Perfection is the Enemy of Progress

We do a lot.  We are ALL doing a lot.  I am willing to bet that every single one of you that reads this article does A LOT!  How can I be so sure?  Well, many of our subscribers are executives, business leaders, PMO leaders, Project/Program Managers, business owners, consultants, volunteers for my nonprofit (Project Management for Change), or my friends and family that I’ve forced to sign up for my newsletter!  🙂  OK, they joined us willingly…it’s a family obligation, right?

What do you all have in common?  You have a never ending list of things that you need to do on a daily basis.  Trust me, I get it…my list never ends!  Between PMO Strategies and our training and coaching programs, consulting engagements, and speaking engagements,  my various responsibilities on the board of PMI Washington, D.C., and new this year, trying to get a nonprofit off the ground, my day seems to go on forever…and that’s just my “work” life.

People ask me how I do it all.  Well, first, I’m not sure one CAN do it all.  What I do is the best I can.  I had to learn to let go of perfection…and that was NOT easy!  Good enough had to be good enough.  It’s the best I can do and it’s the best you can do.  To make that shift from striving for perfection to being laser focused on how you are going to Get. It. Done., you may have to learn how to be really happy with good enough.

That’s why I’m writing this particular post this week.  I’m watching some of my teams and clients struggling to find the balance of good enough so they can keep moving and get to the awesome outcomes they are intending.

Ever get frustrated with someone committing to something and then they are unable to live up to that expectation?  If most people have good intentions, then is it possible that they might just be suffering from a little too much perfection and not enough being OK with good enough?

I think we all need a little reminder that sometimes, we have to be happy with good enough if we are going to get where we are trying to go strategically.

Is it better to do a 30 minute workout or just give up because you couldn’t get in the hour you had hoped?  How many workouts get skipped because we really wanted to make it to that class or go for the long run?

At work, are you trying to solve every problem you have and every step of a massive project with one document?  Are you somewhere around your 25th revision and completely overwhelmed with how to get from here to done?

Are you trying to report every little detail on a status report and afraid that you might miss something or be judged if it isn’t perfect?

We spend a lot of time worrying about the what-if of not getting it perfect, but we often miss the what-if of taking too long to get to results.

Let’s assume that the document DID have a very important purpose…

First, you have the meeting to talk about the documents you want to create.  Then, the meeting to start talking about the content.  Then, the meeting to talk about the progress of the writing.  Then, another meeting because you now have 10 new inputs to the document that mean you need to revisit the whole table of contents.  Then, the review meeting.  Then, the review meeting.  Then, the review meeting.  You get the idea.

Have you considered how much time went by while you were writing your 25th revision of that document?  What is the impact of NOT getting that document out sooner?  What is the outcome you expected to get as a result of that document being read?  Have you let your opportunity pass you by?  Did the process get in front of you and people found other ways to get stuff done because this document never got to a “final” version?  Is it actually obsolete now because the environment has shifted and this deliverable no longer serves the intent you originally anticipated?

Yes?  Then why are you still working on it?

No? Then finish the version you have now, get it out there and reviewed and call it done.  We spend so much time revising and reviewing documents, cycle after cycle, until we miss the golden opportunity to create action and outcome for which the document was originally intended.

How about that status report?  This is a big one for me.  Why are you doing the report?  To tell management what’s going on so they will take action, make a decision, etc.?  If you take weeks to get that first report to them, you’ve missed an opportunity to bring them with you through the change.  If you wait until you have all of the information, all of the facts and every little detail of every task that’s been done, you are likely to face two big problems:

1. your status may no longer be relevant
2. the project needed decisions, support, actions weeks ago and now you are behind because you are JUST presenting information to leadership to get them to act.

Perfection is the enemy of progress.  How much further could you be on your project if you had gotten OK with good enough and gotten something out there?

Ask yourself…what is the purpose of what I’m writing/creating/producing? Who is the audience and what do they need really to know?  What is the message you want to convey?  What do you want someone to DO as a result of what they read?

Focus on actions and decisions.  Everything you create should serve a specific purpose in getting you closer to your outcomes.  If it doesn’t, why are you creating it in the first place?

Now that I’ve got you thinking, I will leave you with this imperfect post and start writing the next one where I walk you through specifically HOW you can communicate your status to executives in one page and in less than an hour so that you can ALL get back to the business of Getting. It. Done.