Mediocrity is no mere character flaw, but a deep tendency of the universe, to be ceaselessly fought, but with little hope of final victory. People and organisations hit plateaus not because they couldn’t do better, but because a plateau is tolerable, even comfortable place. Even the disciplined go-getter, who never stops, ends up doing unimportant stuff. McKeown’s 90% rule says that anything you do has to score at least 9/10 in the order of priorities for the day. If it doesn’t , leave it alone. Ideally, the criterion should be Epicurean: “does it enhance pleasure and peace of mind”, but “does it pay the bills?” might have to do.
This point of view is similar to the Peter Principle that in organisations people rise to their level of incompetence. Do your job well and. you’re rewarded with promotion, until you reach a job you’re less good at, where you will remain. (Oliver Burkeman , The Guardian Weekly, March 2015)
I took myself off in late career to business school, leaving the sales director to run the company. Within a year profits had slumped and morale had hit rock bottom. The company was in crisis. He was a good sales director and, to be kind, a mediocre boss who couldn’t grasp the fact that bosses have to work – harder than anyone else. We had to part company. It was ugly; it was my fault, an unwise decision all round. I had promoted him beyond his capabilities. It is hard to get through life without making at least one deeply regrettable decision. If you don’t maybe you haven’t lived.
On the other hand a friend of mine, repeatedly offered promotion, refused it because she felt she was good at what she did and might let herself and her organisation down if she took the offers. She stayed put and stayed respected. It is a wise person who says “no” .
Talented cogs in a bureaucracy may be a greater threat to social health than mediocre employees who keep their eyes on the fundamental purpose of the organization. That is, there is a universal tendency over time for employees and administrators to lose sight of or interest in the human needs for which the institution was created in the first place.
The plateau results from neglect by both talented and mediocre people of the basic purpose of the institution. Bureaucratized churches lose sight of the religious needs of their members, universities are captured by administrators who who aren’t remotely concerned with satisfying the intellectual needs of the young, military staffs rarely analyze actual security needs because there are huge rewards for keeping the system going. Fragmented economies are reduced only to the profit motive so that equitable distribution of economic goods and domestic tranquility (THE economic prerequisite) are ignored, communities which socialize the young and give us a sense of belonging are bulldozed leaving people deracinated.
In all these dysfunctional organizations there may be mediocrities or very talented individuals but the brave people are those who never lose sight of the purpose for which the organization came into being.
My guess is that the your floundering sales director didn’t understand much beyond his narrow field of expertise and so had no sense of how all the overall operation could succeed. If your friend who rejected promotion was in education, “promotion” probably meant “administration” and she knew her basic work was to open the minds of the young and administering, though meant more money, would likely have been a desicating work experience. I raise an Epicurean toast to her.