Good enough isn't, ever

A decade or so back, when the newspaper industry still thought it could stay ahead of that whole Interwebs wave that was just starting to build momentum, a favorite slogan among my peers went something like this:

Good enough is good enough.

A common paraphrase I still hear bantered about:

Don't let great be the enemy of good.

In their proper context, these truisms might even make sense. The creative process is a painful one, full of heartache and crumpled graph paper. (Sorry, showing my age. Make that full of heartache and whiteout on the computer screen!)

Sometimes, just to get past a mental block, you have to accept that something is "ok" even if it isn't perfect. Just for a little while. Just to get you to the next step.

Back in the day, many of us on the management side of newspapering believed we were creating a culture of risk-taking that would drive innovation and (more or less) save the industry. Too many of us ended up with papers full of typos, stories full of factual errors, and fewer and fewer loyal readers willing to pay for "good enough."

The truth is, good enough just isn't.

Oh, the temptation is always there. Deadlines loom, clients call, and the work is right there, practically finished. Surely it's good enough, isn't it?

No, it's not.

We wouldn't accept our landscaper or our hairstylist cutting corners any more than we'd stand for our bank teller rounding down our change. We would certainly take issue with a surgeon being satisfied with "good enough" when it comes to our brains!

So why does anyone settle for good enough in their own work?

I'm not talking about never making a mistake. Mistakes happen. I am talking about a broader culture of apathy, a general lack of pride of accomplishment that sneaks in and sets up shop in almost every environment.

If you're at all like the rest of us, good enough is probably destroying your business, one slow drip at a time. Good enough is surely poisoning your hard-earned client relationships.

But you can put a stop to good enough. All it really takes is a steadfast refusal to participate!

Don't accept shoddy work, not even at the "draft" stage. Expect your team to give their best effort every time, and they will. (And if they won’t, well, you’ll figure that out soon enough, too.)

One phrase I have never tolerated is, "It's just a draft."

Once, a young man turned in a “draft” that was so full of typos that I really had no choice but to settle the issue for all time. I handed him back the draft, unedited, and I asked him directly if he was willing to bet his job on the quality of that work.

Turns out he wasn’t.

Not then, and not once over the five years he worked for me.

Good enough isn’t. Not ever.

Look, we all deal with the same issues, and we all have a certain perspective that, frankly, I think we can all benefit from knowing. Lord knows I don’t have all the answers. I do have a few. All hard-earned, most after decades in the trenches.

But where I don’t, I will gladly take YOUR advice. I’m sure we could all benefit from your point of view.

What’s your favorite “good enough” story? How did you resolve the situation?

Drop me a line anytime: jeff@laconiadailysun.com. Let me know what you’re thinking about, and let’s see if between us we can’t find a solution that’s (ahem) good enough for everyone to put into practice.

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Don't let Jeffrey M. Peyton's accolades, business accomplishments or cool demeanor fool you. The Sun's newest marketing team member has wing-walked on an airplane at 700 feet, co-piloted the Goodyear Blimp, swam with sharks, and managed to obtain paperwork officially declaring him “legally sane.”