Stop glorifying individual mediocrity

Jony Ive, Apple’s famed designer, once asked Steve Jobs to be gentle with his feedback to staff.

It’s no secret that Steve could be brutal with his observations and Jony was worried about the impact it was having on the psyche of his staff.

Steve asked Jony why he was concerned.

Jony said he didn’t want his team to get hurt.

“No, you’re vain, because you want them to like you,” said Steve.

Steve didn’t care if people liked him as long as the product quality didn’t get compromised.

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Organisational mediocrity has been a perennial problem since industrial revolution and that’s why we have more mediocre products than great products.

It’s easy to call out a company or an institution for their lack of attention to detail or emphasis on quality.

But when you do the same to an individual, alarm bells start ringing so loud that they muffle your voice. You’re asked to tone it down and be cool with it.

People get hurt, more so these days and one needs to watch out lest they blurt out the truth no one wants to hear.

Now, I am not asking you to become Jobs 2.0 and not care about the sharpness of your feedback.

I am, however, asking you to take individual mediocrity seriously and not let it slide under the rug because you couldn’t find the right words to voice it. Believe it or not, this is a major problem in all kinds of organisations, from the smallest to the biggest.

Mediocrity is so pervasive that it has become a habit. So much so that even when you’re a one-person business, with no one to boss you around and point out your subpar work, you start lying to yourself about the quality of your work.

Deep down you know you can do better but you succumb to the spell of this mediocrity habit.

The only way to break this spell is to start practicing ruthless self-reflection.

Of course, if you’re blunt with such feedback to others, you’d likely be called rude and difficult to work with. It’s an occupational hazard for people who can’t stand mediocrity and cannot curtail that tide of innate desire to do something about it, to help that other person shed their limiting beliefs and do better and help in making a high-quality product.

If you’re one such person, I feel you.

Not everyone will understand you. You’d be called pedantic. Mad, even.

Don’t worry though, because there would be some people who’d willingly suffer through your supposedly harsh statements and get groomed by you to understand what quality truly is and how to practice it every day to do their best work.

These proteges of yours will then take that mantle forward and groom a few more. And then some more.

And soon, hopefully, the world will stop glorifying individual mediocrity and let everyone do their best work.