The Sad Lie of Mediocrity?

Seth Godin:

Doing 4% less does not get you 4% less.

Doing 4% less may very well get you 95% less.

That's because almost good enough gets you nowhere. No sales, no votes, no customers. The sad lie of mediocrity is the mistaken belief that partial effort yields partial results. In fact, the results are usually totally out of proportion to the incremental effort.

Big organizations have the most trouble with this, because they don't notice the correlation. It's hidden by their momentum and layers of bureaucracy. So a mediocre phone rep or a mediocre chef may not appear to be doing as much damage as they actually are.

The flip side of this is that when you are at the top, the best in the world, the industry leader, a tiny increase in effort and quality can translate into huge gains. For a while, anyway.

As both an economist and former project manager, I'd have to partially disagree with Godin on this one. He makes a good point, but excellence (like anything else) always involves trade-offs. In project management, you have three constraints you always have to deal with -- time, cost, and quality. When it comes to managing a project, you have to prioritize one at the expense of the other two. So it is with many things in life.

Generally speaking I agree with Godin, but have a little beef with what he's saying. Taken to the extreme, no one would ever do anything at which they do not excel. I know people like this and they are rarely happy. Godin is correct that in some arenas, doing 4% less gets you 95% less. But there are other arenas in which doing 95% more only gets you 4% more. The wise man tries to discern between the two and applies himself accordingly.

As a better strategy, I recommend the economic way of thinking. Measure your efforts against your results and continue to work at whatever it is you're doing up to the point where the benefit no longer exceeds the cost. At that point, switch your efforts towards another margin and repeat. And don't be afraid of failure along the way. This is one of the best recipes for success I know.