Perfect is the enemy of good
attributed to Voltaire
Recently, a friend of mine had a major back issue. Delibatingly major. In fairness, he has put on about 30kgs in the last few years and has had a hell of an emotional journey in the last few months which hasn’t helped.
During dinner, maybe not the best thing I could be doing with him, he asked how he could start to lose weight.
I suggested moving more, eating less, lifting weights, the basics to start seeing some lower numbers on the scale.
One little trick I offered was that there is evidence that walking after a meal can be really beneficial. I mentioned going for a 10-minute walk after dinner, this NYT article believes you can walk for even less time.
His immediate response was he couldn’t do that every day.
So what does a friend’s weight loss apprehensions have to do with getting more out of your team?
Improvement Isn’t Perfect
Instead of attempting to increase his physical movement and raise the amount of calories he will be burning per day, thus, giving him a chance to start losing weight, he pushed back and said he couldn’t do it every day so why do it any day.
Over the course of a week, walking after one meal is better than walking after zero meals. Walking two times is better than one time, and so on.
The concept of perfection sounds nice, but it is a cruel target because we don’t live in a perfect world and life will get in the way.
Maybe one week, you could walk after every meal, but odds on, you will only be able to do it less than 100% of the time, so do it when you can. It is better than not doing it at all.
Perfect Improvement
When working with your team on improving anything, know that you want to paint the picture of an amazing outcome, what is the north star they are aiming for.
This has to be tempered with what is achievable and what is realistic.
I am currently pushing my team to communicate more effectively and more often. It is a challenge.
If I said you have to be perfect with everything all the time, they would fail and it would be a counterproductive endeavour.
I am constantly reinforcing what I want to see and what good looks like.
I want the team to be constantly improving, not attempting to be perfect. When a team member does a good job I praise in public and show them what they did.
We are improving, but through the process, things are missed. I have to ask and remind people for things to be communicated. They will fall back to the patterns they are used to so changing the pattern will take time.
My friend won’t lose 30 kgs in a day or in one walk, but many walks over many days will be taking him in the right direction.
One step in the right direction is taking you astronomically further than many steps in the wrong direction.
Luke McMeeken-Ruscoe 