Progress Over Perfection

How often have you spent way too much time trying to get something juuust right? Often in our quest for perfection as leaders, we are actually holding ourselves and our business back from growing. There’s nothing wrong with wanting things to be perfect. However, it becomes a problem when you start spending hours, days, and even weeks on one project that was fine the first or second time you looked at it. When you have a million things waiting for you to do, is that really the best use of your time as a leader? My answer? Not really.

Seeking perfection often gets in the way of making the changes your business needs to gain traction and achieve your vision. Leaders can become so focused on the tiny details, that it leaves little to no time to focus on actually growing the business. That is why business leaders need to start prioritizing making progress over perfection.

Progress Starts by Setting Achievable Goals, or What We Call, Rocks

The first step towards focusing on progress is to start by setting achievable goals. In EOS, we encourage teams that we work with to set individual and company quarterly goals that we call, Rocks.

What are the things that you really need to accomplish? What is the ultimate objective? Rocks are the top 3 to 7 priorities that help to simplify your business into achievable milestones and get the entire organization crystal clear on what the vision is. By identifying and setting the top 3 to 7 priorities that need to be focused on and can be achieved within 90 days, rocks help to simplify your business into achievable milestones and gets the entire organization crystal clear on what your vision really is.

Rocks are one way that EOS helps to hold leaders accountable for achieving their vision and making progress toward their goals. They make focusing on the business the priority, encourages making progress over spending too much time on perfection. As business owners, progress is about taking intentional steps towards growing and improving, over spending too much time making something perfect.

The Next Step Towards Progress? Delegation

When you look at your to-do list, I know that it can seem like every task or project is the one most important thing that needs to get done right then. However, there is a tendency for us to prioritize the day-to-day tasks that just keep the business afloat. As a business leader, these are not the tasks that you need to be focusing on. Instead, you should be focusing on the tasks that help to encourage progress or the long-term growth of the business.

These longer-term priorities, or Rocks, that help to push the business forward to the next level are typically the ones that always get pushed aside for later. We tell ourselves, “I’ll get to that tomorrow.” And then tomorrow turns into the next week which turns into the next month and so on until it never ends up getting done. There is only so much one person can accomplish, especially when we spend our time focusing more on perfection than anything else. This is where delegation can become a leader’s best resource for making progress and elevating your business to the next level.

Not every part of a Rock needs to be accomplished by the leader. Yes, you should be helping remove roadblocks, keeping the team within the guide rails, and stepping in where there are problems to ensure it’s meeting the overarching goal, but ask yourself: could someone else be doing this so that I can focus my time on something that only I can do? If the answer is yes, you need to hand that task off. Delegation can be hard for leaders because it means relinquishing control and letting go of the idea of perfection because they probably aren’t going to do it the same way you would have. However, in the journey of progress over perfection, delegation is an essential step.

Want to learn more about the Entrepreneurial Operating System and how it can get you to start making progress on achieving your vision? Contact me to schedule your free, 90 Minute Meeting to learn more.

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