When is Good Good Enough?

If you're a true professional you're always striving to get better -- write better, hit a golf ball farther, give a better presentation, create a better presentation... There are endless examples. However, eventually in your quest for perfection you will hit the law of diminishing returns and be forced to ask yourself, When is good good enough? Sure, you'll want to keep striving to get better, but when you hit the point where it's inevitable that your gains are going to cost more than they are worth, it's time to find another way to increase your "functionality."

By functionality, I mean anything that makes you more productive in the big scheme of things. If your goal is to be a better golfer and you have been striving to hit the ball farther, but you hit a wall where gains are hard to come by, maybe it's time to focus on another facet of your game. Maybe in your quest to be a better golfer, working on your short game or your putting will move you closer to your goal.

There's another angle with the "When is good good enough" school of thought. I'm in the business of information -- collecting, processing, synthesizing, and disseminating information. More importantly, I'm in the business of providing timely information. Usually the part of my job that requires the most time is processing that information so that it can be delivered in an easy to understand format -- a presentation, a paper, etc.

Often I have to balance my desire to deliver that information in a perfect package with the requirement to get it to the decision maker when it's most useful. Sometimes there isn't time to build a brief or write a paper, maybe the best I can do, and still keep the information timely, is a quick verbal update or a hastily scratched out note.

In both examples above, the key is knowing when to ask the question, When is good good enough?

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