Lonely at the top

First thing’s first. Johns Hopkins was voted again as the top hospital for the 16th straight year in a row. It’s good to be on top.

Observation: I believe that being on top can actually be disadvantageous towards productivity and can work against you and your company. Consider Johns Hopkins: after being 16 years on top, employees believe that they are performing to the best of their abilities, when that is in fact far from the truth. While rankings (especially the ones in the U.S. News and World Report) are filled with shades of grey and should be taken with a grain of salt, they are hard to take lightly. Once someone places a label on you as being the best, you naturally tend to believe that you are inherently performing without flaw. I’ve witnessed the ebbs and flows of motivation at AIESEC Michigan; when you’re on top, you feel like nothing can bring you down until that lack of drive comes back to hit you. The goal is to avoid the dry spell by having the perspicacity to generate the impetus to perform well not only when you’re not at the top, but all the time. Being on top is not a goal, it’s a mindset. As a leader of an organization, how can you generate motivation when people simply believe that they have nothing more to give?




Ipod: Gnarles Barkley - Crazy