"Middle-income trap" is a term used to refer to countries that, after reaching a certain income level (according to the World Bank, it is $1,000 - $12,000), become stagnant or even fall behind due to the competitive advantages they had before (cheap labor, available resources, geographic location, etc.) are no longer enough to compete with larger competitors.
In the workplace, there is also a type of "mediocre-capacity trap" that occurs when an employees accumulated some experiences and are considered for a promotion / move to another company for a higher position, usually managing a small to medium-sized team. At this point, many employees encounter difficulties in their new roles, such as:
- Not achieving personal and team goals
- Team members not listening or respecting them
- Lack of support or isolation from other teams
- Reduced satisfaction from superiors with their overall job performance.
The typical reactions of the employees in this situation are:
- Try to find a new job and start over
- Blame the nature of the job
- Blame the superiors or colleagues
- Blame themselves, feeling discouraged, losing energy, motivation and confidence
It is possible that employees are trapped in their own "mediocre-capacity trap" due to their overestimation of their own abilities or overconfident, such as:
- Their expertise are not extraordinary but they thought they were outstanding because their previous workplace had a low / average standards
- And even if you have decent expertise, management requires more than pure expertise
- Their past achievements may have been due to outstanding colleagues (who do their job well), supportive superiors, overall corporate culture that allows them to do what they did (which might not exist in the new workplace)
- Their achievements might not be even aligned with the company benefits, i.e: 5,000 leads per month from paid ads means nothing if your company is losing money due to low quality leads (and you do not even know that)
- They used to do well in the previous execution focused position because their superiors / line managers helped manage the expectation of the higher-ups so that they can focus on their expertises. Now they have to do both and can no longer focus or do as well as the past
- Their ability is a one-time-usage only, meaning it can only be used at that specific company, in that industry, in certain conditions, and not applicable elsewhere, but they don't understand that.
- They are good at doing things on their own, but when it comes to helping others to do better, it just does not seems to work, and they end up rolling up their sleeves to do most things by themselves. This is certainly exhausting and detrimental.
- They have poor situational awareness and think that other people should and could have the capacity to solve the problems on their own, have enough information to understand the issues and to be proactive without realizing that there are many factors at play. They might not even realize that they are a part of the problem.
- And so on...
So how do you break free from the mediocre-capacity trap that you've created for yourself?
The root of the problem is that your previously competitive abilities are no longer as competitive as they were. In a larger playing field, there are plenty of talented people, young people are increasingly agile, and AI is gradually replacing repetitive skills. To break free from this mediocre-capacity trap, you need a completely new mindset from your old way of thinking that you've built up over years of doing your previous jobs. If you want different results, then you simply have to do things differently:
- Confidence must be accompanied by self-reflection - knowing where your strengths lie but also understanding that you have many shortcomings as well and needs to keep re-learning.
- Grow your capacities in many ways besides just working 9-5: sharing (blogging, podcasting, social), connecting with people from different fields, being a mentee of a skilled person or being a mentor to someone younger, etc.
- Hold back the kind of thinking that when you step into a new workplace, everything the previous team did is worthless and you're here to start anew.
- You don't need to be buddy-buddy with your team, but be a solid professional foundation that they can rely on.
- Learn how to work and communicate clearly with others/other teams.
- Learn how to handle pressure and face it head-on. Read more about Stoicism.
- Cut back on complaining online, stop posting stories about how your work sucks, your team will think you're talking about them (both old and new).
- Cut back on travel trip to "unwind", focus on resolving your issues because only after you've solved them then you can be relax and enjoy the trips.
- Cut back on self-pity and self-blaming. It's ok to self-reflect and know your weaknesses, but once you've done that, focus on fixing it rather than blaming yourself, getting depressed, and then having to go on another travel trip to boost your mood. Stop. Running. Away.
- The mediocre-capacity trap is something everyone has to go through. Whether you overcome it in 1-2 years or 5-7 years or get stuck in it for a very long time is all about choices.
Would love to hear all points of views from my professional connections.
You can read my original Vietnamese post here
