{"id":3509,"date":"2021-07-15T09:00:23","date_gmt":"2021-07-15T07:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/getnave.com\/blog\/?p=3509"},"modified":"2023-03-16T22:21:32","modified_gmt":"2023-03-16T20:21:32","slug":"progress-not-perfectionism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/getnave.com\/blog\/progress-not-perfectionism\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Perfectionism Will Never Let You Push that Launch Button"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Perfectionism is a fallacy that leads to overplanning, procrastination and failure to launch.<\/em><\/p>\n

Back in the day, when we were just a couple of months away from releasing the initial version of Nave, one of my teammates was delegated with the challenge of designing the User Experience of our dashboards.<\/p>\n

While he was quietly spreading his vision, time was ticking away. He was obsessed with every single detail. The problem was that, with all the little things he was constantly tweaking, it didn\u2019t seem that I would be seeing even the initial sketches anytime soon!<\/p>\n

As a business owner of a startup, my only desire was to finally bring our product to see the light of day, so that the universe could start soaking up the value we had to share. As time passed, I started to feel quite uncomfortable – I didn\u2019t even know whether we were heading in the right direction. Day by day, my teammate couldn\u2019t showcase his work just yet, it still wasn\u2019t perfect!<\/p>\n

And I get it. I used to be in that same place before. The idea of providing something that was not perfect would really freak me out. I felt like it was incomplete, there were so many details that I still had to put in place. The thought that I would be delivering without adding my final polishing touches would make me jump out of my skin. I thought that everyone would agree that imperfect work is unacceptable. I was dearly wrong. And here\u2019s why\u2026<\/p>\n

Perfection is impossible to achieve. If you\u2019re driven by the motivation that the only way you would show your work to your clients is when it\u2019s perfect, you will end up trapped in a circle that will constantly keep you from crossing the finish line.<\/p>\n

The Flaw of Perfectionism<\/h2>\n

Where does the problem come from? When it comes to putting a new value proposition on the market, what I often see is that new businesses build their products based on assumptions, and they\u2019re only willing to launch when the results are outstanding.<\/p>\n

The main problem with that behavior is that when they finally launch, more often than not, they find out they\u2019ve built the wrong thing.<\/strong> The best way to avoid building the wrong thing is to deliver results early and often, even though they might not be as superb as we would ideally like them to be.<\/p>\n

We all have the exact same goal: we want to solve our customers\u2019 problems. And if we don\u2019t involve our clients throughout the journey, the risk of failure is significant. Collecting their feedback as we\u2019re progressing is crucial, as this will make sure we\u2019re building the right thing and continually adjusting our course to meet their expectations.<\/p>\n

Striving for perfection should never be a target. If your teams are only willing to deliver their work when it\u2019s perfect, well, you\u2019ll never hit that launch button.<\/p>\n

What I eventually realized over time is that being a perfectionist is totally different from having high standards and sticking to them. High standards are healthy and motivating. Perfectionism is dysfunctional, at best.<\/p>\n

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How to Break Through the Vicious Circle of Perfectionism<\/h2>\n

Perfection is an instinct that results in fundamental problems in terms of flow. Any time you spot individual team members striving for perfection, you\u2019ve got to call it out. Perfectionism is the one thing that separates successful businesses from those that are still waiting to get something out on the market.<\/p>\n

And there is one simple truth that can help us switch to a \u2018getting things done\u2019 mode:<\/p>\n

Progress, not perfection!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Make progress, don\u2019t strive for perfection. Keep your teams in a goal-oriented mindset, where you\u2019re focused on learning and experimentation. The only way to get better and mitigate the risk of doing the wrong things is to validate your assumptions by delivering results early and often.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s make this clear, I\u2019m not saying that you should deliver poor quality results and lower your standards. What I\u2019m telling you is to eliminate the infinite loop of tweaking, because that behavior results in procrastination and fear. It was Mr. Reid Hoffman who got it right when he said:<\/p>\n