How Good Enough Can Help You Grow
Faster Than Excellent?

Good enough vs Excellent is one of the trending coaching topics I meet when working with entrepreneurs.
It is so much common, that sometimes I even think of including the question about being a perfectionist in the discovery call to help me spot the red flag before we start working.
Convincing a perfectionist that he has to lower his standards and settle for good enough is a hell of a task and I rather not work with such a customer at all.

So if you are a perfectionist and even the idea of settling for good enough gives you chills, I bet you won't like this article. Otherwise, I hope this article will help you shift your perspective and look at excellence differently.
Let's get to it!

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This is what excellence vs good enough means for the consumers:

Excellence = High Speed + High Quality + Acceptable Price Tag

In comparison,

Good Enough = Moderate Speed + Acceptable Quality + Low Price Tag

Ideally, we want it Fast, of High Quality, and at an Attractive Price.
Think of Toyota cars here. They make them fast, provide quality, and do not cost you a fortune.
Moreover, they last, and the maintenance is cheap (both are contributors to quality).

Toyota took decades to get to that level of excellence. And their journey is paved with lots of failures.
See the Toyota boat example - a complete disaster.

In other words, Toyota went through so many iterations (learning cycles), that it was able to move from a garbage product, to a good enough product, to an excellent product.
It did not happen from one day to another, it happened over the decades of PDCA cycles (plan ➝ do ➝ check ➝ act).

Here is what achieving excellence really means:

Achieving Excellence = High Costs + High Time Spend

Here is what achieving good enough really means:

Achieving Good Enough = Low Cost + Low Time Spend

And here is an exciting part that is usually overlooked:

10x Good Enough = 10x Low Cost + 10x Low Time Spend = High Cost + High Time Spend = Excellent

That's not something entrepreneurs see though.

In other words, you can go faster through X iterations of a Good Enough product, without hurting profitability or devastating the team, and still get to excellence, than if you would wait until you can produce an excellent product and finally receive your first customer feedback.

Businesses that do not settle for good enough are forcing excellence.

Forced Excellence is the state of the company in which upper management forces the team to produce an excellent product or provide an excellent service when in reality they cannot do it.

Forced Excellence is

• a guaranteed high employee turnover as people are getting devastated (burnout);
• issues with profitability as the company spends money they do not have to achieve excellence;
• fluctuation in quality as the team is not able to maintain consistent quality of the product/service;
• high-stress levels and unhealthy work environment.

Settling for good enough allows you to:

• get the product to the market faster;
• get the customer feedback faster;
• adjust faster;
• produce a higher quality product/service and repeat the process again.

This means that you are going to:

• consistently improve the quality of your product;
• maintain healthy margin;
• keep your team happy and motivated (reduced employee turnover);
• maintain quality and build trust with your customers;
• maintain healthy stress levels and a positive work environment.

The easiest example is any software development company that is out there. See how they started and how they keep operating.

1. They release the MVP (minimum viable product) to the market (DO in PDCA), which is the very first version of their software with the minimum functionality.
2. They seek customer feedback (CHECK in PDCA).
3. Then they improve (ACT in PDCA) and plan to release (PLAN in PDCA).
4. And restart the cycle: release again (DO in PDCA) and seek feedback again (CHECK in PDCA).

Settling for good enough is not about lowering your standards. It is about paving the path to excellence.

Unfortunately, lots of business owners do not understand it and burn out not only their team but themselves as well when working towards excellence.

Hopefully, this article clears things up and helps everyone see that settling for good enough is a win-win strategy!

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