Don’t Measure With Micrometer When You’re Cutting With a Chainsaw: Wisdom and Perfectionism

Leadership is one providing guidance to another. Leadership requires wisdom–good decisions matched with good actions.

Here’s some wisdom I learned about perfectionism from a skinny guy, callsign “Hulk”.

Back in the last century, we were five Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier jet pilots going through advanced air-to-ground weapons training. That’s a fancy way of saying that we were becoming experts at dropping bombs. This was in the old days, when we still dropped “dumb” bombs that weren’t electronically guided to the target.

Our instructor, Hulk, was very demanding and a details guy. You didn’t want to go into a briefing with Hulk without being 100% sure that you had the right answers.

With a flight later in the morning, the five of us had a lot of planning to do and not much time. We had to plan the low-level flight into the target. We had to plan the target attack . We had to do all weapons planning for actually dropping the bombs.

The five of us got into an increasingly intense discussion about what to set in the bombsite. Given the target, weapon ballistics, dive angle, release airspeed, altitude, etc., was the proper bombsite setting 135 milliradians (mils) or 142 mils? This was a focal point of the training, so we couldn’t get it wrong.

135 mils or 142 mils? We agonized over it like baseball fans arguing over the designated hitter rule. We were getting real short on time.

Finally, Hulk walked by. In frustration, someone said, “Hulk, we’ve been fighting over this for half an hour. What’s the correct answer–135 mils or 142 mils?”

Hulk stopped and looked over our shoulders. “Gentlemen, what’s the difference in your answers?”

“7 mils” someone answered.

“And what’s the circular error rate of the weapon?” Hulk asked.

“25 mils.”

Hulk chuckled, “So you’re arguing over a 7 mil difference, when the bomb itself has a plus or minus 25 mil error rate? Don’t measure with a micrometer when you’re cutting with a chain saw.”

Argh. We had lost 30 minutes seeking perfection when perfection was unattainable.

You have a limited amount of time at work, at home and in life to make decisions and take action. It is impossible to be perfect in all things.

Good wisdom and leadership mean knowing when/where you should strive for perfection and when/where you should not.

When it came to the jet engine in my AV-8B Harrier, perfection was important. The engine turbine blades needed to be installed perfectly or the engine would explode in flight.

When it comes to most other things in life, the time spent getting something from 95% to 99% perfection is often better spent getting something else from 20% to 90% perfection.

How can you know when to pursue perfection and when not to?

How can you lead the best life by spending your time doing the most important things?

That’s why it’s so important to Seek Wisdom.