In The Fred Factor, Mark Sanborn mentions that we all have a “less observable competitor,” which he readily identifies as mediocrity, “mediocrity, a willingness to do just enough and nothing more than necessary to get by” (14, also here). But there is also another silent competitor: ungrace.
Ungrace is the general philosophy of life that we must earn our way. We must earn our position. We must earn our pay. We must earn everything we get in life. We must get ahead! It really is the way of life. If we really want to stand out in life, we don’t serve. Instead we must lie, cheat, and steal our way to the top. This is the attitude of many and frankly, one attitude the U.S. education system generally teaches/encourages (not that we have to lie, cheat, and steal but that we have to earn our way to the top). Our education system and our American heritage naturally teaches this worldview of ungrace.
Many of us have felt this pressure to get ahead of our peers. We feel it from elementary school and on. Some us were placed in advanced reading groups while the rest of us were placed in remedial groups. While they may not have been called that per se, that’s what they were. For example, when I was in elementary school, I was placed in the remedial reading group. I never made an A on any spelling or English test until the 5th grade! I always averaged around a C in behavior (or whatever). So that led to me being placed in the “dumb” group though I believe we were called something like the jaguars. However, my younger brother (15 months, 1 grade) was placed in the advanced group called R.I.S.K. (which I have no idea what that means). Students from every grade would leave the classroom for a day and go to a special school where they were taught and experienced advanced things. From that group, kids would be placed in advanced classes in middle school, while the rest of us were placed in the normal college prep or remedial classes (which I believe was relabeled special). I desperately wanted to be apart of that advanced group because they were able to go on field trips etc. While I never earned my way into the R.I.S.K. program, I did earn my way into the advanced classes where I did excel.
We have all felt that to stand out we must shine brighter than those around us. So when we do bad, others look good; and when they do bad, we look good. So many of us secretly only hope that our teammates don’t do so well while some of us overtly and explicitly declare that we don’t want them to do well. If we even have a team mentality, we want them to do well enough that it doesn’t hurt the team, but we don’t want them to excel either! We just want them to be mediocre, just like that other silent competitor. How many of us have thought this way? How many of us see this thought pattern in others? I’ve seen people (and even supervisors!) undermine and sabotage one another on the same team! To what end? The promotion of themselves. The protection of their jobs. The elimination of the competition.
So if someone does well, we don’t look so good; and, if or when we do well, they look bad. Another approach is that we have to push others down. It’s like crabs in a basket. As soon as a crab begins to make progress up the walls, another crab pulls him down. So we feel this need to pull others down to us while also trying to excel. And when we are not excelling we feel this desperate need to exert tons of energy and time bringing others down! No wonder some of us are so tired when we get home from work!
Instead, we need to re-teach ourselves. We need to think differently, something that I believe The Fred Factor does well. By serving others, we actually do become indispensable. Part of living the Fred Factor is living in a world of grace rather than merit. It is embodying grace and mercy. Grace is getting something you don’t deserve; and mercy is not getting something that you do deserve. So to live The Fred Factor is practice grace and mercy. We constantly give out things people don’t deserve and withholding those bad things that they do deserve. Our customers don’t deserve some service beyond what was promised. They don’t deserve something more than you just doing your job whether it is bagging their groceries, bringing their food, selling the merchandise, etc. Your internal customers don’t deserve you going out of your way to help them. The jerk boss does deserve some undermining and lip. The absent co-worker deserves his work to mount and mount without help. The lazy co-worker deserves to wollow in his own mess. This is the world of ungrace: to give them what they do deserve; to give them what they paid for. This is where we live every day.
But consider this. To be exceptional doesn’t require that much more work, time, or money. It involves us being completely engaged and involved in our own work trying to reach our potential. It involves us looking past our own frustrations, our own opinions about what constitutes fair and unfair, and looking to serve others in grace, giving them what they do not deserve. It involves consistency.
Watch this video about Johnny the bagger.
What you do, does have an impact on people whether we realize it or not. Just as Sanborn says, “What kind of impact are you having?” Consider this video.
