Imagine a few conversations like these in various organizational set-ups:
Conversation 1 between two employees
Employee A (Senior Manager): This is outstanding! I think this approach is what we should be taking hence forth. It is effective and gives us the results. Don’t you agree M?
Employee M (Reporting to A): Yes A, this is a great way to do things. But this is something that I had done two years back. I thought you would know that it is not new and we have doing something like this in the past.
Conversation 2 between two employees
Employee B: There is this new way of doing marketing. There is a case study that exists out there. You should check it out.
Employee M: You are getting amazed by this new way? I thought you would be aware of this new way since a long while and hence I never even discussed this with you.
Employee B: No, this is new stuff for me. I wasn’t aware. This is quite cool.
These are just a few examples of a few conversations. There would be many more that would be taking place on a regular basis in some of your organisations.
While lack of awareness of a new tool or a new way is understandable and different people get to know about it at different times, but the problem starts appearing when one of the employee uses a certain tool or way of doing things and assumes that it is no big deal and not worth talking about, whereas the same tool or approach then gets lauded by various people in the company some time later when someone informs about its utility and how they have leveraged such a method.
The question that comes to mind is ‘Who should be blamed? Should it be the employee who did not talk about his new approach and make a big hoo-hah about it or should it be the other employees who suddenly express surprise and amazement at an idea or a method that the other employee has been using and implementing for quite a while without bothering about talking about it?’
The fact of the matter is that there is so much of mediocrity all around the system that everyone delivers and works basis that standard of mediocrity, and then that standard or approach becomes a norm. This norm then gets broken by two kinds of people:
1. A person who is above the mediocre level and who doesn't follow the norm but rather does certain breakthrough ideas that go beyond the norm. For him, these breakthrough ideas also appear to be so obvious that he forgets to even talk about them or sell his approach to the organization.
2. A mediocre person who picks up one of the breakthrough idea from somewhere, quite a while since it has been in use and them is amazed at the results that he achieves from such an idea that he tells everyone about this idea.
A person who is above the mediocre level gets frustrated at two points:
1. When he sees others around him living, thriving and enjoying the mediocrity without bothering to change. This person then goes ahead and implements his ideas to get results, but even these ideas seem so obvious that he forgets to make a story about it.
2. When he sees a mediocre person, suddenly waking up to a new and better style of working and then taking the appreciation of all his peers and seniors for changing the norm and style within the organization. It is usually this person who walks away with all the adulation, promotion and the tag of being a ‘Genius.’
If this person wants to get out of this frustration trap, he has two choices: Either to become mediocre like everyone else or open the eyes of others to mediocrity by showcasing his ideas, his approach and his style to the world.
What that also means is that, if he is a genius who thinks that what he is doing is nothing but mundane, which everyone ought to be doing anyway, then he should stop thinking of his work as mundane and project and sell his work to the organization so that this malaise of mediocrity can be ridden of, and this genius can get what he ought to deserve.
So here’s to a new year of 2015, a year where the mediocre move up and the genius move down so that the entire organization benefits!
