PROGRESS OVER PERFECTION Don’t Let Fear Stunt Your Growth
None of us are perfect, but that doesn’t always stop us from trying to be. Many entrepreneurs consider perfection a mildly irritating quirk or even a positive trait. After all, who doesn’t want their business to be the best it can be? But ironically, perfectionism can be the enemy of growth. To start, perfectionism harms productivity. Unable to get things exactly right, some perfectionists procrastinate on essential tasks. Others spend way too much time trying to get them exactly right. Either way, they waste time chasing an elusive goal. We should all strive to do good work, but perfection is in the eye of the beholder, so no product, logo, social media page, or press release will ever be immune from criticism. Then, there’s the impact on new ideas. Every new product, service, marketing campaign, and hire poses risks. Perfectionists can hold themselves back for fear of failure. But even our favorite and most iconic products weren’t perfect straight out of the gate. Technology greats like Microsoft and Apple continually build on their original offerings to develop the best gadgets and software. Like most of us, these companies best refine their ideas through trial and error and customer feedback. Perfectionism also prevents us from becoming better leaders. Perfectionists sometimes refuse to admit errors, convinced they’re always right (or too afraid to admit they’re not). In other cases, they beat themselves up over mistakes. Both reactions prevent an honest assessment of what went wrong and an opportunity to grow from the experience. You also can’t reliably lead others without a combination of humility and confidence, something perfectionists can struggle to master.
So, what’s the antidote to perfectionism and all of its pitfalls? Many thought leaders argue it’s progress. How far we’ve come is more important than how gracefully we got there or how much further we have left to go. The key to valuing progress over perfection is to stop measuring yourself against others and let go of your ideal regarding how things “should be.” Maybe you wanted to grow your sales by 30% last quarter — but that doesn’t discount your achievement of “only” growing them by 20%. Or perhaps your new quality control initiative still needs some work. But you should consider whether your business is better off than before the project began. Instead of focusing on how well we do things on our first attempt, we should reflect on how far we are from where we started. Progress is a better metric than perfection because it’s much more likely to create growth and innovation. Fewer things get done when everything must be perfect, and you miss out on valuable opportunities to acquire new customers, grow your market share, and learn from your mistakes. You’ve probably heard of “letting perfect be the enemy of good.” But perfect can also be the enemy of productivity and progress. Instead of asking, “Is this perfect?” try, “Is this better than what we had before?” The results might pleasantly surprise you.
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