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    The intellectual property

    Crushing Mediocrity

    Ten ways to rise above the status quo — the published argument behind Lisa Copeland's sales-leadership keynote, and the reason organizations bring her in when the numbers have gone quietly flat.

    The book

    Crushing Mediocrity: 10 Ways to Rise Above the Status Quo

    A guide to breaking through mediocrity in business and life, built on strategies for rising above the status quo.

    Lisa Copeland with Rene Banglesdorf and Sharon Lechter

    View on Amazon

    The framework

    What Lisa Means by Mediocrity

    Not failure. Failure gets attention. Mediocrity is the version of your organization that nobody is worried about.

    Mediocrity is a decision

    Nobody schedules a meeting to approve it. It arrives through a hundred small allowances — a missed standard here, an unaddressed behavior there — until average becomes the house style.

    Plateaus are cultural, not tactical

    Comp plans, tools and pep talks change activity. They rarely change what a team believes is normal. That belief is where the ceiling actually sits.

    Standards travel further than motivation

    Motivation has a half-life of about a week. A standard that leadership visibly holds outlasts every kickoff.

    Courage is an operating requirement

    The conversation a leader avoids is usually the one holding the organization in place.

    Pace-setters set the ceiling

    Sales organizations move at the speed of the people everyone watches. Replace or reset them and the whole distribution shifts.

    Momentum is rebuilt, not recovered

    After a bad quarter, teams wait for confidence to return. It does not return; it gets constructed out of small, visible wins.

    Coverage

    Where the Idea Has Been Published

    Straight answers

    Crushing Mediocrity, Briefly

    Who wrote Crushing Mediocrity?

    Crushing Mediocrity: 10 Ways to Rise Above the Status Quo was written by Lisa Copeland with Rene Banglesdorf and Sharon Lechter.

    What is Crushing Mediocrity about?

    It is about how individuals and organizations rise above the status quo — the decisions, standards and courage required to stop settling for acceptable results.

    Is Crushing Mediocrity a keynote?

    Yes. Crushing Mediocrity: How Leaders Get Sales Organizations Unstuck is Lisa Copeland's flagship sales-leadership keynote, built on the book's argument.

    If Your Sales Organization Is Stuck, That Is the Whole Conversation.