Democratizing Great Performance

When I was a high school teacher back in my 20s and early 30s, I told the students on the first day of class that my goal was for every student to get an A. I never graded on a bell curve. Over the ten years I was a teacher I had 42 classes of between 25 and 35 students in each class. I had four or five classes where more than five students received Fs and almost no students received As. I had other classes where there were something like 20 As and 12 Bs and nothing lower than a B. Same teacher, same books, same types of questions on the tests, and yet the results were all over the board.

One of the things I learned from those ten years is that great performance is neither guaranteed nor rare. You can have a group with no great performers and you can have a group with a vast majority of great performers.

Don't ever think great performance is reserved for just a few people. I believe everyone is capable of great performance in life, particularly since every person can choose an area of life to concentrate on that allows him or her to use their specific strengths and passions.

Unlike my math students who had to be in the classroom, life provides every individual electives to choose from that he or she can excel within. What is needed for a great performance is an understanding of what it takes to achieve a great performance and the selection of a specific performance area that the person has a passion and strength within.

My life's work is about trying to hone and explain practical processes anyone can use to deliver a great performance within the specific area he or she has chosen to focus on.