Achieving Success through Low Expectations?

A young man struck up a conversation with an older man who he knew had been married to the same woman for more than fifty years. Impressed by the older man’s matrimonial achievements, the young man asked… “How have you managed to stay married to the same woman for more than fifty years?” The older man paused, pondered the question, then answered… “I guess I just didn’t expect much!”  

Whew!! Not exactly the response we anticipated, is it? Absent is this gentleman’s sweet and passionate response about how his life’s partner had met his every need for fifty plus years. Gone is the gracious reply about how his loving wife had time-and-again done more for him than he had done for her. Nope! None of that! Instead, we get a response that demonstrates how something meaningful and measurable, fifty plus years of marriage, can sometimes be achieved without caring or expectation.  

While achieving success through low expectations might work for a few marriages, it is not a strategy that results in success for governments, business enterprises or community improvement endeavors. In these areas we require leadership, daring, partnership, planning and execution – all attributes

Need some proof? That’s easy. All one needs to do is select from a long list of community achievements that our residents enjoy today that didn’t even exist a mere six years ago. In no particular order, I will list just twenty, accompanied by an apology to those whose favorites I left out: 

1. Shoppes at North Village (32 new stores and more coming)
2. EBR Project (Cheddars, Olive Garden, KFC and more coming)
3. The Commons Development (Menards, Waffle House and more coming)
4. Heritage Park Softball Complex (award winning softball venue)
5. Nature
   Center (open summer 2008)
6. Riverwalk (from downtown to Nature Center and additional points north)
7. Living History Preserve (south of Nature Center along Riverwalk)
8. St. Joseph
   Aquatic Park and newly renovated Krug and Hyde Pools
9. Widened and improved
   
   Faraon Street

   from Belt Highway to
   

   Riverside Road

10. Widened and improved
    
    King Hill Avenue

11. Route AC (
    
    Riverside Road

    ) extension from
    

    Picket Road

    to South 169 Highway

12. MWSU - achieved University status/new offering of Masters programs
13. MWSU - $30+ million renovation and expansion of Augustine Hall (math and science building)
14. MWSU - Life sciences incubator
15. Triumph Foods ( St. Joseph’s second largest employer)
16. New $5+ million, state-of-the-art, police facility at Law Enforcement Center (LEC)
17. New $9+ million state-of-the-art, public safety communication system at LEC
18. Wastewater treatment capacity expansion for business and population growth
19. Heartland West demolition, making way for new uptown residential expansion
20. Downtown Holiday Inn renovation

Just look around.