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Idea by Seth Godin

Quality has 3 levels:

Consistency: satisfying the specs

Luxury: exceeding the specs

Perfection: having zero errors

Everything has errors. That's why if we want to be perfect, we'll never ship our product. We have to ship when our product already meets the specs, that's it. Therefore, to avoid perfection, we need to start by creating the specs.

Very often the problem is not in what a person works, but how they are being managed. I.e. Manager vs. Technician.

I’d like to live in a world where everybody likes what they do for a living. And I believe how we do things have completely ruined things for us, so now it doesn’t even matter what we do anymore. Imagine you’re doing a job that’s not particularly thrilling but the people, incl. the manager are great! And consequently the work environment is awesome! And now imagine you’re doing a job that you love but you don’t like the company environment, all the politics, and your manager is a walking disaster. Which job would you like more? Which one would you stay with?

Funny, I decided to join a peer group once, and it didn't go so well. We were all self-employed, trying to get our solo businesses off the ground. Every week we'd meet and ask ourselves the same question: "How do I get more customers?" And no one knew the answer. Because if they did — if they had managed to actually take off — they wouldn't be a peer anymore and they would've left the group 😁

That's when I realized I was fooling myself: This was another activity I added to my list just to feel good, to feel like I was solving my problems, whereas it actually did nothing for my business. But it was easy 😉 Talking to peers is always easier than talking to customers, clients, partners, or other people whose opinion actually matters because it's a relationship you need or want to keep. My lesson learned: If you want a pat on the back, find out who your real customer is (hint: if you're the CEO, that's your organization, not your end customer — they are now served by your employees) and talk to them. You'll have a lot of problem-fixing to do before you get that pat on the back, but once you get there, you will have really made a difference — the type of difference that deserves a pat on the back.