Celebrating Mediocrity

The other day I was at a HR Seminar at the Leela Palace, where the lead moderator, threw this curve ball at us: How many of you believe that academic excellence is important to success in work life? My hand shot up, a midst deafening silence and as I looked around I was the only bloke with my hand in the air, looking a little like Billy Bowden signalling something. Even as my hand descended, I was a tad perplexed by this seeming lack of respect for academic success. Does it mean that academic success is not important at all and does it also mean that we can wander our way through school and suddenly turn to be a top performer at the workplace. Don't you think it is a little simplistic to assume so? Most people swear by academic credentials simple because it goes to show a certain level of rigor, discipline and focus to suffer which are extremely important for latter day jobs. It may be assumed that somebody who showed this at a young age can replicate it at a later one.This is not to say that people who did poorly at some point of time. cannot or should not be successful. The chances though are slim and for want of a better system, we look at academic excellence to forecast future performance. In India, we suffer the pangs of envy and like to pull down anything or anybody that is successful. It makes good business sense to study successful people and learn a trick or two from them rather than saying that success itself and best practices are bunkum.Very rarely have successful people got to their rarefied position out of luck - more often than not it is something special that they have done or maybe not done wrong. As we grow as a nation, it is important to celebrate success and successful people and make winning a habit. Losers and whiners perpetuate a losing cycle which if it has uses has eluded me.We need winners as role models, to encourage others to do well and excel. Let us not celebrate mediocrity - it might look fashionable, but has limited use in a competitive world!