Perfectionism ruins what it touches.

Perfectionism ruins what’s excellent.

How so?

You can create something crappy, good or near perfect — which is excellent. If you’re a good producer, you’ll rework the crappy and improve the good till it’s excellent.

Okay.

But if you’re a perfectionist, you’ll try and rework everything until it’s perfect.

So what’s wrong with that?

Perfection is an illusion. It’s an ideal that is never achieved in this world.

So you say.

Remember Lexus?

What about it?

“The relentless pursuit of perfection.” That’s what they said when they released the first LS400. Was it perfect?

Yes.

How about the generations of LS400 that came after the first one? Were they perfect?

Yes.

Were the later generations better than the earlier generations?

Yes.

Then how could the first and earlier generations be perfect? If they were perfect, they could not be improved upon.

Uh…

Perfection is a pipe dream. Perfectionists try to do the impossible and hold back pretty-darn-good products that the world needs — right now.

You may have a point there.

Good producers produce pretty-darn-near-perfect products like the Lexus LS400, that actually benefit humankind. Just because it’s theoretically imperfect (nothing’s perfect), doesn’t mean that the LS400 isn’t virtually perfect. Just because you can’t produce something perfect doesn’t mean that what you produce isn’t virtually perfect. You can get to the point where good enough and perfect are pretty much indistinguishable.

So what’s the difference between a perfectionist and a top performer?

The top performer knows how to let go when the product is pretty darn near perfect. The perfectionist doesn’t know how to let go. It’s a shortcoming in character, not competence, necessarily. Still, character always affects competence, down the line.

Originally published at planbpilgrims.com.