Keep Standards High
In well-managed businesses, there are high standards for performance and there is accountability instilled that will help ensure those standards is met. In most organizations, however, the standards either don't exist or they are not taken seriously. It is important to set standards of performance that are attainable, yet high enough to force employees to stretch to meet them. Mediocrity in business generally stems from having low standards or no standards and then living down to them. These standards range from hiring people to management of the bottom line. In the absence of high standards, businesses often follow a path of least resistance. In other words, without some set of performance standards for the business and its people, a business will wander aimlessly and bottom line results will simply just happen. In a business that adheres to high standards and does what is necessary to ensure those standards are met, bottom line performance is planned as opposed to happenstance.