Las Vegas can be a nice place to visit. But not if your plane ticket was to Los Angeles.
On occasion, some of my team members will advance the argument that they wants kudos or a bonus for getting “close to” their goals.
My response is generally some version of “Las Vegas is a very nice place, but the goal was Los Angeles.”
The message I am trying to send is that even if you get a project or task 95% done, much of the value is lost when the last bit is not accomplished. Would you want to travel on a bridge 95% complete? Willingly live in a house with the roof stopping 95% of the water? Want electricity that worked 95% of the time? Put up for long with a car that started 19 times out of 20? I know my mortgage holders won’t accept a check that is 95% of the amount due.
There is a secondary message as well: Often the first 95% is the easiest. The hardest work (and thus the bonus, the greatest praise) often lies in the last few percentage points. I do not give bonuses for base work, foundational performance, B or even B+ work. Bonuses are for the last few percentage points of accomplishment. It’s performance that counts.
Don’t try to spin how nice Las Vegas is to me. You lose credibility. If you promise Los Angeles, if the goal is Los Angeles, if the target is Los Angeles, then deliver Los Angeles.
Wow, I really loved this message! Your posts are awesome, you have a true talent in writing.
A magazine entitled “Insight” once published an article, “Strive for Perfection…or Else!”
– According to the article, if 99.9% is good enough then…
• 103,260 income tax returns will be processed incorrectly this year.
• 22,000 checks will be deducted from the wrong bank accounts in the next sixty minutes.
• 1,314 phone calls will be mis-routed every minute.
• 12 babies will be given to the wrong parents each day.
• 5,517,200 cases of soft drinks produced in the next twelve months will be flatter than a bad tire.
• Two plane landings daily at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago will be unsafe.
• 18,322 pieces of mail will be mishandled in the next hour.
• 291 pacemaker operations will be performed incorrectly this year.
• 880,000 credit cards in circulation will turn out to incorrect cardholder information on their magnetic strips.
• 20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions will be written in the next twelve months.
• And 107 incorrect medical procedures will be performed by the end of the day today.
Thanks Jackie!
I think this is too inflexible. Aren’t goals arbitrary? Here’s what I usually face at work: With X amount of tasks and Y amount of resources, I need to get the maximum value of work done on the X tasks. I make a tentative plan and set goals, but if it becomes apparent later on that resources are being expended on one task and they would be more useful somewhere else, I adjust the goal based on my improved understanding of reality.
Like the speed of light, perfection is an ideal that we can approach with ever-increasing effort, but never achieve. Isn’t it better to do nine things very well than one thing perfectly?
One might argue that I’m describing planning or strategy development, while you described a leadership technique. I do agree that facing an inflexible standard can motivate someone to do better than they would have done without it. But conversely failing to meet an inflexible standard is demotivating!
What did I read the other day on this site? “The secret is balance.” “The journey is the destination.” What about appreciating every bit of progress on the journey, and not just the destination?
Jonathon!
You gave a tour de force on the subject! thanks! Your closing thought on balance sums it up well.
The only thought i have to add was that i was not speaking of 95% of perfection but 95% of an agreed upon goal (lot of this depends on the quality of the relationship, culture and communication) and the rewards for reaching the the full goal.
The Financial Planning process (budgets) can have a lot of posturing, high balling and low balling. i’ve got 3 rules
1) Beat the competition (a for real benchmark, not some made up patsy group)
2) Beat last year and most important of all
3) Don’t leave anything on the table.
The last one is the most subjective but i close w/ a quote from JFK’s “Man on the Moon w/in the Decade” speech:
“We do these things and others, not because they are easy but because they are hard.”
In that light I’d agree exactly with how you put it… it’s very nice that you had a great journey to vegas. But if the reward was dependent on getting to LA well then appreciate the experience you got out of it and do better next time.
I go through the same thing with my son… when he got a computer we agreed there would be no games on a school night unless he has all A’s. Having a B+ and some A’s is a great accomplishment as well, but doesnt get the reward!