The Devil is in the Lack of Details  “What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he’s around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail… He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing… He will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance… Just a tiny bit… And he’ll get all the great women.” This speech is from James L. Brooks’ film Broadcast News.

A bit over the top? Yes. Farfetched? No. Without an understanding and appreciation for doing the right thing for the right reason, accomplishments are façades, not foundations.

The savings and loan scandals of the late 80s, the dotcom boom and bust of the late 90s and the flagrant financial corruption and mismanagement of the early 00s are the direct result of eroded standards and a cavalier attitude toward hard work and long-term, rather than immediate, success.

The press, once the people’s voice, held politicians and executives to standards of performance and obligation. Now, the third estate is so afraid of special interests and/or personal reprisals, they have become conduits for misdirection rather than gatekeepers of trust.

Our institutions aren’t the only examples of falling standards. In a well-intentioned but misguided attempt to make conditions more fair and balanced, mediocrity has been elevated and excellence positioned as an aberration. Everyone gets a trophy just for showing up.

Unspoken thoughts echo with, “No one can be that much smarter than I am. They must be cheating.” Thus, the bullet of self-evaluation is dodged. Good enough has replaced great and acceptable has become accepted.

However, this condition is not irreversible. P.T. Barnum, the pitchman of several generations said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” He meant that people could be fooled whether they were ignorant, innocent or arrogant. If ignorant, education is the antidote. If innocent, experience is the protocol. Unfortunately, arrogance requires awareness for reversal.

Once prepared and encouraged, anyone can judge performance, but preparation isn’t easy or a guarantee of success. Standards fall and performance erodes because those judging excellence can be misled by presentation and appearance rather than accomplishment. Whatever we do for a job, career, or profession, vigilance must be our goal, excellence our objective, and integrity our mantra, if only for ourselves.

When setting the goal for going to the moon and returning safely, President John Kennedy said, “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win...”

At Essex Two, it is our obligation to deliver results based on accomplishing the communication goals we establish with and for our clients. Appearance alone, while important, will not connect people with ideas nor to excellence. In the same way, expertise based on duplication or repetition is reassuring, but it is rarely communication. Visit the Essex Two website for case studies that demonstrate our ability to serve the success of our clients. Our standards will accept nothing else.

Worth your time:  Fritjof Capra’s book, The Tao of Physics, first published in 1975, explores the parallels between modern physics and Eastern philosophy. This is not the “blocked box” intersection that it might first appear to be. The arguments are well-grounded and support complex, even seemingly conflicting concepts. The real value of this read is the permission it provides to think about familiar subjects in new ways with new and more effective tools for understanding and interpretation.