It sounds like a Sherlock Holmes story. Indeed, the people I call "radar dodgers" hope they can wrap themselves in the mystery of anonymity & thus save their jobs.

   These are those fellow employees who, in spite of their mediocrity, have dodged every layoff, weaved around every average review & hung in there while other, more capable staff have been "hung."

  To be a good radar dodger you must practice their tricks. The top skill? Blame others while shirking responsibility. Some have become Olympians at this.

   Bud won gold. He was among the first leaders I met when I entered the executive ranks at Toledo's Riverside Hospital in 1975. After seven years as a trial lawyer I was brand new in healthcare & was seeking tips. Bud had many. 

   "Keep your head down, Erie," he told me. "Otherwise it'll get shot off."    

   Another Bud-Tip, "If ain't broke, don't fix it."

   I asked him once why one of his departments was underperforming. "That's Jane's fault," he said. "She's the Queen of Average."

   When I looked surprised he hit me with another tip? "Don't make waves. She's been here eight years & will retire at ten after she qualifies for her pension. That problem will solve itself."

   When I asked the CEO about Bud he paused for a second as if trying to remember him. Bud had dodged the bosses' radar!

   When I became CEO Bud was one of the first directors I let go. "What have I done wrong?" he asked.

   "Nothing," I said. "You love average. We need excellence."

  Radar dodgers hate excellence. Patients love it.

-Erie Chapman