"What about the new guy, Ed?\" asked T.C.. "It's too early to tell for sure, but he looks ne. He's not a superstar, but he's solid,\" answered Lee. "Tell me,\" continued T.C., "what's the basis for distinguishing between, say, Alex and Don?\" With a bit of prompting, Lee was able to articulate his Views on the differences between outstanding performers and \"adequate performers\": \"In manufacturing, outstanding performers know how to get things done. What they don't know, they go and nd out. They're selfstarters, they drive to excellence. Adequate performers tend to accept that \"things happen\" rather the challenging them. There's also a difference in terms of accountability; I nd that lower performers often spend more time trying to escape accountability - trying to explain variances away or resisting stretch targets - than they actually spend trying to achieve the targets! And the last thing is that lower performers generally don't