The Problem with "Seek Perfection"

As we sat down around the meeting room table, I braced myself.  I asked a couple of VPs “when I say ‘seek perfection’ what do you hear?”.  

“Perfectionism gets us into trouble and slows us down.”

“Goals should be attainable.  Setting perfection as a goal is demotivating.”

“How can you even define perfect?”

“I don’t like the way it’s worded.”

New organization.  Same story.  

For much of my career, I’ve been a proponent of the Shingo model and its principles as a basis for creating cultures of enterprise excellence, mainly because it is practical, reasonably easy to explain, and widely applicable.  But no other operating principle is as polarizing as ‘Seek Perfection’. It consistently evokes reactance from leaders wherever I’ve introduced it.  Instead of helping create commitment to continuous improvement, it tends to get in the way.  It’s time to rethink and reframe “Seek Perfection”.  

Early in my career, I worked at a hospital who’s Board and CEO boldly declared a vision entitled “On the Road to Perfect Care”, replete with branded strategic plans and slogan-emblazoned swag.  The vision came on the heels of the widely read “To Err is Human” Report that captured healthcare administrators’ attention with its estimates that 98 000 people died needlessly every year due to medical error.  The Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative was demonstrating that elimination of deaths from certain nosocomial infections was possible by applying basic lean principles and systems thinking to common protocols for central line insertions and ventilator-associated pneumonia, with its stories being shared in books and videos. 

The hospital executives readily committed to the noble purpose of eliminating hospital-related harm . After all, there’s a moral imperative to set a goal of harm elimination. Who can accept a non-zero target for harm when there is evidence that it could be prevented?  How can we accept anything other than a total commitment to the pursuit of perfection?  The goal of “perfect care”  was bold, inspiring, and revolutionary.  

We launched a compelling communication campaign straight out of a Kotter playbook to inspire the masses to join us on the road to perfection.  We compiled and shared eye-popping facts and figures showing how many harmful, and potentially avoidable, incidents occur every day in the hospital.  We included testimony from real patients and families, detailing regrettable experiences related to sepsis, Ventilator Associated Pneumonia, and medication reconciliation.  There was provocative imagery of tombstones bearing initials of people who died in hospital.  We screened videos about how hospitals could heal themselves and deliver perfect care. The benefits and “what’s in it for me” were laid out elegantly -  better outcomes for patients and families, reduced length of stay, and better engagement.  There was no choice but to commit to the cause, right?

The campaign generated conversation and grabbed  attention, but not the type we expected .  Rather than inspire, it generated significant fear and resentment, simply because of the inclusion of the word “perfect”.  People understood the case for change, but they fiercely reacted to that one word.  Perfection didn’t inspire but instead, created reactance.  Why would a single word cloud such a compelling message?  

I’ve asked many leaders and employees across several organizations why they react so strongly to the word.  Some reasons I’ve uncovered include:

• “Perfection” has a lousy brand.  Many of us have experienced anxiety or trauma related to pressures to “be perfect” in their life, whether it was from demanding parents, perfectionist bosses, academic pressures, competitive sports, or the ever-present games of social comparison to peers or heroes.  The inclusion of “perfect” causes people to ignore any and all modifiers (e.g. “seek”, “pursue”, “on the road towards”).  People hear “be perfect” rather than “seek perfection” and it scares them.  
• Externally imposed theoretical goals are poor motivators.  Many people won’t even try at a game they don’t believe they can ever win.  Setting unachievable targets and reminding people they are always failing with perpetually red dashboards is demoralizing. 
• Many feel that a goal of perfection ignores complexity.  Being perfect implies being free from error and executing flawlessly every time.  People need to believe they have significant control over their work in order to feel that they can personally make a difference.  In complex systems where people recognize they don’t control much, goals of perfection drive fatalism and apathy.
• The hyper-competitive drive or perfection-seeking mindset sought with this principle is best cultivated from within rather than imposed by management.  Management systems and cultural norms can influence mindset but are better at reducing unhelpful behaviours than changing minds.  Mindset is deeply personal and internal.  
• People generally prefer clearly defined goals.  Perfection can not be precisely defined for goals that are not obviously bound by zero (e.g. defects, avoidable deaths, plane crashes, etc.). . This results in endless debate about operational definitions and goal-post movement rather than driving focus and alignment. People rightfully fear being held accountable to arbitrary, subjective, or unclear measures.  

Some argue that abandoning “perfection” invites complacency and limits the scope of imagination required for breakthrough improvement.  I've rarely found this to be true in practice. Rather than engaging our imaginations to challenge what could be possible, “perfection” paralyzes teams and drives defensiveness that limits creativity.  Story-telling, non-related stimulus brainstorming, and benchmarking visits are often more useful at generating visions of what is possible.

The other argument for sticking with "perfection" as a goal is its virtue. How can we accept anything other than zero plane crashes or zero preventable deaths? It's hard to argue with this logic when applied to cases where perfection can be readily defined by an absence of defects or deaths, but it fails to offer a compelling imperative for other contexts (e.g. what is the perfect customer experience when buying an ice cream cone?). But declaring anything less than perfect as "unacceptable" without a sustained track record of psychological safety is a recipe for institutionalizing unhelpful behaviours driven by fear of blame and reprisal.

How can we better articulate a principle that defines a never-ending commitment to improvement that engages rather than causes reactance?  Here are a few ways:

• Don’t use the word “perfect”.   “Excellence” and “greatness” are no more clearly defined, but they create less reactance.  They just land differently.  
• Establish a lengthy, consistent track record of leadership that make it safe to raise risks, identify problems, and encourage experimentation before attempting to declare perfection as the only acceptable standard. It takes years to establish credibility and trust, and only one poorly-managed incident of "holding someone accountable" to render the power of a "zero harm" goal useless.
• Focus on the pursuit rather than the destination.  Describe a lengthy journey with intermediate destinations rather than a single destination that can’t be seen or imagined.  Set directional targets that can be attained but can also be challenged for better indefinitely. Describe the related methods for seeking perfection such as incrementalism and experimentation, i.e. “continually test and learn to improve”, and position these as keystone concepts or principles instead of “seek perfection”. 
• Define and discuss behaviours associated with challenging the status quo instead of “seek perfection”. It’s easier to get people to embrace dissatisfaction with the system they work in and give them permission to challenge it.  “Relentlessly challenge the status quo”, “pursue continual improvement in everything we do”, “embrace the art of the possible” land better than “seek perfection” without compromising its spirit.

I have long endorsed and promoted the principle of “seek perfection”, but when it prevents us from effectively engaging people it ceases to be practical.  Words matter, and “perfection” creates obstacles, real or perceived, when seeking to create and nurture cultures of excellence.  It’s time to replace it with words that help move us forward.