“Simply the Best:” The theme for a Global Marketing Leaders Event organized last week by one of our clients. “Simply the Best” with a sub theme of “Great is never good enough.”
Speakers, workshops, discussion—all pushed to raise the bar, to intensify their thinking, collaboration and execution and to increase the value they add to their own organization.
The bottom line is that you can’t declare victory…ever…there is always room to grow; always something to learn; always some new mountain to conquer and envelope to push the edge of.
Which led me to the following thought:
“Put up with it and you will get more of it.”
~Lynne Deal
If you put up with poor behavior, with settling for what you have instead of going the final mile, if we let our clients and friends and significant others off the hook and worse if we let ourselves off the hook, we will get what we deserve…more of it….
Don’t put up with it. And, don’t let others put up with it…..
A perfect circle – Once achieved cannot be made more perfect. You can work within the parameters of that circle, changing colour, texture or outline, but once you start altering the structure its perfection is lost. Push an edge here or there and it becomes an oval. In eastern culture perfection is admired and the challenge lies in maintaining its purity, in western culture, we try to push it beyond its design, its purpose, its perfection. Exceed expectations, over deliver, give 110%. Greatness lies in consistency of perfection.
Lester Wunderman created the circle, individuals add colour and texture and are charged with the responsibility of maintaining its perfection.
Plato (paraphrased) would have said that in the physical world a Perfect Circle can’t exist and is unachievable, as it is only (at best) an approximation of the idealized Form.
But is the best, the best you can do; the best that can be done; or simply better than all the rest?
If you’re doing it better than all the rest, but it’s not your personal best, have you failed? And if you’re giving it your personal best, but it isn’t better than all the rest, same question.
Ultimately, if you don’t give your friends and significant others a certain amount of slack and forgiveness for their flaws, failures and foibles, pretty soon, you won’t need to worry about them giving you back slack and forgiveness for yours.
There is an old Chassidic tale that tells the story of a righteous man who on his death bed becomes frightened of his final judgement. His students try and comfort him — you were as great, no greater than anyone in your generation; you were as kind and humble as the holy men of the past — why are you worried? His answer — While thta might be true my fear is that I am judged on whether or not I was as great as I could have/should have been. Did I meet my potential….
Opening gambit (usually undisclosed): En avant, contre la médiocrité…
Main theorem: Any attempt to dislodge or challenge mediocrity needs care and planning – and allies. And as well as knowing I’m on a campaign, I need to know I’m not wrong headed or distracted by emotion or trickery.
Corollary: Everyone has objectives, including those who seem to be manouvering in futile or apparently irrational directions. Some of them have survived a long time. Some even can look good in the short term while ultimately doing damage.
The solution may be simple, but finding it (and delivering it) usually isn’t.
The tailor’s rule: measure twice, cut once.
Tom (more egotistical than usual).
“Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people have mediocrity thrust upon them.”
Joseph Heller
more than usually cynical — David
There must be a role for mediocrity in evolution. Maybe it’s a test for good ideas, like a hard crust of soil is for emerging seedlings…
“They keep creating new ways to celebrate mediocrity” – Bob Parr
“Everyone’s special” – Helen Parr
Dash’s Corollary: “Which is another way of saying no one is”
“Everyone can be super. And when everyone’s super…no one will be” – Buddy
Yes Stephen, but I don’t see many who are conspicuously mediocre.
Way back when I was an academic, there were students who sat down the front and others who sat way up the back. Neither mob was in the mediocre band – many became friends.
But the mob hiding in the middle of the class were always in my sights. I felt a social responsibility to shake them from the comfort of anonymity, mediocrity and/or conformity. It seemed to work – but some hated me… …maybe I was wrong. It takes all kinds…
Tom.
Nixon’s silent majority? The deciders of many a contest — across cultures; countries; divides