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But there’s a simple reason for that obsession: Our aspirations keep us focused on the things that matter to us — our stakeholders and our portfolio — limiting the possibility that we’ll get distracted by all of the peripheral noise that often sends companies, or VC firms, swirling down the toilet.

That’s not to say that we’re perfect or that everything we do turns up roses. In fact, we’ve fallen on our faces once or twice. And some of our grandiose ideas haven’t exactly turned out the way we thought they would.

But here’s the thing: We embrace failure. Hell, we almost encourage and reward it.

Now, before you start to think that we’re the Pittsburgh Pirates or Charlotte Bobcats of the venture capital world, let me put that last statement into context. We embrace failure when it happens as the result of trying something worthwhile. In other words, if we feel like the things we’re doing align with our goals and capabilities, and that they have the potential to make a massive impact (either for our firm or our portfolio), then failure is an acceptable outcome.

The reason is simple: The acts of experimenting, strategizing, executing, and hypothesizing are impactful, even if they lead to a dead end.

The bottom line is that whether the things we thought would make an impact go down in flames or uncover a groundbreaking new idea that propels us forward, both scenarios ultimately teach us something that make us better going forward.

Unfortunately, too many businesses don’t see it that way. They prefer predictability and perfection and status quo. I’ve got bad news for those businesses: Predictability will do nothing to help you grow into a great, big business, and perfection doesn’t exist.

So, why are you limiting your business by focusing on either outcome?

As Jonathan Fields wrote in a great post on his blog, you’re better off building bad stuff quickly than building the same, average stuff slowly. In fact, Fields phrases his opinion a bit more bluntly:

There’s no greater accelerant along the path to genius than a flaming trail of crap.”

The key is to make sure that everything you do revolves around the tenants of your aspirations. That way (provided those activities and initiatives are geared toward making a massive impact), whether you succeed or fail is somewhat irrelevant.

Ultimately, that means focusing on:

• Goal orientation (rather than activity or time orientation)
• Exceeding expectations against tough goals
• Creating optimal pressure, which leads to feelings of challenge and pride of achievement
• Checking and discovering flaws in approach and results
• Encouraging detail orientation, transparency, and high quality standards
• Discipline to spend time on activities that drive results

To sum everything I’ve talked about in this post up, I’ll defer to OpenView founder Scott Maxwell, who’s made it clear in his blog that he thinks businesses should try to fail more. You might think he’s crazy, but I encourage you to digest this paragraph before you blindly disagree with that sentiment:

One of the points that I make over and over and over is that our culture is stuck with the notion that we must plan and then act and, if there is a failure, then it was either a failure in planning or execution. Most situations and all new situations are unpredictable, so the best approach is to get to a quick implementation, identify the issues and opportunities, and then iterate again. Follow this iterative approach a few times, and you will eventually find almost all the issues and be able to perform at the best level possible. I call this success, but you could also call it failing multiple times.”

With that, I think I’ve beaten the false pretense of business perfection into the ground (see my previous posts on the topic here, here, and here if you missed them). Hopefully you took something away from this series. Or, maybe you’re still not convinced. Either way, I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback. Do you think perfection is attainable in business? If so, what have you done to achieve it?

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What have you done today? No, I’m not asking you to recount the forecasts you’ve reviewed, and I don’t care about how many emails you’ve responded to or which management meetings you’ve attended.

What have you really done?

How many new ideas or opportunities have you explored? What actions have you taken against your biggest priorities? Which impediments or obstacles have you removed that will allow your sales and marketing teams perform more efficiently? What strategies have you put in place to help strengthen your brand recognition in the marketplace?

You’ve just had coffee, rewritten a press release for the 10^th time, and spent countless hours in meetings trying to dream up the perfect strategy to sell the perfect product to the perfect market?

Yikes. Keep reading. It’s time for a wake-up call.

While you’re aimlessly spending your time searching for a sense of perfection that doesn’t exist (I’ve covered that issue in previous blog posts here and here), your strongest competitors are actually doing things that make them better. They’re operating with a sense of urgency that compels them to create, rather than ponder; execute and experiment, rather than repetitiously tweak; iterate and pivot, rather than bang-their-heads-against-wall, rest, and repeat.

In the intro post to this series, I mentioned three things that I believe supersede perfection. Operating with a true sense of urgency was one because I believe it drives action and success, even if failure is an occasional byproduct.

But “sense of urgency” might mean different things to different people. So, how do I define it?

1. Your focus is on immediate impact opportunities against focal points
2. You’re aware of great opportunities (and hazards) everywhere you go
3. You feel a powerful desire to move and win NOW (not later today, this week, or this month)
4. You’re driven by the positive emotions that success brings, rather than the fear of potential failure
5. Your actions are aligned with your highest priorities
6. You’re focused on removing impediments and ignoring activities that result in wasted time or resources

On the flip side, if you encourage frenetic activity (needless tasks that don’t do anything to immediately move the product or company forward) or complacency (thinking you’re doing fine, when you’re really stagnating) you’re not operating with a sense or urgency.

To put it more simply, doing something today (even if it leads to failure) is always more valuable than delaying an effort in an attempt to achieve perfection. As Will Turner writes in this post for EvanCarmichael.com, urgency is currency and “done,” in most cases, is better than perfect.

To that point, Cliff Kuang, the co-founder of Co.Design (the award-winning design and innovation subsidiary of Fast Company) shared an infographic in February that is definitely worth checking out. It’s based on the work of Bre Pettis and Kio Stark, two entrepreneurs who are self-subscribed initiates into the Cult of Done.

Based off of the 2009 Cult of Done manifesto written by Pettis and Stark, I think three particular ground rules from the infographic stand out:

1. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
2. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.
3. Done is the engine of more.

So, I’ll ask this question again: What have you really done today? If you’re struggling to come up with an answer or you haven’t actually done anything, you may want to rethink the way you’re managing your time.

For more on how your definition of “sense of urgency” will evolve as you grow, I highly recommend reading this post from OpenView’s Tien Anh Nguyen.

Have a few novel tactics for fostering a sense of urgency within your organization? Please share them in the comments section below!

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So, you’re back. That must mean I didn’t hurt your feelings too badly with my last post. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, feel free to take a few minutes to read this and come back.

Yes folks, I said something that you all needed to hear: You’re imperfect, and that’s never going to change.

But here’s the good news: There’s nothing wrong with imperfection. In fact, as I wrote in that previous post, perfection is a business mirage we’ve created in our heads. And the lemmings searching for that utopic end destination will ultimately wander the proverbial desert looking for an oasis that doesn’t exist.

Meanwhile, the smartest and most efficient entrepreneurs focus on the things they can achieve, honing in on attainable short and long-term goals that allow them to quickly pivot, experiment, and thrive when opportunities present themselves.

In other words, they set really good SMART goals and achieve them.

Haven’t heard of SMART goals or forget what the acronym stands for? Here’s a quick refresher:

• Specific: What and why do you want to accomplish something?
• Measureable: How will you know if/when you’ve accomplished your goal?
• Attainable: Do you really have the skills and resources to achieve a particular goal?
• Relevant: Will the goal really impact your business or its target customer?
• Timely: Can you set a specific timeframe to accomplish the goal and realistically achieve it?

Generally speaking, the SMART goal concept requires creativity, strategic thinking, and technical skills, mixed in with experience, attention to detail, and effort. You want to determine what really matters to you, prioritize those things, and leverage your resources (people, time, and money) as to go after them. Doing that represents true efficiency and goal orientation, which produce behavior and results that are as close to perfect as you can ever realistically hope to achieve.

Of course, if that were as easy to do as it was for me to write that last paragraph, you wouldn’t be reading this blog post.

The truth is that setting SMART goals and following through with them requires discipline. But not in the context you might expect. Discipline sometimes means sometimes ignoring the things that don’t matter, even if the collective masses are telling you they do.

For example, let’s say you have a marketing manager that’s hell bent on being a social media all-star on every channel that exists. With the recent explosion of Pinterest, that employee is probably spending an inordinate amount of time playing around with it, attempting to build the perfect Pinterest presence.

Here’s the problem with that: Maybe Pinterest isn’t right for your business.

Taking it back to SMART goals, are you sure that Pinterest can really provide a medium for customer engagement that will allow you to achieve specific, measurable goals? Or are you jumping aboard a bandwagon that might take you in the wrong direction entirely, diluting your team’s focus and absorbing precious time that could be spent on more impactful initiatives?

You could ask that question more generally about almost every other component of your business. And unless you’re sure that the things your team is working on will accomplish specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely goals – encouraging efficient execution, rather than time-consuming perfectionism – why the hell are you doing them at all?

So, take a step back, look at what really matters to your business, and then set SMART goals that drive your business forward. That will keep your team focused and aligned to your business’ mission, vision, and values, and create a higher probability of success in both the short and long-term. What company doesn’t want that?

OK, now it’s your turn. How have SMART goals helped you stay on track? Or, more importantly, do you think perfection actually exists in business and that you’ve achieved it? I’d love to hear your argument…

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I’m going to say something that a lot of you won’t want to hear. Ready for it?

You’re not perfect. And you’re never going to be perfect. If you’re trying to be perfect, you’re probably wasting someone’s time. So please, for the love of God, stop thinking you can be and move on. Your company will be better for it.

Okay. Glad I got that off my chest. Can we still be friends?

In all seriousness, I’m not standing on this virtual soapbox trying to belittle you or make the argument that mediocrity and failure are acceptable outcomes in business. Far from it. Instead, I’m trying to dispel the prevailing belief that perfection exists in business, or that wildly successful companies like Apple or Facebook have achieved it.

They haven’t and no other company has either, because perfection doesn’t exist in business.

By definition, perfection is the absolute highest degree of excellence you can reach. If you’re a bowler, you’re perfect if you bowl a 300. It’s quantifiable, definitive, and absolute. In business, there’s no analogous situation. There’s no universally accepted definition of perfect, which means there’s no end game to shoot for.

So why do so many of us hold ourselves to the standard of being perfect?

Yes, for you high achievers, perfectionism is part of your DNA. And that’s fine. I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing to try to be a perfectionist. I am saying that banging your head against a wall trying to achieve it is not productive. In fact, it’s probably holding your business back.

All too often, companies delay executing something because they’re shooting for an ideal that doesn’t exist. They spend three, six, or 12 months developing a supposedly flawless hypothesis or an apparently airtight product. In the process, they often miss out on the opportunity they were trying to capture in the first place.

That’s why I’m going to suggest an alternative ideology.

In my mind, perfection is setting realistic, impactful goals and accomplishing them. It’s being quick to act on an opportunity, and then experimenting, responding, and iterating based on feedback. It’s setting shorter deadlines and hitting them.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll discuss a handful of things every company should focus on to achieve their relative business utopia. Here are a few of things I’ll touch on:

• Set really good SMART goals and hit them: If you’re not familiar with the acronym, SMART stands for Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. In essence, if you can set goals that meet those criteria and then actually achieve them, that’s as realistic as perfection gets.
• Operate with a true sense of urgency, rather than striving for perfection: By aligning actions with your highest priorities, you’ll be driven by the positive emotions that success brings and you’ll find out quickly if what you’re working on is really worth the time you’re investing.
• Focus on making an impact: If making a massive impact drives everything you do, you’ll act more quickly on opportunities, execute with discipline, passion and enthusiasm, and ultimately spend time on the activities that drive results.

Now, doing those things doesn’t mean you won’t fail. That’s really an inevitability of doing business, isn’t it? But by honing in on those things — rather than trying to be perfect at everything — you’ll ultimately be more successful. And wouldn’t you rather build a $100 million imperfect business than a perfect bankrupt one?

I think we all know the answer to that, but I’d love to hear your argument if you feel differently. Tee it up in the comments section below!

Ideas, especially obvious ones, are worthless; every entrepreneur and geek knows that execution is everything. (Mark) Zuckerberg’s fellow Harvard drop-out Bill Gates didn’t invent crap, either, but he did execute. That’s business.”

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Consultant, professor, and author Jeff Jarvis wrote those words in a post on his blog, not long after the movie The Social Network had been released. In context, Jarvis’ post had more to do with the movie’s interpretation of the founding of Facebook and why writer Aaron Sorkin got it wrong.

But as it relates to the OpenView Impact Funnel (which, if you’ve missed my last few posts, has been the focus of my own blog lately), Jarvis’ quote is a perfect starting point for a conversation about creating true innovation.

Now, I don’t agree that ideas are worthless (see my first post in this series). But I do think Jarvis makes a meaningful point: Ideas are just ideas. They don’t mean anything until you execute and turn them into something worthwhile.

With the founding of Facebook, the Winklevoss twins found that out the hard way. ConnectU might have been their “idea,” but Zuckerberg was the one that successfully executed it. And that’s an important lesson for expansion stage companies trying to develop innovative ideas that, ultimately, convert to massive long-term impact.

Going back the Impact Funnel I drew up late last year to illustrate this concept (click here to check it out), you’ll see that I’m a firm believer that innovation is a strategic, step-by-step process. It starts with establishing your goals (predictable and hopeful), brainstorming ideas that can help you achieve them, and experimenting to find out which of those ideas might actually work.

But it certainly doesn’t end there. How many entrepreneurs have come up with great ideas, only to see them fail because they didn’t know how to advance those concepts beyond the point of ideation and experimentation?

That’s why performing ad hoc execution is so critical.

Quite simply, innovation can’t happen without great execution. It validates value. And that validation, ultimately, can lead to a viable methodology that converts a new idea into predictable value and long-term impact.

I like the way that Nicole Chen, a Stanford graduate and former product designer, puts it in a post for Innovation Management:

There is a lot of talk within the innovation conversation about creativity, blue-sky thinking, and finding inspiration in unexpected places. But coming up with the ideas themselves is the easy part. The real challenge is execution. Turning an idea into an actual, real-life thing, whatever it is, is really, really hard, especially within corporations with numerous stakeholders, watchful investors, a plethora of conflicting political agendas, and the inevitable leadership egos that threaten the survival of a new disruptive idea.”

In other words, there’s a lot of grunt work involved in turning ideas into impact. And unless you’re able to balance ideas, intuition, experimentation, and execution evenly, true innovation is going to be hard to create.

One important point: OpenView’s Impact Funnel applies to all ideas. Not just the groundbreaking ones that tend to get the most attention.

For expansion stage software companies, those ideas could be as complex as a total shift in product strategy, or they could be as simple as publishing a new form of content that creates better engagement with customers and prospects. The bottom line is that the rules and steps that lead ideas down the path to predictable value and long-term impact apply across the board.

So, regardless of how earth-shattering or “been there, done that” your idea is, make sure you’re prepared to execute it better than anyone else in your market.