Seeking Perfection

Since the beginning of time human beings have tried to make everything in life so perfect.

Did we achieve that? The answer will always be no. Then why do we bother? And why do we keep on trying?

To answer these questions, first we need to ask whether the quest for perfection is good or bad?

Psychologists will always answer this question by saying “pursuing perfection is the fastest way to unhappiness” and the reason is because chasing something that can never be achieved will lead to multiple disappointments and eventually sadness and depression.

I don’t believe that this is true, I come from quality management background and I know for sure that if the first ever mobile phone developer looked at his product and said “well, that’s just perfect” we would never have the smart phones we use today, nor our grandchildren will be using their “genius phones” in the future.

Everything we created, we looked at it with the belief of “we can make better” led to better products and services.

I believe the problem exists not in the idea of seeking perfection, it exists in our definition of the word “Perfection”.

I wrote once before “Perfection is to have a bug in your software, so you can always upgrade it”.

I’m not an IT professional, but I know that no programmer achieved to write a bug free software. That does not mean that when they write the code and launch the software and find a bug they say “well, that’s just normal, it will always have bugs”. No, they release update after update hoping for the best performance out of their software.

Why do we bother? And why do we keep on trying?

Because as long as we have Conscience we will always give our all, we will always try to have an answer back when that inner voice asks us “Could I’ve done better?”.

In quality management the cornerstone of any management system is the concept of “Continual Improvement” where the organizations need to continuously assess their performance, offerings and products/services, then continuously try to improve and achieve better.

Yes, it is somehow equivalent to what we said earlier about seeking perfection.

Although, the “Continual Improvement” concept is driven from the continuous need of organizations to satisfy their customers. It can never be successful if the organization did not believe that this is a need internally for self-satisfaction.

If organizations did not have their own internal Conscience that “we can always do better” then customer satisfaction can never be achieved.

Have a go and keep on chasing perfection, keeping in mind it can never be achieved, you just have to keep on trying as hard as you can, and at the end of everyday ask yourself “Could I’ve done better?”. And know if the answer is yes, you still have tomorrow.