Hi Mike,

Your post inspired this line of thinking:

If organizations decided to eliminate adequate staff I suppose they would be gutted. Adequate is the norm even in star powered organizations. What is unfortunate is when adequate people get star positions, or star people go unnoticed and get stuck in adequate positions. This kind of thing happens all the time in unionized environments but it also happens in management ranks. Adequate people get promoted because they have seniority (most often by adequate bosses).  Or they advance because they are popular or deserve a chance.

The error is not in tolerating adequate but in promoting adequate.

Doug