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- From Empire: The Life, Legend and Madness of Howard Hughes by Donald L. Bartlett & James B. Steel How many times have you heard someone (it may have been you) proclaim or complain that he/she is a perfectionist? You may have noticed that going for perfection is a fool's game. You simply cannot win when you set perfection as your standard. There may be rare and unusual situations where perfection is assumed to be an appropriate standard. Frankly, I can't think of one - no, not even life and death situations such as heart surgery demand perfection in the process. Each stitch does not have to be sewn perfectly in order to affect the outcome. Perfection is present in the ultimate result, as evident in the patient's survival or death, not in the process. When 'perfection' is the goal it is usually out of an exaggerated desire to be right, to avoid criticism or risk. The focus is on 'how am I doing?' rather than on producing a specific outcome. Excellence, on the other hand, is a way of life. It is the context in which high achievers and peak performers produce and contribute to the quality of life. High achievers and peak performers get things done by taking action looking for appropriate outcomes and measuring their success based on the quantity and quality of their results. The bad news is that being a human being means we have the abilities and the failings of human beings. We make mistakes. We get tired. We get distracted. We fail to communicate clearly and accurately. When we set perfection as our goal, all of our actions are based on attempts to conquer our natural human limits with little or no intention on the ultimate outcome. The search for perfection limits our ability to act meaningfully. Acting in accordance with standards of excellence allows us to produce superb results and opens the door to experimentation and creativity.
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More Articles:1. Balancing Technology, Management, and Leadership 'The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.' -- Alfred North Whitehead, 19th century British mathematician and philosopher As Achieve (my first consulting company) was working with our Clients to implement Toward Excellence (the cultural change process we had developed in conjunction with Tom Peters) I was growing increasingly uneasy. Something didn't feel right. In In Search of Excellence, Peters and Waterman presented a powerful case against 'the ra… 2. Creativity Management and Time Pressure By Kal Bishop There is a pervasive belief that time pressure stimulates creativity. This is both true and false.There are a number of forces at work:a) Time pressure increases creative output. By forcing idea production, setting goals and incremental deadlines, a greater number of ideas are produced than if a “do your best” approach is taken. If a leader asks particpants in an idea generating session to address a problem and think of at least 5 ideas every half an hour, then 80 ideas are produced by one ind… 3. Empowering Others - Giving Them Some Control By Martin Haworth It's been a pretty good weekend around the place - not done a lot, but I have done what I've wanted to do - and that makes the difference.I changed my role when I first left the employed world. Having been a manager for over 25 years. I became a true employee with a manager breathing down my neck. It was the most difficult thing to accept. It wasn't because I could do it better (although, then again...!), more it was that I had just no control at all. And I realised that most people who have j… 4. What Does Your Staff REALLY Want? Part 3 The 2005 'Best Places to Work' program study showed that, contrary to popular opinion, employee satisfaction didn't depend on salary. The most given answer as to what makes a company a great place to work is employee empowerment. And what constitutes employee empowerment? I believe it comes down to a few basic principles, the third of which is effective communication. EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION Millions of words have been written on this subject, and yet it's still a huge problem, especially in th… |
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