This is not my statement. I picked it up from twitter where it was mentioned by somebody – a well-known personality. It triggered a thought in my mind, rather it crystallized many hazy thoughts that I have had since last few months. It also reinforced my own belief and made me a little more confident that I am not the only one who thinks on these lines.

The destiny of nations, and indeed organizations too, is linked to the quality of leadership they have. But somehow we see iconic leaders, leaders who really make a difference, appear once in a while. In fact, often it happens once in a few decades. Does this mean that  countries and organizations do not have excellence in leadership within themselves? As an observer of our own polity, our country and many organizations, I have come to believe that availability of excellence is never an issue. Excellence is always available in countries and organizations. It is the ability of the system to identify, nurture and give this excellence its due place that makes the difference. Alas! This is where the irony lies – more often than not mediocrity trumps excellence.

As always, I shall narrate this with a known example on how mediocrity plays havoc with the destinies of nations. We recently got over with a face-off with China at Doklam. During the height of this crisis, China never failed to remind us of our debacle in 1962. Indeed, it hurts all Indians, even the ones who were not born at that time. Many Indians at least now accept that Nehru and Krishna Menon had a role in it by not being prepared adequately. But few would know that the army leadership at the time was also equally to be blamed. A great general, General Thimayya retired as COAS under cloud in May 1961. The commander of Eastern Command was Lt. Gen. SPP Thorat. He should have taken over as the COAS. But he was denied that position. He too retired in the same month. Both these generals were thorough professionals who had seen action in one of the toughest battles in WW-II, in Burma. Not only they had fought there but both had won gallantry awards. It is said that if they were at the helm of affairs at that time the outcome of the war would have been very different. They were succeeded by Gen. P.N. Thapar as the COAS and Lt. Gen B.M. Kaul as the commander of IV Corp situated at Tezpur, which was on the fore front of the war. The reason I mention these names here is not to talk about the war history of India, but because of a context. I quote here from the Mainstream Weekly –   “An inevitable consequence of this shocking state of affairs was the selection of Menon’s hottest favourite, Lt.-General B. M. Kaul, as the overall commander of the battlefield in the north-east, an appointment that should never have been made. For although Kaul was a first-rate military bureaucrat and a man of exceptional dynamism excelled only by his ambition, he had absolutely no experience of combat. As if this weren’t enough Menon did something incredibly catastrophic. Kaul had fallen seriously ill at the Himalayan heights and was evacuated to Delhi. Menon ruled that his protégé would continue to command the battlefield from his sick-bed in Delhi. The Army Chief, General P. N. Thapar, did not like this at all. But he did not want to cross Menon’s path and was too timid even to overrule Kaul when the latter was woefully wrong. Nehru did nothing.”  This paragraph actually nails down the issue on which I am trying to dwell on today – ‘of mediocrity trumping excellence’. But more on this later. However, important point to note is how side-lining of excellence in favour of mediocrity has had a catastrophic outcome.

Is this something which happened only once and that also in 1962? No, not at all. It happens around us all the time and in almost all kinds of situations. Indians are in fact often spoken about as ‘Indian crabs’ who habitually like to pull down anyone who tries to go up. A quick look at the political firmament will give us a good indication. Today most political parties, family enterprises or otherwise, have made conscious attempts not to allow regional leaders to develop, which means that mediocrity has always been preferred for most positions. Sometimes these positions have been important enough to be that of the President and the Prime Minister of our country.   If this can happen at these levels, we can safely assume that it is a widespread phenomenon.

When it comes to the government sector, people have accepted that the issue is rarely of meritocracy but of other things like having right connections, caste and creed, money power etc. Not only in the government but even in the private sector in promoter managed organizations, it is understood and accepted that the most important positions will be held by the family members. Even many other important positions may be held by their confidantes – and at their pleasure. This is generally not questioned but eventually here too the concept of mediocrity or excellence has its impact in the form of the performance of the company.  A live example could be the two brothers of the Reliance family. While no one has questioned the right of the two to head their companies and have their confidantes in key positions, one brother continues to prove his excellence and his companies are doing well, the mediocre one is struggling with many of his businesses in deep trouble and investors losing their wealth.

Problem arises when in a system, or for a position, it is believed that merit will be the most important determinant. But if mediocrity prevails where it is expected that excellence should win, then it leads to heart burn, cynicism and loss of faith. While the people of the countries or institutions suffer individually in such a situation, the biggest loss is that of the country or institution as a whole since it gets pushed back in its journey towards progress by many years. As the time goes by, most people start accepting it, particularly in the culture that we have in India where everything, every outcome, gets accepted as the will of the Almighty. Having said that, I believe that there has been little effort to analyse why it happens and why it may continue to happen. My effort today is to make an attempt to figure out the reasons for this phenomenon – of Mediocrity trumping over Excellence.

In this entire process I feel that there are two primary players. Excellence or Mediocrity, as the case may be, and the System which decides who out of the two wins. This system may be the boss or a group of people.

First I will try to list some of the general traits of  ‘excellence’ and ‘mediocrity’.

Excellence:

• Mature and self-confident
• Often is more concerned about the larger good and less about self interest
• Does not hanker for positions – would like to believe that the system should recognise it and assign a position commensurate with the skills
• Believes mediocrity to be inconsequential, not to be thought about and not worth fighting
• Focuses attention on the work, responsibility and righteousness rather than  on the mediocrity
• Often has an in-built pride and does not like to do things to please the system
• Generally believes that whatever is due will come on its own
• Recognizes and respects excellence in others
• Generally is in a minority as compared to mediocrity – excellence is always lesser in numbers
• Apart from being in minority, also has fewer number of people who support it and vice-versa
• Has a conflict avoidance approach and lacks ambition tinged with ‘killer instinct’
• Is straight forward and relatively devoid of guile

Mediocrity:

• Generally self-centred
• Works towards power and pelf
• Focus of attention is excellence since it comes in the way of achievement of own goals
• This focus normally results in working out ways and means to overpower excellence
• As the name says, mediocre in acumen
• Ready to please any one as long as it helps in achieving own goals
• Once achievement of own  goals is accomplished, focuses effort on cultivating mediocrity, creating an ecosystem of mediocrity and obligated people who will ensure longevity in the position and an effective destruction of excellence and any  competition, and thereafter starts the quest for the next level of  goal for self
• Considers everything fair in love and war with the end always justifying the means

To give an example, think of Arjun and the Pandavas and Duryodhan and the Kauravas of Mahabharat. Excellence in the form of Arjun and the Pandavas was willing to sacrifice all, live in penury with only five villages and not willing to fight for the sake of humanity, righteousness and overall good. They were not ambitious for themselves, did not really treat Kaurvas as their enemies and desired peace. Duryodhana and the Kauravas in turn were evil, considered Pandavas as their enemies who had to be destroyed at any cost, held no value for human life and were immoral. Despite these factors, excellence had to be coaxed and cajoled by Lord Krishna to fight for their rights and what was right. Not only that, smart strategies were also designed by the Lord since the Pandavas were generally straight forward. A big lesson for excellence here is that though it is good, it often needs a guide, supporter and identifier who recognizes its goodness and ensures it is used for the larger good. Mediocrity on the contrary does not need these props. It is focused on what is desired, ready to fight for it, is aggressive in doing so and willing to use all stratagems for the same.

As a result of its traits mentioned above, more often than not mediocrity wins. It also exists in larger number since it is willing to do anything to win, thereby creating a large ecosystem of mediocre and indebted people who are aware that their survival is dependent on prevalence of mediocrity. This has an amazing snowball effect of mediocrity breeding mediocrity. It becomes a cosy club where to survive mediocrity has to breed and support mediocrity. A whiff of excellence is seen either as a threat to be destroyed or to be used intelligently to serve the ends of mediocrity. Mediocrity sustains, survives and prospers for a long time till one fine day excellence out manoeuvres it, not only due to excellence but also a strong will to fight.

Now we come to the next important player – the System. Before I write anything about it, let me just try to list a few critical aspects of the same:

• System is generally not one person alone. It is a culture. Even if it is one person he is the creation of the culture
• Excellence breeds excellence and mediocrity breeds mediocrity
• System that believes in excellence also believes in an open culture, disagreements, airing of views openly. Dissenting views are not seen as a threat or something to be frowned upon
• Mediocre system encourages sycophancy, empowers one at the top only, discourages open exchange of ideas and views and crushes dissent
• Excellence not only has a strong leader at the top but has a string of leaders, whereas the mediocre system is devoid of leaders at all levels

It is the System that encourages, promotes and recognizes either the excellence or the mediocrity. Surprisingly, once the system takes a direction, it is not easy to change it, any which ways. So the system in the US is biased towards excellence. In that country large American corporations are today headed by people from various ethnicities and countries. Most important factor for individual and larger growth is excellence. No wonder, America continues to have the largest number of companies in the Fortune 500 list. Apart from this, we also see that in American corporations, people argue, raise their voices, use cuss words and disagree with a belief that the System will not take it otherwise. I am not suggesting this is true in all situations, but the general direction of the System is towards this.

A System that is skewed towards mediocrity on the other hand would be significantly like the Indian crabs where each crab pulls down anyone trying to come up. After all, mediocrity survives on promoting mediocrity. So here the leaders are weak, followers are weak and the outcomes are poor. In the example of the Indo China war this comes out so clearly. To reinforce this I shall now quote the relevant parts of the paragraph that I had picked up from the Mainstream Weekly:

• Weak and mediocre minister
• Selection of the hottest favourite
• This favourite did not have combat experience and was incompetent
• He was ambitious
• Continued support to the mediocre choice despite negative situation
• Timidity shown by the immediate boss in speaking his mind either to the superior, the minister, or to the subordinate, the chosen commander
• Choosing a pliant Chief who won’t have courage to speak his mind

 

These are the specific traits identified above under ‘Mediocrity’ and the ‘System’. Quite obviously, the outcome was not surprising.

We now see how the situation develops when we are in an environment of excellence. On a similar subject we go slightly ahead, by almost 8-9 years, where the situation was different. We had a strong leader in Indira Gandhi as our Prime Minister. She was mentally secure and had Field Marshall Sam Manekshaw as her Army Chief.  This gentleman was high in excellence, had ability to speak his mind, was not scared of airing is views and had a string of competent military leaders like Lt. Gen. Aurora and Lt. Gen. JFR Jacob.   Despite wishes of the Prime Minister to start the attack immediately in early 1971, he told her that he was not ready and would need time to prepare. He told her that he would give her victory but the timing would be his. We all know the outcome of the 1971 war – we had a resounding victory and had the pleasure of having the largest surrender of armed forces in the history after World War II.

My Little Thought Of Life in this context is that it is the culture of a country or an organization that decides who trumps, Excellence or Mediocrity. In India, generally it is the culture of mediocrity which is why we see it winning most of the time – though there are exceptions in the form of institutions that breed excellence. For Excellence to prevail, it will have to leave timidity and  be ready for a fight. It is not possible that every Arjun in today’s world will get the guidance from Lord Krishna. Excellence, once it reaches the pinnacle, has another duty, which is not only to promote excellence but to create a culture of excellence. Action point is more for excellence. Mediocrity will keep attempting to do what it has been doing to survive and thrive. It does not need any help from Lord Krishna. It is always ready to arm twist and push people like Bheeshma Pitamah or Dronacharya.

To my friends and readers I wish an ability to see this difference, move towards excellence and promote excellence in whatever they do – to create a culture of excellence. Together, let us try that in India also Excellence trumps Mediocrity.