The Danger of Mediocrity: Why “Good Enough” Will Sink Your Practice (Part 1)
Have you ever stepped into a clinic, office, or even a restaurant and instantly sensed a subtle, sinking feeling? You can’t put your finger on it—no single thing is overtly broken—but the energy feels flat. Staff shuffle along, conversations are polite but unremarkable, and you leave with exactly what you expected. No more, no less. Congratulations: you’ve just experienced mediocrity in action.
And unfortunately, in my opinion, that experience is far too common—not just in retail, but in healthcare clinics across the country. Mediocrity rarely announces itself with a neon sign or a catastrophic failure. It sneaks in the back door, fed by small lapses, unspoken resentments, and complacent routines. In any health-care setting, even O&P, “mediocre” isn’t just underwhelming. It’s potentially catastrophic.
One of the most shared posts on the OPIE blog is “How Quiet Choices Shape Your Culture.” The headline gets straight to the point: your true culture isn’t found in your mission statement or that inspirational poster in the breakroom. It’s created by the sum of your team’s “quiet choices”—the missed deadlines you let slide, the colleague’s eye roll you ignore, the “good enough” you don’t bother improving.
Every time a toxic attitude is shrugged off or a sloppily written note gets filed anyway, you’re sending the message that average is OK here. Over time, these micro-decisions build up a cultural gravity that’s nearly impossible to escape.
What’s the last “minor” issue you didn’t address because it was easier to let it go? How many “little things” have you swept aside this week alone?
James Clear is credited with stating that “People don’t rise to the level of your goals. They fall to the level of your systems.” But this isn’t just a catchy one-liner. In the context of healthcare, your service standards, clinical outcomes, and even billing efficiency will always sink to the lowest level you allow. Just like you feel it when you walk into an establishment, your patients will feel it when they come see you. Do you have someone on staff that is not fulfilling your expectations? Whatever they are doing (or not doing) is setting the standard for your team…not what you say.
Do you have clinicians whose documentation quality or timeliness fluctuates from day to day? Do you have delayed insurance verifications “because that’s just how it is”? Do you have passionate discussions about patient care but no follow-through on implementing better processes? Do you have a team that’s friendly and polite but rarely holds each other accountable for actual results? If you answered yes to any of these questions, mediocrity might be slipping into your practice.
John Spence, a business coach who’s obsessed with helping organizations break out of ruts, calls this “self-created mediocrity.” In his blog “Mediocre Behavior Is a Choice,” he outlines common warning signs: lack of accountability, complacency, low standards, ambiguous feedback, and—perhaps most deadly—rewarding tenure or busyness over real contribution.
You, as the practice leader, have the most influence over whether mediocrity takes root. If you let one teammate consistently underperform, the rest of the team notices and silently recalibrates their own effort downward. Ambiguity breeds mediocrity: when expectations are fuzzy, and there’s no follow-up, the best talent loses motivation and the whole group’s results regress to the mean. If the leader tolerates “average,” everyone else will, too.
With shrinking insurer coverage, steeper patient deductibles, and ever-tightening regulatory scrutiny, good-enough just isn’t good enough. Your competition is hungrier than ever, and patients with options don’t hesitate to shop around. But here’s the hidden danger: patients, referral partners, and colleagues rarely complain about mediocre service. They simply slip away.
I wrote in a previous blog that “Mediocrity is a slow poison—no one notices the symptoms until it’s already cost you your best people, your patient base, and your reputation.”
Are you ready for the antidote?
## First Steps Away from Average
Next week, let’s try to define the problem. DO NOT SOLVE IT!
Do these things:
Audit your culture: Look for the “quiet choices” happening in your clinic. What’s sliding by? Document your observations by making a list, or a dictation.
Notice body language: Objectively observe interactions between patients and staff. Note demeanor, tone of voice and the general environment created.
Next week, in part 2 of this blog, I’ll dig into why rejecting mediocrity doesn’t mean burnout—and what the latest debates about diminished ambition and accountability, work-life balance, and excellence can teach us.