Avoiding the Pain of Pursuing Perfection
Learning to chase the MVP instead of the best thing I can create in isolation.
“Perfectionism is self-abuse of the highest order.” —Ann Wilson Schaef
My grandfather retired from working on the Pennsylvania railroad in the middle of the Great Depression. He bought an 87-acre farm and became a farmer/carpenter — building houses on small lots, selling them, and holding the mortgages.

He was also a perfectionist. Everything had a way it was supposed to be, and if it wasn’t that way, then it was WRONG. There was no other way. Just the way he believed was the right way, the best way, the only way.
I say that not to berate his standards, but to call out the likely source of my tendency (OK, more of an obsession) for trying to make everything just right before declaring it complete and sharing it with whoever I envisioned as the audience.
Sound familiar?
It’s true. Doing our best work matters. But when we’re creating for others, something many of us do every day, it matters more to meet their needs. And we can’t know whether it does until we share it and learn their reaction.
Believe me, I’ve tried.
Many times. Like when I spent almost two months and a little over $10,000 creating what I believed was the perfect online course for people who wanted to be more effective speakers. Only to waste a lot of money when it turned out no one wanted it.
But it looked great!
I’ve seen the same thing happen countless times in working with clients on strategy, leadership, and culture projects. The easy route is taken far too often — create it, perfect it, then hope it does whatever it was supposed to do.
Today, I’m finally ready to admit publicly — that doesn’t work. Ever.
The thing we create, revise, and tweak multiple times before sharing is almost never the thing the envisioned audience wants or needs. It is more likely the thing we wanted or needed at some point in our past, but they are not us, and now is not then.
That’s why we need to learn to go for the Minimum Viable Product, aka the MVP.
The MVP is essentially the prototype of the end thing you envision.
It is not the ‘shitty first version,’ but it’s far from the final edition. It is formed well enough to function, but it is not done yet. Like the apps on our phones, it needs feedback from those who will use it to make it better.
Deciding to deliver the MVP is not about giving up on doing great work or about lowering your standards. It is about accepting the reality our best work, while done in isolation, gets better when we incorporate insight from those for whom we intended it.
The secret is learning to create, share, ask, listen, adjust, enhance, reshare. Then repeat the process at regular intervals until no one has any suggestions for making it better.
If we call that perfection, then I’m all in on chasing it. If not, I’m out (finally).
ACTION QUESTION: What’s the thing you’re currently working that is at or beyond the MVP stage and needs to be shared? Who will you share it with today?
P.S. Know someone who needs this message? Please share it with them: