New Favourite Philosopher

Step aside Soren Kierkegaard.

I came across a wonderful meme this week. It’s a black and white sketch of an ancient greek man with a long beard saying “ehh, good enough”. The caption says: Mediocrates.

It’s obviously meant in jest but I wish more leaders would tape a copy of this image to their desks as a reminder that sometimes good enough really is good enough. The endless quest for excellence in all things is a sure path to burnout.

The reality is that time, energy, resources, and well being are all limited. We have to make choices about what is most important, and what isn’t. It’s called priorities.

That doesn’t mean everything has to be either perfect or crap. Healthy leaders are wise enough to scale their efforts to ensure that appropriate standards are being met in all areas. They just know which things can appropriately be a B- instead of A+.

There’s an important difference between pushing yourself or your team to their limit just to prove your commitment level and prioritizing your efforts around what matters most over time. This article from Steve Magness, author of the excellent book Do Hard Things articulates this really well.

Many of the leaders I work with find this difficult. They are passionate, committed, and eager to do the very best work possible. They see the cause their organization serves as sacred, essential, and deserving sacrificial efforts. I love that I get to come alongside people who care this much.

Setting priorities is truly about getting the best results. It forces us to align our efforts in ways that maximize outcomes for the cause, especially over the long term.

It also allows us to treat our team, and ourselves, humanely.

I have monthly individual meetings with charity leaders who are deeply devoted to both their organization’s mission and the well being of their people. In almost every conversation some aspect of deciding how to prioritize the most impactful things, and accepting appropriately lower standards in other areas, comes up.

Mediocrates is likely to come up in a lot of these conversations for the next few months.