Good enough produces more leaders
6.11.2009 | Blog
The “Good Enough” principle produces more leaders. The lower the bar is able to be set (and remember, the bar needs to be set at “effective”), the more people can contribute.
The higher your quality line gets, the fewer leaders/volunteers that are able to be involved.
A pursuit of excellence breeds a leadership culture that prohibits people from serving.
Raise the bar cautiously. It’s very hard to lower your “good enough” line.
Once you’ve eaten at Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Applebee’s just is not the same.
6.11.2009
i can’t argue with that
one of our biggest problems for recruiting and maintaining volunteers in our communications dept is the high quality expectation. it’s too high for someone who doesn’t do design/writing all day, every day, to meet.
any tips on lowering the bar? what do you advise for people that just don’t know how to let something go (like me). i’m getting better at walking away at 90%, but some of the other stuff that only needs 60-80% is so hard to let go.
how do i rationalize that with my worship and how God has created me?
6.11.2009
shawn — thanks for this post and thought. really appreciate this concept – it’s non-intuitive and very impactful. thanks!!
6.11.2009
I’m picking up what your dropping down. However, I think you can set the bar higher if you do great training. The number of volunteers at NorthPoint is crazy – and the bar is REALLY high, but it’s really high on a very focused task and they’ve been trained very well. So in short. If you want excellence and involvement from the masses:
1. Train them.
2. Give them a specific / focused position.
That’s what I think…but I’m just one dude with an idealistic outlook.
6.11.2009
Hey Shawn,
You say, ‘A pursuit of excellence breeds a leadership culture that prohibits people from serving.’
Not so sure. Fanatical, obsessive, violent pursuit of excellence I agree is wrong. A pursuit of excellence, in the sense of getting the very best out of each ministry participant is an admirable aim. The key is to construct a healthy culture, where the process of achievement, of striving for excellence is life giving. Jesus challenged the disciples plenty of times, and quite often they missed the mark. But he didn’t reject them, he encouraged them into deeper relationship.
I think the triangle is the wrong shape.. it should be a square and rather than ‘Quality Line’ it should read, ‘Reaching full, God given, potential.
6.11.2009
Micah,
Great stuff. I think that each organization has to decide what the “good enough line” is for them. NorthPoint’s bar is set there and that is where it needs to be to reach their vision. So now if they were to reach above that in a pursuit of being more excellent (because excellence is a moving target – whatever they are doing now it could be even more excellent) that would be living in the excellence myth zone…
As far as the train and focus – absolutely. I did a post about a week ago that points out how we often fail at training in the church – thus not being effective…
Thanks for commenting!
6.12.2009
Certainly the good enough line is pretty low for the brewing coffee ministry, or the stacking chair ministry, and naturally lots of people can get involved. So those get set as low as possible!
But the good enough line for some volunteer positions, like graphic design, should be as high as possible. Just because Aunt Judy got Photoshop Elements for Christmas doesn’t mean she gets too “lead” the graphics ministry. Yes?
Haha most of the comments are longer than the actual post! very thought provoking.
6.12.2009
[...] a different angle, check out Kerry Bural’s post on Ministry Marketing Coach, and Shawn Wood’s post on his personal [...]
6.13.2009
Shawn, I agree too often we ourselves can be perfectionists as Bobby said “I can make what should have been a simple 30 minute project a monumental 4 hour project….. I believe a large part of our ego comes into play when we seek perfection. We want to “knock their socks off” on every project. Truth is, not every project requires the same amount of attention. And, the “knock their socks off” bit is just plain old self seeking glory.”
When we apply our level of perfection to a project we can run off team members and volunteers….then who is gloriied?
6.16.2009
Shawn,
Thanks for delving into this important topic and for posting some great comments @ http://ministrymarketingcoach.com/blog/2009/06/10/why-good-enough-is-not-good-enough/
IMO, this is an ongoing struggle that warrants further discussion. Keep up the great work!
6.20.2009
All,
I found it interesting that Seth Godin posted a very good (and short) post about “good enough” today in which he says, “The only way to get mediocre is one step at a time.”
You can check out the full post here:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/06/on-the-road-to-mediocrity.html