This posting might get me in trouble in West Michigan. It might even get me in trouble with my team. But there’s something I believe about great leaders that I feel needs to be said. After saying it, I’m more than happy to hear any rebuttals. After hearing those, I may need to rewrite my message to correct the record.

The contention that I want to share is a product of two important nuggets which you may have heard me share before. The first is called the Pareto Principle. Simply stated this principle says that 80% of the output of something is determined by 20% of the input. There is some key input that makes the biggest difference. (We wrote about the Pareto Princile in Big Engine, Big Transmission).

The second nugget is a favorite quote that I think came from Peter Drucker, though I can’t find it on the web. It goes something like this (I’m sharing it from memory):

The only thing worse than doing something poorly is to do something with excellence that shouldn’t be done.

I like this a lot. Management is about doing things right (with excellence). Leadership is about doing the right things. Great leaders work to ensure that they and their team are not working on things that shouldn’t be done.

Combine these two concepts and I come to this middle ground:

Be excellent in the things where excellence will bring value, and be good enough where things don’t matter that much.

Am I really posting this in West Michigan? This is not a very popular leadership thing to say based on what I’ve heard many of my mentors say. Most say things like, “Excellence in all things” and “Good enough never is.” While I like the sound and the simplicity of these statements—and I know they can inspire others to excellence—I have to admit that I don’t believe in what I like to call “wasted quality.”

Back when I was an engineer on of the projects I was working on was the grab handles that were mounted above the door openings in cars. GM had a requirement that the handle withstand 250 pounds of force. It wasn’t a big deal to meet this requirement as grab handles in the past all had.

But when I started to think about it I had to ask myself, when is someone going to pull on a handle with 250 pounds? This would be the equivalent of a 250 pound person pulling himself completely off the seat with one hand. Give it a try sometime—it’s pretty hard to do. Another possibility is to hang 500 pounds of clothes across a bar that connect on two handles. This is not realistic.

So for years, the industry had been providing excellence where that level of excellence wasn’t needed. Engineers would call this over-engineering, which wastes money and time. I called it wasted quality, or wasted excellence.

Whatever it’s called, I think it’s important to be able to know when excellence will bring value and when good enough really is good enough.

In leadership, its really important not to major in the minors. You need to figure out what is most important and be amazing at that. Discover what are the vital few things (the 20%) that make 80% of the difference and do them really well! You also need to figure out what needs to be good enough (maybe it’s the remaining 80% that only makes 20% of the difference) and make sure you don’t waste excellence on that. A great leader also needs to figure out those things that shouldn’t be done at all (those things that don’t make any difference) AND DON’T DO THEM.

To give the best value in this world and to receive the best value for your efforts, it’s important to prioritize your majors and then stick to them with great excellence.

Let me know if this stirs up some thoughts you would like to share. Maybe after hearing them I’ll feel compelled to write a retraction.

Be great this week! (Where you should be great!!)
Rodg

Image by Ryan Leighty. Used under CC By 2.0 license.