I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen it over my 13+ years in management with Chick-fil-A. You have this person and they have a REMARKABLE skill set in some valuable area. Each day this person is hard working, going above and beyond the role expectations, outstanding with customers, or any number of other positive things. 

Sounds like a match made in heaven, right? Well as you might imagine, there’s more to the story. Some of these people with extraordinary skills also bring with them some sort of equally extreme negatives. Resistive to coaching, inconsistent due to moodiness, aggressive towards coworkers, arrogant towards others, this list unfortunately goes on and on as well.

Having a high MINIMUM

Computer scientist and mathematician Donald Knuth argues that “A person’s success in life is determined by having a high minimum, not a high maximum”. What Knuth is getting at is that no matter how strong your upside is, your downside will actually be what launches you to success, or keeps it out of your reach.

From personal experience, I can attest that this is absolutely true. No amount of good can outweigh even one really bad aspect of a person. The “minimum” sticks out like a sore thumb, and that often becomes what a person is known for. Others will view the person through a lens of the minimum. 

The message here is not to ignore your strengths and only focus on improving weaknesses. I’ll write about this at a later date. Instead, the lesson here is to ensure that all the positives that you bring to the table are not overshadowed by a bad minimum!

One tangible action:

Write down a few top minimums that you know you have that are holding you back. Be honest, how “bad” are these scaled 1-10 (excluding 7), and which one is the worst? If you need help, ask people who spend large amounts of time around you (family, friends, coworkers).

Pro Tip:

One great way to target your worst minimum is to tell yourself each day that you are the OPPOSITE of whatever the thing is that is currently your minimum. Ex: “I am the most upbeat person I know”…then act in a way that an upbeat person would act and see how this changes your demeanor. Another way to improve minimums is to tell others around you that you are focusing for X period of time on being more of whatever you are targeting. This accountability of just verbalizing it to others will help you improve.