Krug: In business, the quest for perfect gets you to pretty good

In business, we constantly are seeking perfection. The perfect product. The perfect marketplace. The perfect location. Anyone that’s ever cared about their business, thought of it like it was their child, and sought to nurture it so that it could grow to become something very special, was on a quest for perfect – whether they acknowledged it or played off their intensity as just a passion for the customer. Perfect is the ideal, and it should be our goal. Knowing that perfect never comes should allow us to enjoy the pursuit as we journey along our way. But that’s not easy, because when you give into OK, good never comes. And, at the risk of sounding as if I had just re-read my entire collection of Jim Collins books (which, ahem, I may or may not have done), good becomes great only when good is challenged to be better. Nonetheless, it’s very difficult to know when you have arrived at great. And perfect is still a few miles down the road from there. How do I know this? I admit I don’t. I’m pretty sure that I am right, but perfection has very few earthly sources. That Rolex that you bought with your 2008 bonus – the one that set you back $7,000 – has been serviced at least once since that proud moment that its perfectly flexing bracelet snapped neatly around your wrist and the wonderfully consistent humming of that second hand started making its way around the 12 and back down again. It’s OK to gaze at it – it cost as much as your parents’ first house, but you earned it, and it is about as close to perfection as a watch may come. But something that needs service cannot be perfect. Sorry, Montblanc. Love the rare resins as much as the next guy, but a $300 pen shouldn’t crack under the weight of anyone’s index finger – not even Hulk Hogan’s. And as for you, Ferrari, well, you know where this is going. Those are products, sure. But my intention in nit-picking the pinnacle brands is not to diminish any of them or their value in their respective areas of regard. But – guess what – they all fail. Certainly not as often as some others, for sure – at least not at what they are designed to do. Nonetheless, they represent, at least for some, the highest levels of prestige, luxury and quality. Those three attributes often can be mistaken for perfection. In combination, I am pretty sure that, when taking a curve at 165 miles per hour, sneaking a peek at your Swiss timepiece (because when you drop seven grand on it, that thing on your wrist no longer is a watch), the g-force could make your writing instrument (because when at that kind of money, it’s no longer a pen) not only will it fly out of your pocket, but completely out of the car if the top was open. That doesn’t seem like perfection. As I step back and re-read the sentence, it sounds more like Murphy’s Law. Apologies for that. All right, absurdities aside, we admire businesses that we view from outside as perfect with the same longing admiration that someone might view their neighbor’s grass as greener. If you stand in your neighbor’s yard – unadvisable in some states, I know – you’ll see that your grass looks greener from there. Science is the damnedest thing. Apple. Google. Facebook. IBM. GE. Southwest Airlines. McDonald’s… Please, stop me when I finally reach perfection. Fact is, none of our companies is perfect. Not even in franchising, where operational precision is the pillar of the methodology. None of our business operations is without challenges or problems or areas of iterative improvement. So rather than fret about what isn’t right about your company, take pause for a moment and consider what isn’t wrong about it – especially if you feel that you are going through a downward swoop. Force yourself to see the good, the not-so bad and the, if-I-put-a-little-time-against-that-it-might-be OK. Do that often enough and you can edge toward better. And better beats what it was before every time. It becomes difficult to see anything but flaws and imperfection if you stare at anything too long. I once saw a flaw in the polyurethane clear coat of a blazing red Testarossa at the auto show. True story, I swear.

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As always, stay classy. Chris Krug is president of the progressive media communications firm No Limit Agency* in Chicago. No Limit is a full-service agency whose practice focuses on strategy, brand management, creative campaigns and delivering unparalleled earned placement in the media. No Limit Agency works with some of the best-known and fastest-growing brands in North America, and that’s not a coincidence. Contact Krug by calling 312-526-3996 or via email at [email protected].