If it’s not worth doing, it’s not worth doing well

When I was a child I was taught that “If it’s worth doing it’s worth doing well.”

Years later, when I was working in a global corporation, responsible for international planning and strategic change, I found myself receiving requests from Head Office for increasingly detailed and bizarre pieces of information.

I was all set to spend the time gathering the information needed to deliver accurate responses to all these questions when my manager pointed out two things. First, he said, the answers I gave would never make the slightest difference to performance, either for us or for the corporation. Second, each request would be a drain on the time and energy of our managers and their teams, distracting them from their real work of serving customers.

Better, he said, to provide a ‘good enough’ answer quickly, with the minimum disruption to our teams, because:

“If it’s not worth doing it’s not worth doing well.”

When we know and let go of what is not important we free up time to focus on what is.

That, in turn, brings peace of mind, as well as efficiency, effectiveness, and adaptability.

The Churning’s Inner Leadership is all about clarifying what matters to you priorities and turning that into an inspiring vision of something that is worth doing well.

At the same time, once you know your priorities you also know that anything not related to those priorities is not worth doing well.

Photo by nikoretro via StockPholio.com