In the past few days, I’ve heard two fascinating things. At first, they seem very different, but when you think about them, the underlying issues are similar.
The first was was a quote from Tom Mendoza on The Learn-It-All podcast, “Nothing great has ever been done by people that don’t want to do it!’
The second was in a conversation with Brent Adamson. He shared the story of a CRO at a SKO. “The secret to your competitive advantage is Mediocrity!” The CRO went on to explain how all their competitors were committed to mediocrity, so all it took to stand out was being a little different, perhaps care a little more, perhaps trying a little harder.
We sometimes equate hard work with hours we spend working. In the old days, it used to be a badge of honor to brag about the 50, 60, 70, 80 hours we put in. Today, we’ve learned about work/life balance, so we put in our roughly 40 hours on our job, then we add another 10, 20, 30, 40 with our side hustles, fractional roles.
As we look at it, there isn’t a huge difference in the hours these high performers work, versus everyone else.
So what is the difference? How do these high performers have much higher impact than everyone else putting in the hours.
It seems to come from commitment.
Commitment stems from purpose, passion, and a sense of responsibility. It comes from a desire for mastery, being the very best at what they do. But it’s not static, they recognize they must continually learn, grow, improve, and adapt. Accompanying this, is a longer term perspective. It’s not a focus on this deal, this quarter, this year, but a commitment to achieve, making an impact over the long term.
And there’s the emotional investment. These people are not satisfied with putting in the hours. They are invested in success, now and in the future. They recognize that achieving success is not a solitary initiative, but it is only achieved through the support of and supporting others. They are driven by the success of the whole team. And they are passionate about this!
One doesn’t need to look at performance dashboards, over time, to recognize these people. They standout—not by the noise they make, but by their constant focus on getting things done. In my experience, some of these have been among the more quiet in an organization, they just do the work, engaging others with their energy and passion.
Selling, regardless of the role one has, is one of the toughest and most demanding jobs I can imagine. I cannot imagine being a seller without this unequivocal commitment. Stated differently, you will never accomplish anything great in selling (or in life) if you aren’t all in and totally committed to what you and your team is trying to achieve.
And I believe everyone has this potential. If we want to find it, it’s not that hard to find.
Recently, I was having conversation with an outstanding sales professional. He had been hired into an early-mid stage company. They had impressed him with their ambitions, customer base and offerings. He knew he could make a huge contribution. And in his first months, he brought in a customer having the potential to double the revenue. But things stalled. He kept trying to energize the rest of the organization, to engage them in achieving their potential.
It wasn’t the words they were/weren’t saying. Everyone in the organization had aspirations for success, growth, scaling. In the end, they didn’t want to do the work. No one would state that, but when they put together action plans, they did nothing. They continued to be diverted by the day to day, they were happy with being just good enough.
As this seller and I spoke, he was questioning himself and his abilities. As we drilled into it, he came to recognize he was just in the wrong place. The current organization was a bad fit. The commitment, purpose, and passion of the organization was very different from his. He decided the best course of action was to find and organization whose commitment to the work matched his.
I share this example, because it seems so common. Maybe we are in the wrong job. Rather than being in selling, we have a greater passion in product development, finance, HR (OK, I’m stretching it). Or maybe we are in the wrong industry, the wrong company.
There may be a temptation to put good/bad labels in this. This is rarely the case, it’s more likely different focus, purpose, values. For example, in my own career, I became known as a turn-around expert. I would be put into the most difficult situations, with the responsibility of turning it around. There was nothing more exciting to me to be working with a team on these very difficult problems. Where some might have seen the work as energy draining, I found it energizing.
But when we succeeded, I found myself bored and uninspired. We weren’t doing the things that I always wanted to throw myself into. We were doing the things that resulted from our success—which is what we were supposed to do. But usually at about the 6-9 month point, I and the board would recognize, I needed to be some place else. In fact figuring this out, figuring out how to constantly create the work environment in which I thrived led me into consulting.
I am an idealist. I believe the possibility of doing great things, rising above mediocrity and putting in the hours exists within all of us. We have to want it, act on it, and find the role where we are driven to do the work, not just put in the hours.
Afterword: This is the AI generated this post. It’s actually very interesting, they took a hard left turn in the middle of the discussion talking about the importance of Strategic Mediocrity. The discussion was very different, but very insightful and powerful. It went far beyond some of the ideas I had been looking at in the post. Enjoy!
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