Does perfectionism pay when you’re building a business? Every entrepreneur wants their venture to be perfect, but real progress is often made out of messy beginnings. After all, Steve Jobs started
Chasing perfection can become an addiction that’s unlikely to help your peace of mind or your business. It seems counterintuitive to stop reaching for perfection, especially since we’re often told it’s the only way to achieve success. All the extra time and effort to ensure every aspect of your business is perfect won’t move your company forward, and it’s very likely to drive you crazy.
Psychology studies have shown perfectionism to have both positive and negative consequences. There is both enabling and disabling perfectionism. Enabling perfectionism helps us stay motivated and achieve more. But disabling perfectionism cripples us with stress, fear, and worry, making it impossible for us to move on to the next task. Researchers have even found those with high levels of perfectionism had a 51% increased risk of death.
Don’t Get Stuck In A Perfect Rut
Are you working so hard to achieve perfection that a golden opportunity just passed you by? This is an all-too-common problem for business leaders and entrepreneurs. Being focused on perfection, especially when building your business, can cause you to miss out on big opportunities not in your original game plan. After all, plenty of businesses have completely pivoted away from their initial concept.
Here’s a famous pivoting story which might take a little over 140 characters to relate. Before the microblogging platform Twitter was created, the company was a podcast subscription service named Odeo. With iTunes entrance into the podcasting space, the company knew they had to change directions. They decided to focus on microblogging -- and history was made. If the company hadn’t made a pivotal pivot, Twitter wouldn’t exist today. Sometimes the success of your company means being adaptable, instead of staying exclusively focused on your initial path to success.
Launch Before It’s Perfect
It’s human nature to want to hold back and wait for perfection. However, sometimes it just makes sense to launch a product or process before it’s 100 percent complete. Often the best way to understand what’s working and what isn’t is to let others into the process. If you hold back forever waiting for perfection, you’ll never get there. Don’t be afraid to launch, even if you find some kinks along the way. Tweak as you go along, and you’ll have a more adaptable business model to see you through.
The 80/20 Rule
What if, instead of aiming for 100 percent every time, you aimed for 80 percent instead? Once you finish 80 percent of a task, the remaining 20 percent likely only brings diminishing returns. Instead of moving onto the next task, entrepreneurs often spend too much time trying to ensure everything is perfect. The final 20 percent is just bells and whistles, not the meat of the project.
Keep Things Lean
You need to keep things lean and agile in the beginning stages of your business, which often means not everything can be perfect every time. A lean business model means you’ll often be asked to wear a lot of hats and take on many challenges. Not every project will be a home run, but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t swing for the fences.
Knowing When To Let Go
Sometimes ideas don’t work and even the best laid business plans go awry. Understanding what’s important and what you can let go is essential so your business doesn’t go down in flames. Sometimes, you have to get a little disruptive in order to succeed.
According to The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen, sometimes you have to let go of what you thought you knew about your business. For instance, maybe you need to stop listening to customers or abandon large markets for smaller niches. Perfectionism is all about control, but we can rarely control everything (or anything!) in our business world. The companies which thrive and survive are able to adapt, disrupt, and change.
It’s time to let go of the idea of perfection and embrace the messiness of building your business. Mistakes are often opportunities in disguise, and tweaking your business model can lead to success you never even dreamed about. If you want your company to thrive, it’s time to break your addiction to perfection.
How do you let go of perfection? Share in the comments!
