The Slow Boil of Mediocrity Is Killing Your Business Every Time You Settle for Less Than Great

Issue 04

By Debbie Lawrence

Read Time: 7 minutes

Three years ago, Amanda hired Claire as her first employee.

Claire wasn’t perfect, but she was “good enough.” Amanda told herself she’d train Claire up.

Year 1: Claire’s work was okay. Maybe 75% of what Amanda would do herself, but Amanda was grateful for the help. She fixed the 25% herself. She’s still learning, Amanda thought.

Year 2: Claire’s work was still okay. Still 75%. Amanda mentioned wanting higher quality a few times. Claire nodded and said she’d work on it. Nothing changed. Amanda kept fixing the 25% herself. It’s easier than having a difficult conversation, she thought.

Year 3: Amanda realized she’d spent three years accepting 75% and making up the difference herself. She’d normalized “good enough.”

Then she hired Shalini for a similar role.

Shalini delivered work at 95% right out of the gate. Occasionally 100%. And she did so with initiative, with attention to detail, and without Amanda having to review and fix things.

The difference was startling.

For three years, Amanda had told herself that 75% was realistic, that expecting more was perfectionistic, that she should be grateful for the help.

Seeing Shalini’s work, she realized she hadn’t been realistic. She’d been settling.

And settling had cost her. Three years of fixing work that should have been done right the first time. Three years of her time spent covering gaps. Three years of paying someone full salary for 75% delivery.

Now she had a new problem. She had one team member delivering at 95% and another at 75%, both in similar roles.

When Claire asked why she wasn’t getting the same opportunities as Shalini, Amanda didn’t know how to say: “Because you’ve been delivering 75% for three years, and I’ve been accepting it, and now I don’t know how to tell you that the standard was always 95%—I just never held you to it.”

She’d created this mess by wanting to be nice. By settling. And now she didn’t know how to un-settle.

Why We Settle (and keep settling)

Amanda’s pattern isn’t unique. I see it everywhere.

Leaders hire someone who’s “good enough.” The work isn’t quite right, but it’s close. So they fix it themselves instead of sending it back. They tell themselves it’s temporary—just until the person gets up to speed.

But here’s what actually happens:

The person never gets up to speed because they don’t know the work isn’t good enough. The leader keeps fixing it. The gap becomes normal. The standard drops.

Then one day—maybe a year later, maybe three—the leader hires someone else who delivers at a completely different level. And suddenly the settling becomes visible.

But by then, the first person thinks their 75% IS the standard. Because it’s been accepted for months or years. And the leader has no idea how to say: “Actually, I’ve been settling this whole time, and now I need you to deliver at a level I never required before.”

The settling happens for predictable reasons:

“It’s faster to fix it myself.” Ten minutes to correct it versus thirty minutes to explain what’s wrong and have them redo it. In the moment, fixing it feels efficient.

“They’re trying their best.” Maybe they are. But “trying their best” doesn’t mean the work meets the standard. Effort and results aren’t the same thing.

“I should be grateful for the help.” Any help is better than no help, right? So accepting 75% feels like the appropriate response to gratitude.

All of these sound reasonable. All of them lead to the same outcome: normalized mediocrity.

The Math That Reveals The Real Cost

I learned this lesson the expensive way.

Years ago, I had a team member who never quite got the quality of her work to where it needed to be. We were prepping for fall registration across multiple colleges—lots of moving parts, endless details, zero room for error.

I kept catching things that weren’t quite to par. Small mistakes. Inconsistencies. Details that needed fixing.

Every time, I ran the same mental calculation:

It would take me 10 minutes to fix this versus 30 minutes to explain what’s wrong and have her redo it. I don’t have 30 minutes right now.

So I fixed it myself. Over and over.

What I was thinking in that moment was, “Right now it IS faster to just do it myself.”

And in doing so I was accidentally teaching her that incomplete work is fine. I’ll handle the rest.

The compassionate truth I wasn’t seeing was that “faster today” is creating “slower forever.”

It wasn’t until a mentor encouraged me to run the numbers that I could see more clearly what I was creating:

Today:

• Fixing it myself = 10 minutes
• Teaching them to do it right = 30 minutes

Next Month:

• If I keep fixing it: 10 minutes × 20 occurrences = 200 minutes
• If I’d taught them: 30 minutes once = 30 minutes total

Next Year:

• If I keep fixing it: 200 minutes × 12 months = 2,400 minutes (40 hours)
• If I’d taught them: 30 minutes once = still just 30 minutes

“It’s faster to fix it myself” is only faster if you ignore all future occurrences.

And there will be future occurrences. Many of them.

Plus, if you have more than one team member where you’re consistently “fixing it yourself,” the math becomes even scarier.

I spent at least 40 hours that year fixing work that should have been done right the first time. Work I could have prevented by spending 30 minutes teaching the standard once. What makes this even worse is I didn’t take any vacation that year and only a handful of weekends away from the campus because of my workload and what I now know to be a “foolish” level of commitment.

That’s a full work week. Gone. That’s at least one week of vacation I could have had—and desperately needed—because I was optimizing for speed in the moment instead of quality over time.

What Settling Actually Costs

When you settle for “good enough,” here’s what you’re actually paying:

Your time. Every hour spent fixing work that should have been done right is an hour you’re not spending on strategy, growth, or the work only you can do. Or time with your family or for yourself.

Your standards. When you accept 60% or 75% or 82%, that becomes the standard. Not just for that person but for everyone watching. The team learns that “good enough” is actually good enough.

Your credibility. When you eventually hire someone who delivers at 95% like Shalini, the 75% people like Claire will ask why they’re being treated differently. And you won’t have a good answer because you never established or enforced the real standard.

Your energy. Constantly fixing other people’s work is exhausting. It breeds resentment within you towards those team members. You start thinking, “It would be easier to just do it all myself,” which defeats the entire point of having a team.

Your business growth. You can’t scale when you’re spending 40 hours a year fixing what should have been done right. Settling creates a ceiling on what’s possible.

Amanda spent three years paying this cost before Shalini showed her what was possible. I spent a year paying it before I finally did the math and saw the truth.

The cost of settling is always higher than the cost of holding the standard. Now I say if you’re going to settle for anything, settle “only for great”, not “good” or “good enough.”

The Shift That Changes Everything

After that fall registration, I made myself a promise: If something isn’t done right, it goes back.

Not with anger. Not with judgment. Just with clarity.

Let them know: “This doesn’t meet the standard yet. Here’s what the standard looks like and here’s what needs to change so please revise this and resubmit it by [specific time].”

The first few times, it felt harsh. I worried I was looking for perfection or that I was being too picky or demanding. I second-guessed whether my standards were too high.

But here’s what actually happened:

The work improved. In fact, it improved dramatically.

People started asking better questions upfront because they knew I’d send it back if it wasn’t right. The quality of first drafts went up because they understood the standard. And the time I spent fixing things dropped to nearly zero.

Turns out, people don’t resent clear standards. They resent ambiguity. They want to know what “good” or even better “great” looks like so they can deliver it.

When you settle for 75%, you’re not being kind. You’re being unclear. And unclear standards create exactly the problem you’re trying to avoid, which is frustrated team members who don’t understand why they’re not advancing or getting to be involved with certain opportunities.

What “Not Settling” Looks Like

Here’s what I do differently now:

Define what “done right” means before the work starts. Not in my head but out loud or in writing, with examples. “Here’s what excellent looks like.” I realized that I used to describe what I wanted like an abstract painting, which, by its very nature, is open to interpretation. That’s never going to go well. My goal now is to describe the standard like a still life painting where it’s so tangible and so real that the desired outcome is unmistakable.

Send it back the first time it’s not right. Not the tenth time. The first time along with specific feedback on what needs to change and why.

Spend the 30 minutes teaching the standard. Even when I “don’t have time” because 30 minutes once saves 40+ hours over the year.

Stop apologizing for having standards. No “Sorry, but this needs work.” Just “This needs work. Here’s what needs to change.”

Acknowledge that this feels uncomfortable at first. It did for me too but uncomfortable doesn’t mean wrong. It just means uncomfortable. And if you’ve been following me for any time you’’ know that one of my mantras is that as a leader “you’ve got to learn to get comfortable feeling uncomfortable.”

The shift isn’t from settling to being harsh. It’s from settling to being clear.

Your Turn

Right now, think about your team.

Where are you accepting 75% and telling yourself it’s realistic?

Where are you fixing work instead of teaching the standard?

Where are you settling because it feels faster or kinder in the moment?

Pick one person. One recurring issue where you keep fixing instead of teaching.

This week, send it back. With clear feedback. With the standard defined. With the expectation that it gets done right.

It will take longer today but I promise you it will save you hours tomorrow and the next day and the next day after that.

Comment below and tell me: Where have you been settling? What’s the 75% you’ve been accepting and fixing yourself?

Name it. That’s where you start.

I read every response.