Pursuing Excellence, Not Perfection
I was meeting with a prospective client recently and said those four key words to her, “In order to achieve your objectives, we need to pursue excellence not perfection.” After I said it, she looked at me, stood up, and said, “Can you please excuse me for a minute?” I was not sure what just happened, but I knew it was profound. Two minutes later, she returned with the CEO and the three of us proceeded to have an engaging 90-minute discussion on how we could improve the performance of their people and their organization.
When we pursue excellence, we reward improvement. We provide a clear road map for people to follow. We achieve incremental successes. In addition, we are always able to redefine what excellence means and set new expectations.
When we pursue perfection, we do not reward improvement. We only reward perfection. What if it is never achieved? There are only two possible outcomes when you strive for perfection: success and failure. There is no middle ground. Unfortunately, most organizations that strive for perfection, fail. And even though improvements have been made, they are not celebrated, because perfection was not achieved.
The next time that same organization sets expectations, people are wary and gun shy because they remember the last time the organization failed. I had a client who told me that her Board of Directors still reviews a specific failed project at every meeting. The problem is that the project failed 5 years ago!!! And they are still dwelling on it. Why would anyone want to propose any new project if that is the way failure is treated?
In this book, I provided you 25 (or more) ways for you to accelerate growth, boost profits, and enhance performance, all without making any additional financial investments. In order to implement any of these strategies successfully, you need to change your mindset to one of pursuing excellence, not perfection. You need to celebrate each achievement and even failure. You need to encourage progress and not stagnation. Once you do that, you will see your results improve.
So I leave you with this one last question: Are you pursuing excellence and setting your organization up for success, or pursuing perfection and setting it up for failure?