In Search of Mediocrity

It’s been 30 years since Tom Peters and Robert Waterman researched the corporate world, resulting in their groundbreaking book, In Search of Excellence. An awful lot has changed since then, as the worldwide economy suffered through two recessions with boom periods in between. Stocks and fortunes have risen due to growth in some industries, and fallen with the likes of Lehman Brothers and Bernie Madoff.

Throughout all of this, generations have grown up with mobile phones and MP3 players rather than landlines and stereo systems; with PDAs and the Internet rather than pens and letters; with email, Facebook, and YouTube rather than verbal communication and media acuity. Many among them don’t realize that generations past placed a premium on quality and excellence over speed and convenience and on long-term relationships rather than instant messaging.

Don’t get me wrong…I love technology, and I am often what the industry calls an “early adopter.” But as these changes have become more common in the business world and members of those generations have started to move into positions of power, are we beginning to lose what we used to pride most?

I think it’s humorous that in the last few years, the word “artisanal” has started to pop up in retail applications, such as bakeries, restaurants, cheese shops, and handmade soaps and candles. It has become almost quaint to think of yourself as an artisan, as though it hearkens back to an earlier age of horses and buggies.

I’m 57 now, and as I was growing up in the business world, it seemed like there were lots of artisans—people who took pride in working to develop high-quality products, videos, drawings, blueprints, support materials, manuals, and training materials—there was even an art to writing an effective memorandum. Those artisans took pride in their accomplishments and in the knowledge that what they produced was truly effective in communicating and accomplishing the stated business goals. Now, I receive hundreds of emails per week, most of which are written with botched grammar, poor spelling, and incomplete words…like it’s so difficult to type “you” instead of “u.” And some of the work I see, produced by seemingly intelligent and educated people, is downright embarrassing.

I was having lunch with a friend the other day—someone who is one of those business artisans—and he was lamenting the fact that many corporate customers would rather pay a few pennies less for products made from cheap, Chinese parts, even though they know that those products will fail much sooner than if they had been made from better quality materials. In my own experience as an instructional designer/developer, I have seen training vendors eschew proven learning principles in favor of quick fixes that offer little hope of long-term behavioral change. I have tried to avoid working with these vendors, but they seem to pop up on a daily basis, as is evidenced by typing the word “training” into your browser. (I just tried it, and Google reported “about 596,000,000 results.”)

As a business writer, I have taken pride in developing cases that not only made the key points, but felt real, as though you were in the room with the characters and could sense their humanity in dealing with difficult, complicated, business situations. Now, I’m often asked to develop cases as though I’m in an old episode of “Dragnet”—just the facts.

Many companies seem to evaluate contractors’ success by the number and level of educational degrees rather than any proven track record. Other companies view us all as commodities, as though a recent graduate of architecture school will have the same insights and instincts as someone who has designed hundreds of successful buildings.

I know I may sound like a curmudgeon, wallowing in a past era that is no longer relevant. But in truth, I appreciate the changes that have occurred: I like having a smartphone, a small, powerful notebook computer, and an iPod, and I enjoy being able to post something like this on a blog that anyone in the world can read instantly. But I don’t want to be asked to do mediocre work that will not result in long-term, positive results for my clients or for me. I will hang on to the notion that at least one person in every training session will read my cases and think, “This is really well-written…I can understand and feel the dilemma that these characters are facing.”

When the time comes that I believe such quality and excellence are no longer valued, I’ll drop out of the corporate world and make pizza. Of course, it will be really good pizza.