The Difference Between Excellent & Perfect

The difference in time it takes you to get from excellent to perfect is a waste of your precious time. Period.

The difference in money it takes to get from excellent to perfect is a waste of money that could be better invested elsewhere.

The difference in what your customers see from excellent to perfect is invisible.

From the quote, and even from your own work, you can see it takes such a lot of hard work to get to excellent.  When everyone tends to interpret perfect in their own way, how will you ever succeed at reaching perfection? (Somewhere in here is the law of diminishing returns)

How are you calculating the wasted time & money that is spent on making a minute move from excellent to perfect that the most important people won’t even know exists?  And if do invest this time & money, how are you going to justify the upcharge to your customers?

Just Perfect

What is the difference between perfect and excellent?

What is it that you demand from your team - perfection or excellence?

One definition of perfect is "conforming absolutely to the description or definition of an ideal type" .  Are you looking for an ideal or something that conforms completely to the described result?

One definition of excellent is "possessing outstanding quality or superior merit; remarkably good".

Are you looking for outstanding, superior results?

I can't answer that for you.  You will need to understand what it is that you are requiring your team to do.  There may be an instance where 'perfect' is impossible.  For example, if it is a very subjective project, perfect could be different in each person's eyes.  You may need to settle for outstanding - is that so bad?

Make sure that the team you lead knows the difference between perfect and excellent, including your expectations.  It will make execution easier and better!