Excellence Versus Perfection
by Ken Chapman, Ph.D.
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The discussion usually begins with this statement: “I’m not perfect, but I’m doing my best.” The statement implies human imperfection is a barrier to excellent performance. Most people are surprised to learn the acceptance of their inability to provide flawless performance is where excellence begins! Once I let go of the idea excellence means flawless performance, I am free to focus on achieving excellence. You see, perfectionist tendencies lead me down a rabbit hole. No amount of planning, practice, or commitment will (can) produce flawless performance. Imperfect creatures do not produce perfection. However, they can achieve excellence. A helpful way to think about excellence is to view human performance as a “saw-tooth.” Note in the illustration below the trend is generally upward, but not for every hour of every day and, sometimes not even for every day of a week.
You might think of this as the proverbial “two steps forward, and one step back.” This idea is true as far as it goes. It just doesn’t go far enough. Excellence requires developing the habit of leveraging the “one step back.” Notice the use of the word habit. Here’s something neural (brain) scientists know and all leaders need to know: The brain is wired by our choices.
What does this interesting brain fact mean for excellence? It means re-wiring your brain by choosing to view mistakes, disappointment, and frustration as a value add in your professional growth. But remember, like any other habit, it will take time.
Please don’t misunderstand – emotionally-healthy leaders do not try to make mistakes or seek disappointments, nor do they enjoy having their goals frustrated. When you have a day, which by all reasonable standards is flawless, celebrate it! Just don’t count on it. Do not allow yourself to be seduced by the old siren call of Perfection. You’ll find that if you don’t count on it happening every day, you’ll have more high-performance days.
It is essential to be patient with yourself. In fact, the more conscientious you are, the more patient you will need to be. Developing the habit of viewing a “one step back” as a value add will take time. As long as the trend is upward, don’t worry about the “saw tooth” nature of your performance.
But patience will not be enough. Humility is another essential ingredient. You have to be honest with yourself about what you know, and what you don’t know. Or, as an old proverb goes: Ignorance is the beginning of wisdom. If I talk or try to perform past my knowledge, I’ll fail. However, if I approach the day with an openness to learning more about what I don’t know, the day will move me closer to excellence. A simple strategy to follow here is to think of every person you meet as someone who can teach you something. After all, you already know what you know. What you might not know is what the other person knows.
One final thought. Patience and humility cannot be developed apart from forgiveness. Re-wiring your brain includes forgiving yourself for knuckle-headed mistakes and the crash and burn moments. Own the moment, correct it, mine the event for a lesson, and move on.
Forgiveness is all the more important when you feel you’ve failed. Failure always feels bigger than a mistake. Failure not only feels bigger than a mistake, it feels final. By final, I mean failure can feel like recovery is impossible. This is almost never true. Most failures are just another opportunity to learn a lesson. As Colonel Hal Moore said: Never come back from hell empty-handed. Try to learn something which will make it easier to avoid another failure. At the very least, learn something which makes it easier to face the next failure.
If you want to achieve excellence, forget about perfection. Make room for a little more patience, humility, and forgiveness. You will find these to be three reliable partners in becoming increasingly good at what you already do well. 