The Quest for Perfection and Certainty

“The quest for perfection and certainty is one of the greatest stumbling blocks our profession faces. Too many learning leaders are paralyzed because they don’t want to make a decision without perfect information and without diligently addressing all the uncertainties and possible outcomes. My advice: “Just do it.”

OK, let’s back up a minute. Of course, you need some information. You need enough to make a good decision. So yes, gather the required intelligence, do some benchmarking, perhaps even hire a consultant to help. There comes a time, however, where a good leader will say “We now have enough information to make the decision and here is what we are going to do.” Could that decision be wrong? Of course. Will spending the next year gathering more data and hiring another consultant guarantee the decision will be right? No.

There are no guarantees in the learning field or in any field. Leaders always make decisions based on imperfect, incomplete and often contradictory information. Welcome to the real world! So make the decision and see what happens. You will learn from the implementation and the execution. Make adjustments as you go based on what you learn. The important thing is that you are moving ahead.

Although this issue confronts all leaders, it may be that learning leaders in particular struggle because many have not had the experience of running a business, where they were forced to make decisions under uncertainty and with incomplete information. Experience also means you will have been wrong before and yet lived to tell about it. The world did not end. You made adjustments and moved on. It really does get easier with experience.

So, next time you have to make a major decision, decide how much information is really needed to make a good one, and when you have it, make the decision. If you hear yourself saying “We are almost there” or “We need to study it just a little bit more” month after month, then you are probably procrastinating. Stop waiting for perfection and certainty – they do not exist. It is time to “just do it.””

(This post re-posted from Chief Learning Officer and was written by David Vance, published January 24, 2010).  Registry Mindset wishes to thank the author and Chief Learning Officer for their great material and insight!