Somehow our society seems to have lapsed into a culture of mediocrity. It seems that in everything we do standards of “minimum performance†tell us how far we have to go until we arrive at comfortable complacency. I’m told that this is negative thinking on my part and that it is typical of boomer mentality to think that excellence should be the goal of everybody. If that is true, so be it. I will wear it as a badge of honor because I sincerely believe it and reject the idea that wanting to rise above the norm is age specific. Meanwhile, my hot buttons are pushed almost daily by plodders who are satisfied to just get by and never rock the boat. Sometimes it is a colleague or coworker, but most aggravating of all is when it is that man in the mirror!
The Good Conduct Medal is awarded to any active-duty enlisted member of the United States military who completes three years of “honorable and faithful service,” meaning that they showed up and kept their nose clean. Not to disparage those who meet the standard and receive this award, consider the other end of the spectrum, the highest honor that can be awarded to someone in the military service, the Medal of Honor. It is presented by the President on behalf of Congress for “Conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his or her life above and beyond the call of duty.†The difference between these two people is not that they care any more or less, but that there is an obvious difference in the measure of a true hero.
I was recently reading about excellence in recruiting and the theme of the article regurgitated the universal claim that we need to be more responsive to candidates who seem to get lost in the shuffle. I think everyone agrees that problems exist in this area and many are actually trying to do something about it. The standard solution always seems to be to let an auto-responder do it for us. This is the minimum standard of acceptability. To fall below that mark is not acceptable, but to consider the standard as the best we can do is to simply be a plodder. Institutionally, many companies are not willing to even invest in complying with the minimums, thus the problem continues and the plodding is not only continued it is encouraged. Heroes will go above the call of duty and do something extraordinary to fix problems even if it means personal sacrifice or expense. How many corporate recruiters go the extra mile to expedite a candidate experience even at the expense of their career? I know a few. I also know that the non-boat-rockers will get by and plod their way to good performance appraisals by just showing up.
Unfortunately, one of the comments to that article was from a job seeker who jumped onto the bandwagon attacking the process, recruiters and just about everyone else in general saying, “Is that all we can expect? An auto-response?†My knee jerk reaction to his comment was to tell him, “Yes, if you are not one of the best!†but better judgment prevailed and I said nothing in reply. In fact he does deserve more. I can’t assume that he was also a plodder, a C-Student, a mediocre player caught up in a relentless paper mill. The problem is that we have trained him to “expect†more from our entitlement society that promotes the idea that anyone who wants something should get it. Little Charlie should get Willie Wonka’s golden ticket because he wants it more than anyone else. By the way, I hate the message that movie gives kids! Is it about positive thinking or entitlement expectations? Positive thinking without action is plodder mentality.
There is a solution to the problem of Mediocre vs. Mediocre with nobody ever winning. It is for the heroes to step up and set the example. It is possible, even probably, that we cannot all be heroes, but we can at least act heroic. Otherwise, we are only “shining†examples of mediocrity rather than the “ordinary†mediocrity which is not a big improvement at all. Striving for excellence may not produce excellence, but not striving is certain to guarantee the continuous evolution of plodding.