I think it was probably in Mrs. Perkins 5th grade class that I first became aware that I was not much of a “team player” – at least not as Mrs. Perkins and others viewed “teams.” At that age I had overcome much of my language arts problems and had started to show some reasonable aptitude for learning. Learning was never very easy for me, but I had come to grips with the need to learn and to put in the requisite effort to succeed.
Mrs. Perkins had come up with the bright idea that we were going to write a story in “teams.” We were assigned randomly into groups of four or five and told that we needed to write a story. We were going to meet every day for a few days and then turn in our story. She would read them aloud and then the class would decide which one was the best. With such simple rules, what could possibly go wrong?
Well...in my group we had two of my kickball buddies and the ditzy, class blonde. The guys immediately announced that they were going to do us a favor and not do anything. They thought it their best contribution to the project to do nothing but kibitz – they were probably right. The ditzy blonde knew “exactly” what she wanted to do. She wanted a story about a princess, a horse or a rabbit but would prefer if we could work in all three into a comic tragedy about a good witch’s lost love. Then everyone turned to me with that look of, “well....of course...if you want a decent grade...YOU’LL have to do all the work...smarty pants.” This was the first time that I felt perhaps “team-work” wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. It did not go well.
That was the first of many experiences where I have seen “team” defined as a group of ne’re-do-wells and knuckleheads latching on to a minority of over-achievers to accomplish the mediocre. Much later I looked into this phenomenon in some depth. I was working with a team of bright and dedicated individuals to design a computerized Operational Management System for a large laboratory group. We had “discovered” that one of the biggest problems in the organization was the definition of “done.” It seemed that many considered a project that was about 80% complete as being “done.” That is to say, once about 80% of the identifiable tasks were complete progress just stopped. Most just considered it “done” and went on to something else. This resulted in a huge backlog of projects that were “done” but not so “done” as to be billable to clients. Our main job turned out to be identifying and tracking those 20% mundane tasks that had to be finished before the laboratory could bill the work.
One of the surprising lessons learned from this job was the tremendous resistance we encountered from workers and managers alike. Not only did workers resent being “outed” for not getting things really complete, even managers were nervous about pressuring workers to get things really “done” – even though they knew that their business was suffering as a result. There seemed to be a consensus that somehow 80% complete ought to be “complete enough.” Managers were inclined to try to circumvent the problem by reorganizing, hiring more people or devising complex automation schemes to somehow make getting 80% of the tasks completed good enough. In this particular computer project the scope of the job grew as we struggled to eliminate or automate simple tasks that workers just didn’t want to do and managers just didn’t want to require them to do. Some of the tasks included:
- Proof reading reports
- Double checking any manual entry of data
- Running simple manual tests like pH, color and odor
- Contacting clients to get details or billing or report distribution
- Actually producing an invoice
There were an incredible number of hair-brained schemes to try to get the computer system to do all of these tasks. The scope of the project drifted and the costs exploded.
It was during this project that I determined that there is within our society a concerted commitment to 80%. Many think that it is just too hard to get that last 20% and are unwilling to do put in the effort. They leave it to the few “over-achievers” to close that gap. They will even stand back and watch them do it, quietly laughing up their sleeve at them. The 80%-ers are the first and most vocal supporters of “team efforts” and why wouldn’t they be? How else can things get done around them unless they associate with those who simply can’t help themselves and finish the job? And, of course, it is even better is to strive to be the “team leader” and dole out the assignment while sitting atop the ant-farm.
This is fundamentally counter to the classic American notion of hard work and individual responsibility. It is a new type of “aristocracy of the lazy” that runs counter to 19th century American egalitarianism. That egalitarianism can be illustrated by a myth that grew up around the “Deutschheim” area of central Missouri. This was an area that was settled by German immigrants fleeing the political and economic chaos of the 1830’s and 1840’s in Germany. Germany was a hodge-podge of tiny nations run by a plethora of petty princes. Both peasants and intellectuals had little economic opportunity in this semi-feudal society. Germans left this mess by the hundreds of thousands and created new communities in the upper Mississippi River watershed (especially Ohio and Missouri Rivers). In the larger cities they formed centers of learning and in the smaller towns and villages they applied new agricultural methods to the loamy soil of the Mississippi flood plain. Although not without their share of hardship, for the most part these communities prospered and few could boast of the deprivation that later immigrants often endured in the Great Plains.
The myth tells of a petty prince that immigrated to Washington, MO, expecting the residents to support him in a manner similar to what he had received back in the “old country.” In uncharacteristic callousness the prince was allowed to freeze to death on the streets of Washington. Later, these same peasants and intellectuals stormed the armory at St. Louis to hold Missouri actively in the Union in defiance of a Missouri Constitutional Convention’s vote for neutrality in the American Civil War. It was German immigrant sentiments against slavery and especially idle aristocracy that kept Missouri and the largest stash of arms west the Mississippi out of the hands of the Confederacy.
For most of our history, laziness has been abhorrent to much of American culture. Nevertheless, the culture of entitlement has always been with us. We have never lacked for those few who would take their leave on the backs of others. It is often these few who precipitate the great crises and upheavals that mar the history of free societies, whether it be conflict over trampled rights or financial chaos deriving from outrageous speculation. Acceptance of 80% is always a losing proposition fraught with conflict and impoverishment. Success in business and all social activities has always been and always will be predicated on closing the gap between 80% and 100%. Laziness and sloppiness always brings with it failure and heartache.
But if 80% to 100% is the difference between failure and success, why consider 110% -- the title of this article? For me the difference between 100% and 110% is the difference between success and meaning. A complete effort is needed to be successful. That pays the bills, keeps the trains running and keeps the currency strong. These are all good and bring comfort, but they do not bring meaning. Meaning in life is determined by what is done BEYOND success. Look at any great man or woman and you will see that their greatness was not in paying their bills on time. Greatness is measured by what is done beyond that. Wealthy names like Vanderbilt, Gould and Morgan tend to fade from our memory, but names like Rockefeller, Carnegie and Gates tend to endure because of what they did beyond success. We don’t, for example, remember Churchill for salvaging the finances of Blenheim or even for winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, but we do remember him for his tenacious opposition to tyranny when it was not even popular to do so.
Those that give only 80% often rob themselves of success that they might have otherwise had. To be sure, in the vagaries of life it sometimes happens that they are awarded undue merit for the efforts of others. But of this we can be sure, they fall far short of life’s truest goal – meaning.
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