Perfection is the Enemy of Progress

Perfection is the Enemy of progress was said by Winston Churchill. While I do not know the context of this phrase my guess is that the World War II may have led to this statemernt. A war needed quick decision making and nimble thinking, literally on one's feet. Over analysis and cluttering one's thoughts with many options to create a perfect winning strategy may lead to policy paralysis and status quoist thinking. The opposite quote for "Perfection s the enemy of progress" is perhaps " Haste and imperfection leads to Waste".

In the long arc of one's life and career there are many tasks to be performed and these need to be done in a timely manner especially in certain professions like health care, financial institutions, journalism and many more. I want to make this blog personal rather than comment on this saying in general terms.  

I feel that each one has inborn sanskaras which maybe part of genetic inheritance or past Karmas. These dictate our behavior and response to situatons in life. My personal journey as a school boy as far as I recollect has been one of comparision with my elder sister and peers. I have always been a dreamy person with an  imaginative flair. So when the creative juices flow one tends to write and express without concentrating on smaller details. Having done that I slowly developed the "will do"(Chalta hain) attitude which plagues me to this day. Many of us are commonly guilty of the same. A laziness crept in and to a young mind the fact that I coud effortlessly remain a top performer made me complacent. In 1970 for the first time in my life I achieved top rank in my class and this was because I was promised a radio transister as a gift. The cricket fan that I was it was a fulfillment of a dream. Radio news, current affairs, Vividh Bharti, Bounvita Quiz Contest for schoools, Cricket with Vijay Merchant etc were my listening fare. I loved books and read whatever I could lay hands on. Thus I knew a lot of things but was master of none. 

The Indian education promoted rote learning which I was not happy to adopt and for me reading and understanding the broad principles and topics was the best learning methods. In exams my answers were always derived from undestanding and I wrote in a language of my understanding the subject. Unlike my colleagues mine was never a perfect reproduction of text book sentences. This often led to arguements at home with my sister and mother who were from the old school system where students were incentivized for perfect answers. Luckily, my teachers appreciated creativity and as long as they realized that my answers were coming from subject understanding as against rote learning. I could never give aswers by heart word for word or always reprduce lists in perfect order. The imprefect answers were not wrong and from these imperfections there often arose new ideas or insights which both I and some teachers were oblivious off. 

Learning for the sake of learning was not a concept of the Macauley's inherited British system which was designed to create clerks to serve the British Raj and not thinkers who could awaken and enlighten the people of India. Even the simple act of cursive hand writing was a boring menial task for me and rather than repeat page after page I would delve into essays and stories. However, exams were about qualification, competition and career. Progress was never measured by creativity and flair but by marks and the conversion of exams from descriptive answers to short answers and multiple choice questions incresed my problems. This is the main reason for my inability to get marks in the nineties out of hundred and I scored in the eighties. With a bit of luck and some pluck I entered medical school as a student in Grant Medical College. This college was totally different from the other medical schools and creating all round students who had the ability to find solutions in the face of adversity was the speciality of Grant Medical College. 

Let me argue from the other side and confess that taking this attitude of accepting imperfection to enable progress has also led to many mistakes and the consequences of the same are very serious. So as I grew and became more independent I realised that the lack of precision and perfection led to costly errors. Quality and consistency can only be achieved by striving towards perfection and therefore slowing down and spending time in planning and analysis has enormous benefits. While quality in healthcare is defined in many ways, the best definition of quality is to get things right first time and everytime. This seems utopian but a book I read called Check List Manifesto By Dr Atul Gawande gave a different perspective. Doctors after years of experience settle into patterns of working and have a belief that their experience and instinct helps them to make correct decisions almost always. No doctor or professional can claim that he or she had never been caught unawares and made errors. Many of these could have been avoided if certain routine extra precautionary steps were taken. Across industry check lists and protocols have been devised and we are familiar with the pilots of aircrafts and air hostesses going through these check lists. I have become a fan of this and while perfection is not always possible measures to nearly eliminate errors are certainly welcome. 

Perfection is an illusion and if it can be achieved all the time there will be no progress or achievement in the perfect person. While the quest for perefection in every task one performs is desirable the obsession for perefection can certainly hamper progress. Creating routines and habits around repititive tasks can help strike a balance. However, these routines and lists must make allowances for a better way of working arising from creative smart workers. 

A high school pottery teacher was addressing the class, regarding their new assignment. The teacher told half of the class that they had the semester to create their best pot, which they would submit to be graded. To the other half of the class, the teacher said they would have to make 50 pots and that they would be graded on their best pot. The students who were told to make 50 pots did far better that those who obsessed over the illusory perfect pot. The story of the creation of the perfect pot illustrates the importance of repititive imprefect actions leading to perfection vs obsession with perfect action. Even in endeavours like writing this blog, I believe that if I continue writing without chasing perfection I will gradually improve and create better pieces of writing but if I wait till I write a perfect piece then I will write less and less and reduce my chances of becoming better. 

Finally, Perfection maybe the enemy of progress but Practice can make one perfect. Check lists slowing down along with the 3 C's Concentration, Consistency of check list and Cooperative endeavour will lead one to a balance of Perfection and Progress. 

Vispi Jokhi