Mediocrity is not just a passive, average, and minimal attitude about doing as little as possible just to get by. It is also aggressive and harmful, ruining relationships and families and infecting work and entire offices.

It includes active excuses and boredom, where one person sets a low standard strategy, and it is accepted when others follow and think, “If he can come in late, I can too. If they don’t need to attend meetings, I won’t either. It’s not my best work, but no one says anything. I still get paid.”

Soon, achievers and high performers are seen as troublemakers, not team players. Ganging up, bullying, sabotage, and all kinds of activities happen that work against positive leaders and producers. Call it group resistance – active-passiveness, or ‘collectively enforced mediocrity.’

I was once criticized by my fellow workers in a sales job for doing too much and being a brown-noser. Even my manager said my work ethic and production made others in the office feel they were not doing enough. They were asking and trying to manipulate me to be less myself, not to work so hard, to back down, and to dim my lights. Good enough seemed to be the standard that many people preferred. I moved on from this toxic environment.

Mediocrity is resistance. Steven Pressfield, in his great book – The War of Art – describes it this way:

“Resistance by definition is self-sabotage. But there’s a parallel peril that also must be guarded against: sabotage by others. Often couples or close friends, even entire families will enter into tacit compacts whereby each individual pledges (unconsciously) to remain mired in the same slough of mediocrity in which he and all his cronies have become so comfortable. The highest treason a crab can commit is to make a leap for the rim of the bucket.”

Where have you experienced this or seen aggressive mediocrity happening?

Thanks – Michael (he, him)

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This also matters – The Linchpin Team.

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