The shoemaker's child syndrome has struck again. You know that story, right? The shoemaker's children are those who walk around town without any shoes. That's me. I sit down to write - and discover that I'm writing about a topic I know all too well.
It has been a while since I've been back here to blog. As I sat down to write, I recognized that I have been a victim of the exact issues I've chosen to write about - Perfectionism and Making Choices.
Over the last several weeks, I have struggled to come up with the perfect blog topic. I generated several ideas and debated which was the best. As a result, I have not written anything. Instead of getting something good done, I sacrificed making any progress at all to the alter of Perfectionism and Making a Choice. My guess is you've done the same.
Right now, RedZone is working with a client that is trying to do it all right. And that's a big part of their problem. There are two major challenges imbedded within the concept of "Doing It All Right."
- Doing it All, and
- Doing it Right
"I Can't Make a Choice - So I Won't Do Anything"
When you were younger, was there ever a day when there were so many things you wanted to do, you'd end up not doing any of them? Have you ever sat in front of a "To Do" list, feeling overwhelmed by all the items on it - so you just sat and looked at it?
You've met the enemy: "Doing it All."
We know that we can't get it all done, all at once. We don't have the resources, the time, the ability. But somehow, we end up wanting it all anyway. So we try to figure out what to do to get it all done. We build a plan. We see we will need to make choices, do things one at a time, in a sequence that makes sense and builds one activity on the last. It will take time, effort, investment, and little steps leading to our final goals. We know all this! Yet we keep looking for the "magic wand," the way to get it all, all at once.
The smart ones among us shrug our shoulders and say "Let's get started." And they do. One task at a time, checking it off the list. Things start getting done. You experience little successes. You get closer to finishing the list, and reaching your goal.
Sometimes, the tasks you choose to do aren't the most important, but they're quick, give you a sense of accomplishment and success. On occasion, the choice is because of prerequisites - you don't really want to do this one (say, priming a wall) but you have to because it is needed to complete the more important activity (painting the wall). Frequently, things fall off the list. Others get added. The list never seems to end - but things are getting done. And you continue to get closer and closer to your goals.
RedZone is all about getting things done. "There's a big difference," we say, "between deciding to succeed - and doing it." Our focus is on "doing it" - getting it done. But we don't get the chance to get anything done if we don't "decide" first - we have to choose what to do, then do it.
"The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good"
The original quote in French is "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.", from Voltaire's Dictionnaire Philosophique (1764) Literally translated as "The best is the enemy of good.", but more often cited as "The perfect is the enemy of the good."
Pursuing the "best" solution may end up doing less actual good than accepting a solution that, while not perfect, is effective. General George Patton stated a current version of the same idea: "A good plan implemented today is better than a perfect plan implemented tomorrow."
Our client wants a perfect solution. It wants one that is painless, riskless, costless, easy to implement, agreeable to all, and guaranteed to succeed. As you might imagine, it's pretty tough to come up with a solution that fits these criteria. Alternatives get discussed, but none are perfect. And management's concerns about the solutions proposed are reasonable: There is risk. Some people won't like the solution. It will be difficult to implement and may not succeed. And so, in pursuit of the perfect solution, nothing gets done.
This is a problem that has been recognized through the ages, not just by Voltaire and George Patton:
- A man would do nothing, if he waited until he could do it so well that no one would find fault with what he has done.--John Henry Cardinal Newman
- A person determined never to be wrong won't likely accomplish much.--Ken Wisdom
- Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly.--Robert Schuller
- Everything that grows holds in perfection but a moment.---William Shakespeare
- Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.--Ghandi
- Have no fear of perfection. You'll never reach it.---Salvador Dali
- In order to go on living one must try to escape the death involved in perfectionism.--Hannah Arendt (Rachel Varnhagen)
- It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached.--Samuel Johnson
(Source for quotes: http://www1.bbiq.jp/quotations/perfection.htm)
Perfectionism ("Doing it Right") and Making Choices ("Doing it All") are enemies of getting worthwhile things done. Would it be nice to be perfect, and get everything done at once? Of course! But that's not real, resonable, or a strategy on which to succeed. We need to make the best choices we can, given the information we have, and do. We have to do the best job we can, given the time, resources, capabilities we have, and get things done.
We'll discover new requirements along the way and add them to the list. We'll work hard and have to make more choices. But every step takes us closer and closer to our true goals.
Getting a lot done very well is much better than not getting anything done at all. We won't be perfect. We won't get it all done. But we will get a lot done very, very well. And we will succeed.
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