The Grey Area in Company Culture

In most companies, employees are reprimanded when they complete a task poorly (or when they do not do it at all), and are praised when they complete it excellently. This generates a grey area between the “poor” and the “excellent” levels of execution.

Most situations will fall in the grey area, in which the employees do not receive any feedback on their work. Such a lack of feedback deprives the employees of opportunities to understand that the minimum required standard is “excellent” (the line between the green and the grey area). Over time, they will believe that the minimum required standard is “good enough” (the line between the red and the grey area). The result is that their actions will quickly suffer from mediocrity.

Instead, companies with a strong and sustainable culture are careful to remove the grey area. They set a single standard of execution and do not miss any occasion to praise the employee who respects it or to hold accountable the one who doesn’t. In this way, they ensure that “excellent”, in place of “good enough”, is what their employees have in mind at all times.