Ordinary Gweilo

Interesting piece in the Gweilo Diaries, referring to an article in the FT. Hemlock says that he “hates excellence” and that “good enough is perfect”. I’m afraid that the phrase “good enough” is one that I tend to use about a piece of work (done by someone else) when I have given up hope of it being improved and have to accept what has been done. Very much a case of damning with faint praise. However, I do agree that perfection is usually not possible, and that it is very easy to waste time in the vain hope of making something perfect.

I’m afraid my great weakness is polishing what I write, even in emails that will probably only be read once and possibly ignored altogether. Not because I want it to be stylish, but because I want people to understand what I am saying and (if possible) to agree with whatever I am arguing. Unfortunately I know that this probably doesn’t work – bosses don’t like you trying to be clever and your staff have to do what you ask anyway, and in both cases it is usually more effective to talk to people.

There’s some good advice that Hemlock would probably agree with in a book called “On Managing” by Mark McCormack (the boss of IMG who died last year) saying that one of the secrets to his success was avoiding the temptation to make everything perfect. I don’t doubt the truth of this, but the danger is that it becomes the perfect excuse for sloppy work.

Which brings us back to the article in the FT and the comments made by Bob Lutz, the boss of General Motors on the poor quality of many of their vehicles:

Why have Americans put up with poor quality vehicles for so long? “I think it’s frankly because most of us are culturally from England,” he says. “And England is where you have the archetypal ‘Oh it’s good enough’ or ‘It’s always been that way’ or ‘It’s just one of those things’ – which is my favourite phrase in the UK.

Thirty or so years ago, the quality of British cars was appalling. It probably reached a lowpoint when most of the traditional car companies merged into British Leyland, which eventually came under government control in 1975 (as a result of financial difficulties). If it hadn’t been for the British consumer wanting to buy a British car it would probably have gone out of business much earlier!

The quality and reliability of Japanese cars caused great problems for the British car industry, and for many years there were “voluntary” quotas on imports, so the Japanese manufacturers opened factories in the UK, and even entered into partnerships with British companies. All of this greatly improved the quality of virtually every car that was sold in Britain.

It has taken longer for the same change to happen in the States, and many American-made cars still have a poor reputation for quality and reliability. It seems that American consumers have been willing to put up with these problems and stayed loyal to domestic manufacturers rather than buying Japanese or Korean cars. Bob Lutz has been trying to change things at GM, and has now been there long enough that he can’t blame anyone else for any problems with new models.

Many things have changed in Britain over the last 25 years or so, and I do think that one of them is that more emphasis is now placed on quality. Whilst Mr Lutz is probably correct that the Japanese, Germans and Swiss (amongst others) are still more fussy about these thing, Brits do care a lot more than before.

One of the potential drawbacks of being obsessed with quality is that you can stifle creativity and lose a sense of perspective. A few years ago I worked for a company that was trying to get certified to one of the ISO quality standards, and it was very frustrating. Sometimes quality systems take on a life of their own, and stop adding value to the product (or the service) and everyone gets drowned in paperwork. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s a bad thing to have a quality system, just that it needs to be managed intelligently.

However, there are some aspects of life where perfection is definitely not desirable. Someone was telling me recently about a kindergarten where kids of 4 years old were being criticized for very minor errors with their written English. Personally, I’d far rather have imperfect work from a child who understands what they are doing rather than perfect work which has been learned by rote.

Nevertheless, I do really believe that a commitment to excellence can make a real difference to any organization if it is done realistically, and everyone understands the objectives. Not, as I say, to always aim for perfection, because that is unrealistic, but to improve the quality.

Now I really must stop, because this piece is good enough already…