Whenever I talk with people about loving care, they always agree it’s the most important thing. Whenever I consult with executives about the importance of excellence, they always give peak performance a big thumbs up. "Excellence is what matters," leaders say.
   It is with these endorsements ringing in my ears that I share a strange story. Recently, I got a note from a front line hospital employee claiming she had been summoned to her supervisor’s office. Since she had always received top performance reviews across her long career at the same hospital, she wondered what this could be about.
   "You’re too much of a stand out performer," her supervisor told her. "You do so many extra things for everyone that you’re making the other employees look bad. You need to ease up."…

   I suppose that you, like me, are shaking your head. Yet some other part of you understands. Peak performers are what every leader says they want. But when peak performers appear, it disrupts the culture. Fellow employees are challenged by the presence of a star. The star’s exceptional commitment exposes mediocrity and average performance. This makes the status quo folks very uncomfortable. Pretty soon, they start trying to sabotage the star. It’s an old and painful story.
   What’s odd about this particular case is that the supervisor would join in the undercutting. I know the particular hospital where this person works and what they need are lots more peak performers like this employee.
   This story highlights the enormous complexity and difficulty of advancing a culture of loving care. Great cultures nurture great performers. Mediocre cultures hate exceptional talent. This is why the introduction of Radical Loving Care can cause so much disruption.
   Tyrants react to loving caregivers the way vampires respond to light. The goal of the tyrant is not excellence but control, not partnership, but power, not love, but fear.
   But what are we to do if we live in a culture that prefers the average? Here are the words of the employee who wrote me: "I’m still going to keep doing a great job no matter what my boss says – because that’s what people who come to the hospital deserve."

-Erie Chapman