It’s tempting to create a safety net around underperformance.
It’s usually easier to reassure ourselves that “next time, she’ll deliver” than to tackle the issue directly.
Organisations where missed expectations are overlooked and team members aren’t held accountable may feel friendly, but they’re headed in one direction: mediocrity and failure.
James Astle explores why children in the USA often learn to swim better than they learn mathematics. He noticed that while both math and swimming teachers try to boost confidence, swimming teachers have an advantage: the water.
The water doesn’t care how good you think you are or how hard you try. If you can’t swim, you sink.
As Astle says, “if their instructors had focused on making them feel good about swimming, instead of on making them swim, they could have drowned.”
Successful organisations are the same. They build cultures of accountability, high expectations, and real consequences for underperformance.
By doing so, they encourage everyone to truly learn to swim.
