More vs Better

My family hit a major milestone recently, our first child is graduating from high school. I was wrapping his graduation present and was reflecting on how well I did. The seams and creases were straight, the edges and corners were crisp, the folds were symmetrical, and I used clear tape so it was virtually invisible. I’ve never voiced this thought out loud, but I used to think I do a much better job than my wife when it comes to wrapping presents.

However, upon further reflection this was a grossly unfair comparison. By no means do I believe my wife isn’t capable of wrapping presents with higher skill, quality, and visual appeal than I can, she just chooses not to. That’s because she wraps the vast majority of all presents gifted from our household.

?

While I had the luxury of setting aside time to savor the experience of wrapping a present I was excited to give my son, my wife wraps countless presents with speed and efficiency while juggling many other activities.

?

If done to an acceptable standard of quality, does the wrapping diminish the quality of the gift, the enjoyment of the recipient, or sentiment of the gesture?

?

“Better” isn’t needed when ”More” was appropriate. In fact, “Better” was selfish and indulgent, it was for me, not my son... he’s going to tear through the wrapping and never notice it.

?

I see this play out repeatedly at work the same way. We have colleagues who take great pride in always trying to do ‘better’ to the detriment of productivity. Many times a task just needs to be completed quickly, following existing best practices or standards, without designing a new method or approach. Other times, true thought leadership is needed to solve a problem.

?

For example, when orchestrating the flow of data into a data lake or warehouse, the majority of the work requires ‘more’... until you encounter extremely large tables that don’t perform well. Then it requires a different approach, ‘better’.

?

Most ad-hoc requests require a quick and accurate response, they don’t need gold plating or creativity when speed and accuracy is most valued, until a complex problem appears and a standard approach won’t work.

?

Most Agile features/stories need to be completed accurately with appropriate velocity, until a problem is encountered and a user story workshop might be needed.

?

It’s our responsibility as leaders to identify when each is needed and guide our teams appropriately. This can be tricky since we don’t want to stifle the teams’ creativity nor discourage our colleagues from giving their best effort. Some tactics that have worked for me:

1. Be sure to positively reinforce, reward, and highlight successes when ‘more’ is achieved. Too often we celebrate when someone finds a creative solution or goes ‘above and beyond’ to solve a challenging problem, but ignore the successes of closing a lot of tickets, or stories, with great velocity and quality. Give equal attention to the ‘more’ as you do the ‘better’.
2. Create opportunities to engage with ‘better’ thinking. Agile Sprint Retro’s are a great opportunity to encourage thought leadership, problem solving, and continuous improvement. So are peer reviews / code reviews, and JAD Sessions / user story workshops.
3. Allow time for passion projects. If your colleagues are working hard and delivering on ‘more’, allow them to set aside time during normal working hours to work on ‘better’ - be it developing a new skill or technique, or applying their existing capabilities to a challenging problem outside of their normal scope of work.

?

Finding balance on how much value is placed on “Better” vs “More” is critical. There is equal need for both in a professional setting.