, set the standard by which others shall be judged, and left a professional and personal legacy that will be both inspiring and hard to match). He took great joy in the success of others, and in the needs of his audience, his fellow citizens. He lived and worked from his Dynamic Essence. And he enjoyed enormous and unexpected rewards.

 Tim Russert wasn’t the coolest guy, as it is defined by the tragically hip. He wasn’t edgy, dangerous, or personally glamorous, and this by choice. He didn’t wield power brutally (even though he held great power), chase the spotlight, show off, act puffed up, or take revenge for minor slights. But it would be wrong to think that he was only about humble blocking and tackling, merely excellent, much less merely a fortunate mediocrity. That would be a terrible misreading of his modus operendi, and gladly I’ve heard no one make this mistake. Instead, the combination of ease and outcome, of low cost and high return, that we saw in Tim Russert is evidence of true Leadership Mastery.

The only outstanding question is whether Tim Russert was one of those rare people who was simply born that way. Did he ever spend much time experiencing the high costs of excellence or wasting time with the five failed strategies of excellence? I suspect not. I believe he may have been one of those few who have mastery built-in to their makeup, and whose transition from excellence to mastery is seamless, apparently either hardwired into his very nature or, perhaps, becoming part of his awareness at a very early age.

As a master, in his job, he won’t be replaced, only succeeded. 

God speed, Mr. Russert. Your legacy will include your witness to mastery for all of us.

I can hardly believe it’s been almost a month since I last posted here. My excuse: I’ve been finishing my e-Book, Escape from Excellence. It’s finally complete, and we’re very proud of and excitied by the results.

It’s available for free immediate download right here. You can also check out the information page devoted to it here.

Escape from Excellence, the e-Book, collects in a brief and digestible format, all of our key thinking, experimenting, refining, and applying in real world engagements over the past four years (or twenty five years, depending how you look at it). Who needs the fluff and filler of a 300-page version? The book can be skimmed, but we worked hard to make it reward a close reading; we’ve tried to add value in every idea. And we’ve shared our entire model and all of our major ideas, excepting only those tools we use with our clients. We’ll be expanding on the ideas in the book with more thoughts, examples, and applications in this blog going forward.

We think we’ve created a genuine leadership breakthrough and built a better mousetrap. I could write the endless blog post, but enough said. Please check it out, pass it on, and use it jumpstart your escape from the high costs of excellence to the exponential rewards of Leadership, Enterprise, and Market Mastery. I think we’ve started somethign that will make a huge difference in your costs, rewards, innovation, performance, and enjoyment. And that of your entire company. You can read more here. Or contact us here.

All the best to you.

What is it about business and words that start with the letter P? We all remember the 4P’s of marketing (I’ll spare you another recitation), and I seem to remember four new marketing P’s coming along several years back. Last week, in a flash of P-inspired insight, I discovered the Five P’s of Leadership. Check it out…

The formula looks like this: Passion + Peace = Purpose >> Prosperity + Profit. This means when a leader has moved past both drive and rest, to have both passion and peace, they will clarify and deepen their purpose, which in turn leads to greater prosperity and profits. This is based on the key insight that the often-overlooked both-and relationship between passion and peace is the key driver of results. If you understand and apply that, you will be closing in on leadership Mastery, and you will enjoy a competitive advantage vs. those who never figure this out.

Challenge: First, too many of us are driven by a passion that never gives us any real peace (probably because this passion comes from our old friends, fear and ego). Consider this: how many seriously driven people do you know who seem to be actually compensating for something, or trying to prove a point? Do they seem healthy and well? Are they effective? I suspect not. But second, often when we experience what we call “peace” (but is actually really merely “rest”), we soon get bored and need to get back in the arena and do something! This is because we’re meant to be creating and doing; it turns out that we’re bundles of energy after all. But nonetheless, so many folks dream of retirement, work for the weekend, crave some serious R&R, or just need to trance out for a few minutes.

Solution: Passion and Peace aren’t an either-or; they are a both-and! In excellence, drive and rest fight with each other, but in mastery, they become Passion and Peace. In mastery, doing what you love to do and do best, getting to come from your passion, is itself peace. So we can be in motion or at rest, but in mastery we are always passionate and always at peace, at the same time! So while managing recovery  and pacing how we expend energy are crucial (in this regard, I like what The Energy Project is doing), this is limited to managing merely our capacity when we’re still in the Excellence Trap. Leadership Mastery gets past all that and combines Peace and Passion to successfully focus on our identity and Purpose. This focused drive is qualitatively different from what we experience in the Excellence Trap. It leads directly to the fourth and fifth P: Prosperity (personal flousishing) and Profit (return on investment and return on inspiration).

Summary: Drive and rest fight with each other when we are trapped in excellence. In Leadership Mastery, drive changes into passion, and rest changes into peace. They now feed each other, and this results in exponential increases in all desired personal and business outcomes.

Let’s talk about the crucial idea of the Falling Point. This is where the rubber meets the road, or really more like where the poop hits the fan. This explains just how and when the Excellence Trap gets us.

When we surpass the built-in limit of any of the Virtues of Excellence, which inevitably occurs, we reach the Falling Point. When this happens, our lifelong upward arc gradually takes a new direction, and at first we don’t even notice. This is the great irony of being excellent; eventually it bites us, and we don’t know why. But, like a subatomic particle or distant star, we can’t see it directly; we can only “see” it by its effects.

These effects include all the costs and challenges that we observe confronting those hardworking, well- intentioned, capable, successful, and excellent people we mentioned earlier: struggling to achieve the extra 5%, sustain peak performance and innovation, while confronting merely incremental change, marginal outcomes, limited advantage, and inconsistent inspiration, focus, and alignment with values and goals.

The Falling Point is sort of like the point of diminishing returns, except that it is really more like the point of incurring and accruing hidden and unnecessary costs. Big difference.

The moment we reach the Falling Point, on any one of the Virtues, the Corruptions of Excellence set in and the Costs of Excellence come racing behind. This explains why good people aren’t enjoying a life of mastery. And this is precisely what forces the choice between 1. falling back into mediocrity or 2. ascending to mastery, if you’re even fortunate enough to make the choice; most driven people just stick it out in excellence, not knowing what hit them, until the costs become too high. In the meantime, they ride the roller coaster, play the odds, and try to beat the clock, all the while wasting time with the Five Failed Strategies of Excellence.

But take heart, every master was there once. Then they escaped from excellence.

 Remeber this: We don’t cross the Falling Point because we have failed in any way. Quite the opposite. We only cross it if we are excellent! And that is how excellence traps us, every time.

Daniel Plainview, the character brought to life in a staggering performance by Daniel Day Lewis in Paul Thomas Anderson’s celebrated new film, There Will be Blood, is an outsized character of mythic proportion. So, while we are unlikely to meet someone like Plainview in real life, he presents a lesson, example, archetype, or “plain view” that speaks to all of us. I saw the movie recently, at the precise moment when I was searching for an easy way to communicate what the Excellence Trap is like, and how we come to be ensnared in it. Enter Daniel Plainview.

Daniel Plainview fancies himself a leader, a self-made man who will create something huge, create jobs, make history, and maybe even start a movement. When we first meet him, prospecting for oil, he embodies the Five Virtues of Excellence: Effort, Proficiency, Commitment, Expertise, and Acumen. He displays vision, tenacity, a willingness to take risks, and an admirable individualism and determination. Failure and mediocrity are simply not on his radar. At first, I like this guy, until he opens his mouth, 15-20 minutes into the movie, and we meet the monster he will become. While most people trapped in excellence are in no way monstrous like Plainview, he does show us, on a grand and mythic scale, what we are bound confront if we aloow ourselves to think that excellence is the end of the road. If we are excellent, we are unlikely to turn into the likes of Plainview, but we will confront the same dynamics, each in our own way. You can bank on that in the same way Plainview banks on himself and his oil.

Plainview’s problems set in when he reaches the Five Limits of Excellence, those built-in ceilings which undermine the positive aspects of excellence:

• His Effort is limited by his physical limits: he is merely a man and, to drive the point home, he is hobbled for life by an on-the-job injury. He reached this limit early on.
• His Proficiency won’t set him apart. He knows this, and so looks with seething rage upon anyone who has a measure of proficiency in his chosen profession of “Oilman,” from the executives of Standard Oil to, eventually, his own adopted son.
• His Commitment saps his strength, and in Plainview’s case, his soul as well. His mono-mania about success cuts him off from other people almost completely, he is often drunk or at the verge of rage, and he subjects himself and others to unnecessary hardships and dangers, far beyond any practical reasoning or benefit.
• His Expertise lacks vision. Early in the film, he appears possibly to have the makings of a visionary. But his ego, fear, greed, and paranoia cause him to miss opportunities or to see the larger picture. His isolation increases with each major episode in the film, as he manages to sucker people into his plans, but fails to attract anyone to a vision, because there is no vision to be seen.
• His Acumen reduces strategy to tactics. His obsession about competitive jockeying takes over his entire person, and he ends up bitter, alone, and un-admired (he calls his butler his “closest associate”). He has no allies, defenders, zealots, partners, and no lasting legacy other than violence, deceit, and hatred.

(more…)

We can get a good picture of the Excellence Trap by considering a story that a friend of mine recently shared. Like being trapped in excellence, it’s an experience that many of us will recognize. After spending five days bouncing around the country at 36,000 feet, touching down in various locations for sundry meetings, he approached the gate for his final flight of the week (his seventh), and quickly decided he had earned a bit of comfort. His ticket was in coach, and the flight was only a few hours long, but seeing the Friday afternoon crowd, feeling ragged, and very much looking forward to getting back to his nice new home, he got in line at the check-in desk, eventually reaching the gate attendant, and asked for an upgrade to first class, intending to redeem some frequent flyer miles. “I’m sorry,” the gate attendant said. “There are no first class seats available.” My friend was a bit taken aback, but quickly recovered. “Hey, wait a minute,” he said. “You don’t understand. I’m a member of the super-duper-constant-traveler-presidential-admiral’s club! This is one of my earned perks. Just look at my frequent flyer miles! So I’ll take my upgrade now please. Thanks.” “Very well, sir” replied the gate attendant. “There’s just one thing. Can you help me decide which of the other members of the super-duper-constant-traveler-presidential-admiral’s club now now waiting in the gate area, who have already checked in and upgraded, I should ask to be reassigned to coach?” My friend took his original seat.

Excellence is a lot like this. If you’re excellent, you’re a member of a club that is simultaneously elite and surprisingly crowded, and unless you look closely, these excellent folks all look sort of the same. After all, you’re not spending much time surrounded by mediocre performers. You’ve studied, achieved, and implemented what you knew would make you excel and succeed. And it did. So far, so good. But then, in the middle of living the excellent life, you look around and realize that a lot of other fine people received the same memo, that moving forward isn’t so easy, competitive advantage is harder and harder to come by, and big, sustainable, innovation and exponential growth start to seem like a memory, or a fantasy. It’s too bad but, like my excellent friend, reciting your credentials, kicking up a fuss, having to take no for an answer, lowering expectations, escaping into a nap, resigning to work during the flight in lieu of other options, putting on a stoic face, flashing the Rolex, or just demanding extra in-flight snacks all won’t cut it. You did all the right things your entire life, up to and including today, and now here you are stuffed into coach with a lot of excellent people in the same predicament. There has to be a better way. It was supposed to be better than this. And it can be: escape the Excellence Trap, change the game, and make the transition to Mastery. Mastery is like having that great seat waiting for you all the time. Either way, I hope this story helps you get a sense of how unacceptable and unworkable excellence can be.

Let’s stipulate that you, and most of the people you surround yourself with, can rightly be called excellent. As a basic definition, we’ll say that an excellent person is someone did or has had most of the following things:

• Good schools, good grades
• Good jobs
• Top companies
• Strong track record
• Powerful resume
• Significant responsibility
• Hard work
• Wise choices
• Terrific skills
• Commitment to success
• Good opportunities

Here’s the question: if this is so, then why is it that most of these same excellent people still struggle daily with a multitude of limits and a series of vexing challenges? These include sustaining productivity, consistently innovating, maximizing relationships, articulating a differentiating vision, leveraging competitive advantage, keeping it fun, and experiencing exponential increases in business outcomes and personal rewards. Add your own. Why do we settle for incremental change and marginal gains?

Is it just the way things are? Is it just the human condition? I say no! I say something is very wrong with this picture. We know that excellence isn’t enough, and we know that excellence, by its very nature, has built-in limits and unavoidable dynamics that actually contribute to the problem. That’s what makes it a trap. It’s like a Greek tragedy where the audience knows where this is leading, and it isn’t good. Well, the perspective of Mastery is like the audience. We see the trap that excellent people are in, but unlike a Greek audience, we can do something about it.

Here’s a bonus question: Is the entire industry devoted to maximizing success (including leadership development, management training, corporate shrinks, etc.) making a qualitative difference? Obviously not. The limits, challenges, and problems still exist, and the industry designed to help remains in place. Why aren’t the problems solved and the helpers out of business? We believe that it is because until now no one has understood how, why, and even that excellence is a trap, and no one has created a specific path out of the excellence trap and to mastery, specifically for leaders. We have, and we share all of our insights and knowledge about it on this blog. Look for our upcoming e-book, and if you want to access the tools that will help you, your team, and your enterprise make the change from excellence to mastery, you can visit us here.

Most leaders, corporations, and high performance individuals pursue excellence. But Excellence is a sham, a dead end, a trap. It’s also the largest hidden cost in business (as well as in life). And discovering the Excellence Trap is my once-in-a-lifetime, “big moo,” huge, breakthrough idea. It’s been five years since I moved past the “what’s wrong with this picture” or “something smells fishy” phase of discovery and innovation to formalize my thinking about what’s ailing us and what must be the solution, and three years since I’ve been working with senior leaders and organizations to do something about it. And I now believe more than ever that discovering and escaping excellence in order to make the qualitative shift to mastery is right up there with the wheel, sliced bread, the internal combustion engine, flush toilets, and plugging in the guitar regarding its power to make our lives and work better and richer.

And I mean richer, because you can also make a lot of money with it; if the Excellence Trap is the largest hidden cost in business, then the Escape from Excellence to reach Leadership Mastery is the greatest source of competitive advantage I’ve ever encountered (and for twenty years it used to be my job to find and leverage competitive advantage via business and brand ideas). I’ll share all the details in this blog, but let’s start with how I discovered the Excellence Trap.

It’s simple, if you’re obsessive like me and just won’t settle for settling. But it took many years of pursuing and achieving excellence to figure this out. The big “a-ha” moment came when two observations, based on evidence, intersected and created the big charge of insight (it’s the same both with electricity and all innovation and creativity, no?).

Excellence Isn’t Working

The first observation was this: Excellence isn’t working. Like many of the people I knew, I’ve spent most of my life working to achieve excellence (that is, to excel), and reaping the rewards. Schools, employers, career moves, good habits, hard work, intelligence, action orientation, you get the picture. And I got to watch many, many others doing the same thing, up close and personal. It was (and is) clear: excellence sure beats failure or mediocrity. However, I also saw, everywhere I looked, many clear signs that excellence wasn’t paying off as promised. For example, even with responsibility and rewards, we see everywhere the struggle to sustain innovation and output, to get that extra 5%, to keep motivation and morale high, to communicate effectively, to keep it fun, to make a difference, to leave a legacy, to succeed, to find the zone, to keep the ideas coming.

Forget TV’s hilarious “The Office,” and step into even the most successful organizations to see people struggling with depletion, unsustainability, destructive politics, stress, turbo-tasking, groupthink, useless meetings, rare true innovation, burn out, lack of balance, marginal change, and incremental growth. And also notice the countless experts and programs trying to fix it.

Newsflash: it doesn’t work. Most attempts at a fix achieve merely marginal change and just perpetuate the problem. As one client put it, “I thought when I had a C in my title, I’d be living large.” Sure, big house, fat paycheck, exotic vacations, powerful influence based upon position power. But day to day this client had a knot in his stomach and struggled with constant pressure from above and below, trying to get ahead of the fires, and all the while trying to innovate and inspire his team. And his company was the undisputed industry leader! I estimate that one person in a million doesn’t share the same challenges. So let’s get this straight: talented people + hard work + superb credential + great experience + experts = what? The marginal and incremental nonsense we see almost everywhere and everyday? Excellence still leaves a lot to be desired. As we’ll see, from the perspective of mastery, excellence is mediocrity with nicer shoes.

Excellence is the Enemy

The second big insight is this: Failure and mediocrity are the easy targets; excellence is the real enemy. I’ve closely studied the world’s great wisdom traditions, from every angle, for thirty years (I guess that makes me a leadership guru! Maybe it’s time to shave my head?). Here’s what they all say: the real enemy is excellence, and every major wisdom tradition the world over, from philosophy, to religion, to psychology, to folk wisdom, have at their core a message as well as a method, that goes to the heart of the matter: there is a qualitative shift we have to make that takes us to the next level. Any when we do, we experience exponential increases in all we care about.

It’s not about more work, more experience, more skill, more knowledge, greater luck, more drive, better advice, wiser counsel, or more perspective. It’s about something greater: a leap past fear, ego, white noise, and external agendas in order to identify and embrace who we, our teams, our organizations, our brands, and our markets are uniquely, what makes us jump out of bed in the morning, what we have that no one else has, and how we can bring it to everything we do. It works for leaders, but also for teams, organizations, enterprises, and even brands and markets. Without it, we’re just paying someone else’s mortgage and marking time. We’re going through the motions, chasing our tail, relying on effort, cleverness, and bluster, while minimizing or denying the costs. Or worse, and as we’ll see, we’re applying the virtues of excellence beyond their built-in limits, and hitting a wall.

Once we see excellence for what it is, a trap, we want a way out. Even if we seem to be doing well vs. failures and mediocrities, we now know better. Mastery will take us much farther, and with far less difficulty and far less damage. Simple words, but a profound shift. Very few get past excellence, and those that do so are likely to be famous, legendary, and often rich, whatever their walk of life or field of endeavor. Conversely, a leader trapped in excellence is just a technocrat or “manager” with a nicer office. And that won’t do.

The big idea is this: Excellence is a trap. It extracts a high price that adds up to nothing less than the largest hidden cost in business.

And this: Excellence has built-in limits that get worse over time, so the more excellent we get, the more we pay the price.

And this: you can’t escape excellence by being more excellent. You must escape it.

But here’s the good news: I’ve got excellence’s number. I know, specifically and in detail how it works, how it falters, how it entraps. And I know what to do about it, and how to get past it. So I’ll see you next time. Preview: it’s called Leadership Mastery. And it changes everything.