What do you call it in English when, in a group of people with various skill levels, the people in the middle

a) strive to be as good as the most skilled person in the group

b) strive to do the bare minimum to be slightly better than the least skilled in the group

?

In Polish we call it "równać w górę" ("align up") and "równać w dół" ("align down") but that doesn't seem to translate well to English...