Strategic Mediocrity

[SunBum]

Sitting here waiting for the conference championship games to start and thinking about our program. I happened to listen to an old podcast last night and learned about an investing strategy called strategic mediocrity. Basically by consistently aiming for results at some level below the very best, over time, the long term results can beat those consistently trying to be #1.

The idea being that the hotshots sometimes catch lightening in a bottle and reach the pinnacle but most of the time the risk-reward ratio produces less desirable results. Strategic mediocrity says that lowering the risk level a bit can produce more consistently winning results although maybe never #1.

Of course I know that this doesn't translate perfectly to college football but, I think, some of the ideas can be useful, particularly for a program like us. Instead of reaching (financially) for a hotshot head coach, we go with Key. And now maybe we're thinking about a hotshot O.C. versus maybe Weinke (not that we can realistically get a Garrett Reilly).

I'm thinking, what moves do we need to make, if any, to get to 6 wins next year and bowl eligibility? In the new universe of college football, I have my doubts that we'll be able to regularly compete for conference championships or CFP births but can we get to a point where we're respectable and regularly winning 7-8 games? I know this is Chan Gailey - CPJ territory but the landscape has changed and that may be our ceiling as it stands right now.

I guess I'm just thinking that we need to be smart and realistic about where we can get to in the next five years or so. And it I like the way things are being handled at this particular time.

 

[4shotB]

You described my investment strategy over my lifetime to a T. I didn't know it had a name. It works well in investing (imo). The downside to this in sports is in the marketing side of things. It doesn't sell well to the average Joe on the street if your marketing slogan is Strategic Mediocrity (this would be a great band name fwiw). To attract fans, you have to create the idea that you are serious about competing at the top. In MLB, you see plenty of Yankees and Dodgers paraphenalia scattered across the country but not so much the Reds or Pirates. Same with the NFl...compare Patriots gear seen against the Lions. WTBS, pure marketing and hype doesn't work as a stand alone strategy either (see Tech, Georgia 2019 - 2022 as a prime example).

As an aside, I think a money making idea that I missed out on was naming things that made common sense and pitching to others. I.e. "Strategic Mediocrity". I remember attending a kaizen seminar (iirc) a long time ago (is that still a thing anymore?). It was in Chicago? Boston? Kankakee? A process engineer told me during break that, when he was designing a layout, he put the #%*^ together (machines , people, tooling and materials) together in a way so that people had the stuff they needed quickly and didn't get in each others way. He said he didn't know it had a name. If he cooked up the name himself he could have made far more money peddling common sense under a catchy name than doing the actual work itself. That has always stuck with me.