Personally I think perfectionism is over rated.

My son, on the cusp of graduating from college with a degree in education, failed to apply for jobs while he was still in school, believing he needed his teacher’s certification in hand before he could do so.  The result?  His best friend (who believed he only need to qualify for his certification) starts his $50,000/year job teaching in August.  And my son doesn’t have a job.

We can get so caught up in following the rules that we miss opportunities.  But getting caught up in doing it “our way” may be at the expense of quality.

So … when is “good enough” good enough?  And the bigger question is: who gets to decide what rules really need to be followed, and what ones are really just guidelines, where failure to comply is good enough?

On an effective team the team gets to decide.  I’m talking beyond company protocols into the nitty-gritty of everyday work life.  The team decides which rules are important enough to follow.  When the team rule is “no interrupting” and nobody challenges the guy who interrupts all the time the rule obviously isn’t important enough to really be a rule.  But when that guy interrupts and somebody calls him on it, that reinforces this is a rule that should be taken seriously.

There are some rules that absolutely make sense.  Ones that we should follow without question (respect for others, safety, etc).  But beyond those, how do you decide which ones to follow and which ones to break?  Criteria for some people is “a rule is a rule” and for others it is “as long as I don’t get caught.”

When I work with teams I always defer to the team.  They are the ones who get to decide what the rules are on their team.  If you have rules that are not enforced, that people are not held accountable for, then it would seem they aren’t really rules.  And I guess that’s good enough.