Escape From Excellence

When the Limits of Excellence are reached, the Virtues of Excellence are transformed into these corruptions. Please remember, they aren’t crimes or “sins;” they aren’t corruptions in that sense. We call them corruptions because, by definition, they take something good (the Five Virtues of Excellence) and dilute it and transform it into something unhealthy and harmful. So when we cross the Falling Point and the corruptions set in, we are guilty of nothing more than pushing ourselves to be excellent. And that’s something to be proud of. The problem is that this is precisely how excellence traps us and holds us back. Here they are:
Entropy
Entropy occurs when the physical and mental limits of Effort are surpassed. It signals a breakdown of the system. This system can refer to a person, a team, or an entire enterprise. So an excellent person, giving his or her all, eventually hit a wall when there’s no more effort to give. Hello Entropy.

Technocracy
Proficiency is merely a cost-of-entry, and it’s the same for everyone. So, when we rely upon proficiency beyond its limit, asking it to somehow differentiate us or drive truly great achievement, we’ve asked it to do what it can’t do. Excellent proficiency may look amazing to a novice, but masters know it’s never the end all. When we make it our focus, it can lead to a cult of capability, or Technocracy. We see this in the athlete who has no grace, the musician who has no taste, the prose stylist who has no ideas. They are like circus performers, and are soon forgotten.

Fixation
Fixation happens when the limits of healthy Commitment are surpassed. Eventually, our priorities, strategies, and organizations become misaligned. We’ve all seen fixated people who like to think they are committed. They mean well, but they have lost the plot. Perhaps they should be committed?

Rigidity
When Expertise is asked to have a vision, which it lacks by definition, Rigidity sets in. Then what we think we know supplants what we actually see, and progress becomes marginal and incremental. We’ve all known people who are great at project or operations management, but lack “the vision thing.” When something doesn’t go the way they’d like, unless they have other resources, skills, and frameworks to draw upon, they often dig in their heels, becoming rigid. They confuse this with expertise, with an assist from commitment. Wrong. It’s ego, plain and simple. The virtue of excellence got corrupted into rigidity, and the cost to themselves, their team, and the enterprise is following right behind.

Cunning
Cunning occurs when the limits of Acumen are reached and strategy is reduced to self-serving tactics. Acumen has an attitude of openness and considers navigation to part of the strategic adventure of business and life. Cunning sets in when that attitude is lost, when facts, information, and the map grow fuzzy. Because nobody has perfect information at all times, cunning is always a temptation.

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