How low will you go?

by Dave Anderson

Low expectations legitimize mediocrity, and for many distributors it’s time to re-evaluate your organization and decide what level of performance to expect this year.

It’s important to examine your standards on a regular basis, because it’s easy to become so desensitized to mediocrity that you no longer notice it. While you would never deliberately endorse poor performance, if you fail to confront, turn around or remove people who perpetuate this behavior, you promote it by default

Here are three criteria to develop a fresh perspective on potentially stale standards.

First things first: Do you have clearly defined performance standards for all positions with quantifiable production components? If not, what are you thinking? How can you hold people accountable for attaining a standard if you’ve never defined it?

The fact is that you can’t, so you won’t, and will wind up keeping the wrong people too long as a result. Before you answer that you do have clearly defined standards, I suggest you ask your people first. If they can’t clearly articulate what they are, you don’t have any.

What are the industry benchmarks for average performance in every quantifiable position in your business? Not all positions have quantifiable standards, but any sales position certainly does. Compare your standards to industry benchmarks to see how you stack up. If your expectations are at, or below industry standards, you should be alarmed. After all, are you comfortable being average, or worse than average?

Most businesses consider their product, reputation and management team to be above average, but they still tolerate average, or below average performances. This is senseless. While not everyone on a team can be an all-star, is it asking too much to expect your managers to get the people in their charge better than average?

Get your thinking out of the gutter. Some managers will go to incredible lengths to rationalize poor performers on their team: “they’re loyal;” “they’re good for morale;” “there are worse people out there;” and so on.

Phrases like these are the loser’s limps of leadership wimps. The problem with these managers is they’re lazy. They’d rather make excuses for the marginal, mediocre and moronic, than get off their callused behinds and find, interview and train better candidates. They use personal compassion as an excuse to run a welfare state. The truth is it’s much easier to do this then to roll up their sleeves and either get people better, or get better people.

As an example of “stinking thinking” where standards are concerned, let’s look at the automotive industry. In my consulting practice, I work extensively with many of the 20,000 automotive dealerships across America. The average salesperson in the car business sells between eight and 10 cars per month, depending on what they’re selling, and this standard hasn’t changed in decades.

Yet, thousands of dealerships have at least one, “five-car Fred.” He’s a gross underachiever -- nowhere near an industry average performer.

Think about the actual or the equivalent of the “five-car Fred” in your business. How many are there? How long have they been around? What are they doing to build team momentum, morale and your personal credibility? Have you ever thought about just how bad someone has to be to sell five cars per month, or to underachieve at comparable levels in your industry? Just how unskilled, untalented and uninspired do you have to be to produce 50 percent of an industry average?

Before another day goes by, it’s time to take a hard look at how low you’re willing to go this year. Isn’t it time to raise the bar? If you’re afraid to rock the boat and decide to leave your standards where they are, beware: Low expectations presume incompetence. If you presume incompetence long enough, you start to create it.

The bottom line is, when expectations are set too low, people tend to live down to them. The costly practice of allowing low expectations is the ultimate in management recklessness. It also puts those who perpetuate this kind of insanity on the endangered species list

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