The Enemy of Excellence

"Minimalism breeds mediocrity.  It is the destroyer of passion.  Minimalism is one of the great character destroyers of our time.  It is the enemy of excellence and a cancer on society.  The problem is, culturally we encourage minimalism."        ~Matthew Kelly - The Rhythm of Life

It's hard to get people to do what you want them to do, isn't it?  Life seems to teach you that you're not going to be able to get others to work to the level of excellence that you'd like from your employees.  You start out with high ideals and then reality sets in and you begin to lower your expectations.  After all, not everyone is raised the way you were, not everyone is as passionate as you are, and let's face it, your employees don't benefit financially as much as you do, so how can you expect them to give so much?  If that's what you tell yourself, you've given up.

In The Rhythm of Life Matthew Kelly discusses the effects of minimalism on individuals and society in general.  He says that minimalism eats away at character, therefore impacting society negatively, and creates low self-esteem as the consequence not of failure, but of not even trying.  "A person gripped by the mind-set of minimalism becomes very self-seeking and contributes little to the common good..."

What is the mind-set of a minimalist?  "What is the least I can do?  What is the least I can do and still keep my job?"  We see this all the time among staff in a dental practice.  You have your A-players.  They are your best staff members.  They're the ones you know you can depend on to go the extra mile, give a little more, work a little later, keep at it until it's done and done well.  You don't even have to ask, they see what needs to be done and they do it.  

Anything else is minimalism.  I don't see any middle of the road between striving for excellence and anything less.  You can't strive for mediocre any more than you can strive for just enough.  Striving means working toward a goal.  The least I can do to get by is not a goal, it's merely survival.  It's clinging to someone else's best and hoping they'll carry you along, too.  The problem is, there's no satisfaction in it.  Sooner or later, resentment will creep in.  The person who has passion in her work will get sick and tired of the one who is dragging them, and the rest of the team down.  They will lose respect for the person who is supposed to uphold the standards and pretty soon they'll either lose their passion and forget about excellence, or they'll move on to another place where passion and excellence mean something.  The minimalist is also going to become resentful of the hard worker.  Come on, if she didn't work so hard, the minimalist wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb.  It's amazing how much effort the minimalist can put into discouraging someone else from striving for excellence in order to be able to keep giving so little to the job.

I remember someone once telling me, "The devil you know may be better than the devil you don't know."  In other words, "if you think this employee is bad, just wait, the next one may be worse!"   For a short time, that thought paralyzed me.  I found myself hanging on to employees that just could not meet the standards we expect in our practice.  I worried about patient perception concerning turnover, and I worried that the next person would be less capable than the one they were replacing.  I heard other managers voicing the same concern for their practices.  Then I realized that this fear was actually supporting minimalism.  If we allow fear to keep us from striving to build our practices with people who strive for excellence, aren't we guilty of minimalism ourselves?  We have to have the courage to do the unpopular thing.  Patients may lament about the sweet front desk person you replaced, because that's the extent of their experience with her.  You may dread training a new employee because it takes a lot of time and effort, but that's what excellence demands.

Strive for excellence in yourself when interviewing and hiring.  It's easy to be taken in by someone with a great personality, wonderful appearance and who says all the right things.  Let's face it, it's easy to say the right things.  The answers that an interviewer would want to hear are pretty obvious.  You have to verify everything.  Call references and call past employers.  Don't brush off intuition or a feeling that something isn't quite right.  Do the work at the beginning to give yourself a better chance of hiring well.

"What is the most I can do?"  Begin by asking this of yourself and then ask it of everyone else.  What is the most you can do?  Listen carefully for the answer and therein lies character and passion.