The 3–Ps of progress
“Growth requires a healthy balance of the 3–Ps: Progress, Perfection and Procrastination”
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The 3-Ps of progress
One of life’s great challenges is getting the balance right between the desire for fast progress and the need for wise action. I call this the rule of the 3-Ps: progress, perfection and procrastination
Progress is about achieving growth or change. This is the accelerator that generates action, movement and momentum towards a goal.
Perfection acts as a brake, that slows us down to ensure quality and consistency, reliability and accuracy for every part of every job.
Procrastination tells us to go slower and avoid doing things. It acts like the gear system that holds us back and finds reasons to rethink and ‘shift gears’.
Unless checked, three-way battles between the 3-Ps can cause a lot of frustration, lost opportunities and wasted time and resources. But together, in a well-balanced team, they are the recipe for success.
The trick is to build teams with a balance towards progress. This means a minimum of two progress accelerators to balance the brake and gears. Progress energy powers up the confidence of others with their enthusiasm for movement, but be mindful that too frantic movement can rush a project headlong over the cliff. Perfection energy helps to ensure that decisions are wise, and silly or unintended mistakes are avoided, but too much of it will block innovation and stifle agility. Procrastination though can be put to good use to give the team space to breathe and reflect, and if need-be rethink – but too much of that can delay a project into failure.
So, which is your dominant P? Are you driving progress, perfection or procrastination? And who can you bring around the table to balance the score and get things done?
