Keith Lucas

You can make the case for this kind of person that they are exceptional and you're making an exception.

But if that person was toxic or dishonest or combative or violated other values that you had, even the exceptional performance wouldn't matter because the cost of getting it was too high.

So with the high talent disruptor, the issue is the friction and cost and pain on others.

With the okay contributor, this is someone who, by definition, by my definition, is pretty good.

They meet all your criteria, but they're just not exceptional at anything and they don't actually get better.

And that's a key piece of it.

They're where they are.

And because they, by my definition, they align with values in every other way, you can actually take time to coach these people to experiment with different roles.

They are not causing short-term pain.

But the key is that ultimately, they are reinforcing a culture of mastery.

So the biggest impact on culture, in my experience, is who you hire, who you promote, and who you retain.

And by retaining a lot of okay contributors, you're creating an environment of okay contributors.

And that will lower, again, people's assessment of the team's ability to succeed.

So the okay contributor is another way of thinking about it.

It's my way of talking about the adage that you hear about B and C players, that it's easy to let go of a C player, but it's hard to let go of B players.

And the latter takes discipline.

So you really want to avoid reinforcing a culture of mediocrity.

And this is a hard thing to do.

So a mission athlete is my model for the type of person entrepreneurial teams need most.

These are people who are fueled by mission.