Quote of the Week

Quote of the week: Sometimes 80% is 100%.

I have always struggled with the idea of “excellence.” Often proponents of “excellence” are really perfectionist. These people slave over every little detail believing that God is in the details. However sincere they may be, they come across to me as insufferable. I’ve come to grips that not everything we do requires a perfect end result.

I don’t like chain restaurants. I avoid them whenever possible. They shape every hamburger perfectly, they weigh their French fries and measure each ingredient so as to have a standardized product. This method has its place. When you are on the road you can expect that McDonald’s in Phoenix will pretty much look and taste the same as McDonald's in Portland. No one likes surprises when they are traveling.

But given the choice, I’ll go to a mom and pop restaurant where the burgers are hand shaped and custom cooked. These kinds of restaurants don’t bother with the details of trying to make a perfect hamburger. They settle for making a good one and for most of us that’s good enough. Every hamburger looks different, but they’re all good.

I work in a high demand environment. We have a small staff and a huge load of work. We have deadlines to meet and they come upon us at the speed of light. We often have to send out a product that isn’t perfect, but it is certainly good enough. We agonize over our imperfections, but if we waited until every detail was wrapped up, we’d never send anything out.

There are situations that call for perfection. I expect nothing less than perfection from a nuclear physicist. I want my surgeon to pay attention to the details. I want my bookkeeper to balance the books to the last penny. But I’ll settle for my clean-up hitter to hit .300. I’ll gladly accept an 8% return on my investments. I’ll continue to work on bowling a 200 game. Sometimes 80% is 100% and knowing that takes a lot of stress out of life.