Perfect Comes with a Cost | Accelerate Success with Lorraine Moore

This beautiful (and delicious) birthday cake was partly prepared and entirely decorated by our two-and-a-half-year-old grandson. To me, part of its beauty lies in its imperfection. Although, who am I to presume it was not all very intentional on his part? Maybe he wanted to ensure he could have a piece with loads of M&Ms.

In business and life, many of us strive for perfection. This quest for perfection comes with a cost. There is a reason Pareto’s principle is so often cited. In most cases, 20 percent of your clients are generating roughly 80 percent of your revenues or profits, and/or 80 percent of referral business is sourced from the 20 percent who are well connected and are raving fans.

Striving for perfection personally or professionally is a costly endeavour.

When one of your project teams strives to meet all business requirements, they will likely exceed the budget, or the implementation will be delayed. Typically, it is both. And the elegance of the solution will never deliver the ROI.

If you want to assure your board that your systems are 100 percent protected against cyber attacks, you may well be incurring costs that would be better allocated elsewhere. As well, 100 percent protection is a futile pursuit. No one is completely safeguarded. Banks recognize this, which is why they invest in very good systems such as credit card chip technology and fraud detection, and educate customers on the importance of password privacy while allotting funds for credit card losses every year.

In our personal lives, the pursuit of perfection is sometimes apparent in the birthday parties for young children that are run like a major motion picture production, the $27 billion cosmetic surgery industry (for men and women), the $80 billion fitness and $70.3 billiondiet industries, and more. (I am absolutely a proponent of being our healthiest, most fit selves. I have learned a great deal from trainers and nutritionists.)

Many of us work long hours and want to create memorable experiences for those we care most about in the world. However, when the pursuit is against an ever-rising bar in comparison to others or stems from guilt for long hours or time away, it erodes our joy and our pleasure in life. So it is in business.

There are some situations in which 100 percent or a perfect score is an important outcome. This includes keeping our employees safe from harm, testing autonomous systems to ensure they perform correctly every time (e.g. self-driving cars and auto-piloted systems), and (arguably) immunization so that we can once again eradicate preventable diseases. But these are the exception, not the rule.

When we build most of our processes, systems and performance standards to a consistent, reliable level that falls short of perfect, we can invest our employees’ intellectual capabilities and direct their activities to ensure perfection when it really matters.

Also, when we allow ourselves to be less than perfect in our personal lives – when we “settle” – we show ourselves to be human, providing better role models for our children and mentees, and we are more approachable and interesting to others.

My clients accelerate their results – increasing profitability, leadership performance, innovation, and accountability. I would love to discuss how I might contribute to your success. Contact me today.

Elevate your leadership performance by learning from some of the best. Pick up a copy of my book, The 360 Degree CEO: Generating Profits While Leading and Living with Passion and Principles, available on Amazon.

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