The last few months I have left writing my coaching
tip to the very last minute. So this month I sat
down a few days ago in Caffe Nero, my favourite
writing spot, with pen and paper and started writing
to see what came out.
Two ideas for a coaching tip emerged, the first based
on a title of "The art of bottom lining" (I'm sure you
must be intrigued, but no it's not about the old
schoolboy trick of stuffing blotting paper down your
trousers when summoned for a beating - showing my
age I know!). The second idea had the catchy
subject line "Field of dreams", one of my favourite
films.
However, the more I thought and evaluated, the
harder it was to decide which was the right topic for
this month. I then began to realise that it wasn't
about which of the two was better, but that actually
neither of them seemed to be good enough.
So it's now Friday morning, the 30th September and
I'm back in Caffe Nero again on deadline day writing
my tip at the last minute again.
The question is why will today's tip be any better
than either of the other two? The answer is that it
probably won't. The truth is that as my subscription
list grows, which it is thanks to all of you, I'm
becoming more critical and asking myself "Will this
appeal or speak to everyone on the list?".
Actually it's extremely unlikely that every tip will
resonate with everybody. In the past, writing what
has been going on for me, and what I have learned
from it, has been good enough. I feel that the more
people who are reading my tip, the better it has to
be. But why should that be true?
One of my fellow facilitators I've been working with
over the past few months has a saying "Don't let the
excellent become the enemy of the very good". Now
I can really relate to that. I can't count the number
of times that I've reworked something to death
because I felt it wasn't quite good enough.
I'm a past master at muddying the distinction
between excellent and very good. I can quite easily
spend 80% of the total work effort taking an end
product from very good to excellent. All this is
purely for the benefit of placating my not
good enough gremlin.
In a similar vein to last month's tip, is it a good
investment of my time busying away doing what
serves neither my clients or me? It can't be.
So my questions for you this month are:
"In what areas are you letting the excellent be
the enemy of the very good?"
"At what point are you still refining your very
good end product to gain that elusive
excellence?"
When you get to very good, or if you're already
there, let it go, you've done the job.
Move on to the next one. You can probably
complete five very good end products in the time
that you're currently producing one excellent one.
