Achievement Paralysis

Imagine this.

Your employer has worked really hard moulding a high-quality team. A great deal of time and effort has been invested ensuring you have the individual and collective skills and knowledge necessary to enhance their competitive advantage in the markets in which you operate and compete for business.

A major corporation issues a tender for each element of a major project they are developing.

The well trained and practiced team you are part of, meets and decides to submit a response to each tender. You are going for gold.

A “game plan” is determined and each member of the team agrees to their role in the work to be executed.

When the results come in, your high-performance team has been successful in winning the vast majority of the work, in fact, you have won 95 more tenders than your competitor.

This surely represents an outcome born out of good recruiting, training, culture, team work and support from the business and with any outperformance, chances are families have made sacrifices too.

Enter the Industry Regulator.

The Regulator determines your success in winning so many tenders is not in the “spirit of the game” and decides to reverse the results. Part of the argument is your hard worked for success will discourage others in the industry. The Regulator simply wants participants in the process rather than encouraging improvement, development and excellence aimed at being competitive.

Competition is a part of the world we live in. It is true, outstanding success can be a discouragement to others and may result in their withdrawal from competition – no longer wanting to play.

The alternative is to look within and work and plan to get better and be better. The Regulator may even assist by having Coaching Accreditation Programmes and standard skills and knowledge development guidelines.

We learn from a young age by way of our school results and the sport we play that effort is rewarded We learn and continue to learn at school, in work or sport, it is every element of the team that combines to achieve the desired outcome.

Or is it?

A reader sent me an article today about a Junior Australian Rules Football team in Western Australia who achieved a 95-point victory. The Association (Regulator) has stripped them of the victory and awarded the win to the other team.

I absolutely understand and support the benefits of Junior sport. Further, Junior participation in sport should be encouraged on the basis of enjoyment, health, team work and social interaction. It is also an environment where practice results in improvement and therefore is a practical lesson in Life.

There is a real world out there where competition for workplace roles and business is a reality.

There is a real world where scores are kept, be it sport or business; a world where effort, individually by way of contributing to a team delivers outcomes.

Disillusioned staff, like disillusioned sports team members inevitably result from poor leadership, inadequate coaching/teaching/training, ambiguous communication, lack of direction and no belief.

Instead of Regulating in favour of underperformance, perhaps the Regulator (WA Football Commission in this case) would be better served directing energy towards assisting clubs develop sound and enjoyable coaching programmes.

However, unlike the hypothetical business scenario outlined earlier, that requires planning, education and effort to help others improve. It is however, easier to penalise success.

My final comment is, not everyone can be the best, but everyone can be the best they can be.

Enjoy your weekend.