Ralph Waldo Emerson was quoted as saying, “I hate quotes.” Luck you. As I’ve been told by countless college writing professors, and readers of this blog, I’m no Emerson! There’s nothing I like more than a good quote, which is why every month I am shamelessly stealing and expounding on the wisdom of others to bring you Quotes from The KaiZone.
This month’s quote comes to us from one of my favorite Lean thinkers, Steven Spear. In his book, The High-Velocity Edge, Mr. Spear offers the following commentary on the growing complexity in our world:
Why this quote? With the thousands of Lean, continuous improvement, business, leadership and motivational quotes out there, why pick this quote? Two reasons. First, I feel a bit of a personal connection to the book from which the quote was sourced, as two of my mentors contributed significantly enough to get shout-outs in the foreward (even if one of their names wasn’t quite spelled correctly). Second, in my personal experience (take it for what it’s worth), no other quote sums up the mindset required to achieve success, whether in Lean or the more general pursuits of life, quite like this simple and elegant string of words.
If we were to breakdown the quote into it’s underlying components, there are three distinct messages to be learned:
1. We cannot know all there is to know.
Knowledge is the driving force of improvement. It follows that we can achieve perfection only when we have learned all that there is to learn. However, with the ever-increasing complexity of today’s world, the amount to be known is growing exponentially. Certainly, in this day and age, no one could claim to be all-knowing. So why then, do we act as if we can plan our way into perfection?
Despite all evidence to the contrary, we fall victim to the planning fallacy by forming our plans on best-case scenarios. We constantly implement changes, whether for improvement or in response to external factors, without ever having tried them out – and we’re SHOCKED when they don’t go as expected! And worst of all, how many people have we parted ways with that were merely a victim of poorly designed processes, and the prevailing “set-it-and-forget-it” style of management?
Why do we do this? Some would argue that it’s impossible to see the unforeseeable impediments that trip us up. It’s not, however, that we simply don’t know what we don’t know. It’s that we don’t know – and fail to acknowledge – that we can’t know.
2. Perfection, and nothing less, is the goal.
That we cannot plan for perfection does NOT, however, allow us to set our ultimate standards any lower. To be clear, perfection, and nothing less, is the goal.
By tolerating anything less than perfection, we acknowledge and accept the alternative. We accept that our understanding of our systems and services will always be limited. We accept that our people will never reach their full potential. And we accept that our customers will never truly be satisfied . . . at least not by us. Perhaps we should start mentioning these on our goals and objectives?
But it gets better! Thanks to human nature, even small concessions in terms of quality, delivery or cost will only grow over time. If we justify even a small deviation from perfection today, what is to stop us from further doing so again tomorrow? And the day after that? And the day after that? Loss of integrity is a slippery slope that starts with one small, justifiable step away from our ideal.
The ultimate result? Mediocrity. Just look around.
3. Approaching perfection requires relentless pursuit.
The most important point to remember is that while perfection is the ultimate destination, it is certainly not the starting point. And it never will be. NEVER! Not in anything we do. (Have I made my point yet?) The path to perfection is long, and it certainly is hard, but the only way that we get there is by setting a course to True North and heading off one small step at a time.
What are the implications of this to an organization? First and foremost, it means defining perfection, True North, for your processes and services. Once the direction is understood, the key is to start fast and stay fast. After all, competition, by definition, means that we are in a race to True North.
Get ahead by foregoing the drawn-out attempts to bake perfection into your outputs, accept that you cannot and will not know everything, and embrace scientific thinking in the form of many, many cycles of Plan-Do-Check-Adjust. Stay ahead of the pack by committing everyone to solve the problems, be they big or small, that obstruct the path. Not tomorrow, or six months from now, but today.
That, in my opinion, is the key to success in business and it is key to success in life.
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