Defending Mediocrity

I have slowly been reading Seth Godin’s Tribes. This is a short book so I’m not sure why it is taking so long to read. However, it will be a focus in the next month during this break from class. Early in the book, Godin writes about the status quo. Interestingly enough, this has been on my mind as evidenced by some earlier blog posts. In his discussion on the status quo, Godin writes about mediocrity: “Defending mediocrity is exhausting.”

Defending mediocrity is exhausting.

What does this look like?

Well, whenever anyone presents data for dashboards such as up-time, productity, quality, or cost-to-produce, there has to be some kind of response:

“Oh, we just don’t have enough time.”

“Our people are too busy.”

“We don’t have the needed resources.”

Another example: Lately, many businesses are adjusting health insurance benefits to reflect health data from key measures (e.g., BMI, diabetes risk, heart health).

Again, there has to be some kind of defense:

“We don’t have time to exercise.”

“It is in my genes!”

What would happen if all of the hours defending mediocrity or the status quo were captured and used to change the world for the better?