Is Perfect Getting in the Way of Good?

"If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn't need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around."

- Jim Rohn

Do you have employees who are perfectionists? Do they have to do the work perfect and can't seem to understand that they are taking way too long and their productivity suffers because of it? They are busy, they are accountable for being busy, but are not getting the results you need to see in that position?

Or maybe I described you?

Well here is an excellent tool from Seth Godin:

Polishing perfect  

Perfect doesn't mean flawless. Perfect means it does exactly what I need it to do. A vacation can be perfect even if the nuts on the plane weren't warmed before serving.

Any project that's held up in revisions and meetings and general fear-based polishing is the victim of a crime. It's a crime because you're stealing that perfect work from a customer who will benefit from it. You're holding back the good stuff from the people who need it, afraid of what the people who don't will say.

Stop polishing and ship instead. Polished perfect isn't better than perfect, it's merely shinier. And late.