Good Enough?
I love technology and gadgets (I know you're surprised, right?). Just after high school, I worked for the Naval Surface Weapons Center in White Oak, Maryland as an electronics apprentice. It was great. Secret security clearance, cool technology gadgets, and I learned about design, production, PERT charts, and saltwater specs for electronics. (Most of what we built went on really big ships.)
Many times during the day I would submit my apprentice-level project for inspection and the senior engineer would say, "That's good enough for government work," and pat me on the back. I soon learned that Good Enough was the best you could do given the circumstances of skills, resources, and the timeframe for completion.
Good Enough has nothing to do with mediocrity. It has to do with rational choices, as opposed to compulsive behavior, or making decisions with ourselves at the center of attention, (like, that's good enough so I can go do something I'd rather be doing.) Good Enough is not low-balling or just getting by. Good Enough for a team or office could express itself as opportunities to:
Learn on the job,
Learn from failure,
Cope with complexity,
Cope with humanity,
Continuously improve on delivering your mission more effectively.
Good Enough thinking encourages smart skepticism and helps you get to the key deliverable of your work or ministry quickly. It helps us realize that benefits always come with problems. We have to be really smart to be Good Enough. Our task is not to blindly eliminate all problems. (Can't be done in the real world.) What can be achieved is to understand well enough a projects's problems and benefits to:
Eliminate (or prevent) the right problems;
Deliver the right benefits.
By focusing on how your clients/customers/members/community interacts with your product/service/ministry/deliverable you will begin to wisely evaluate what the "right" problems to eliminate are and what "right" benefits must be experienced.
Experiment with Good Enough where you work. I'd like to know what Good Enough means to you. To get started, at your next team meeting, or one-on-one with your directs, prepare to discuss the "Top 5 Right Problems I Will Eliminate (or prevent)" list, and a separate list of what you think are the "Top 5 Right Benefits I Will Deliver." See what happens.
Where could Good Enough take our mission? If it's Good Enough for government work, is it Good Enough for you?