The Cost of Good Enough: A Leadership Lesson in Self-Awareness

Recently, I spilled an entire can of white paint across the landscaping stones we'd just paid to have installed.

I had even seen it coming. I was painting the crawl space door, and the door kept swinging toward the open can. I should move that, I thought. Instead, I braced the door. Good enough.

Then, as I finished up, I pulled the brace, left the can where it sat, and watched bright white paint pour across our brand-new sandstone steps and flagstone path.

That cost me an hour of pressure-washing.

The very next day, I set out to fix a sprinkler. To measure the pipe, I used my thumb. At Home Depot, I bought a 1/2" fixture and fittings because that's how it compared to my thumb. Back home, I discovered the line was actually 3/4". My thumb, it turns out, does not distinguish well between the two. So back to Home Depot I went for two adapters, a whole $2.76.

This is a typical repair job for me. I need a Home Depot close by. Thankfully, ours is ten minutes away.

The "Good Enough" Default

My default setting in life is good enough. And honestly, most of the time it works. So many of my fixes, both the physical ones and the emotional ones, live in that "good enough" category, and they hold up fine.

But sometimes "good enough" falls short. Sometimes you need to “measure twice and cut once”. Sometimes an “ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure”.

I had actually thought about the paint can. I just didn't take the one minute to act on it. And my wife, Mary Kay, had actually asked me the day before if I had taken care of all we needed before we left. I said yes, then went out and measured with my thumb, thinking that was good enough.

The wisdom isn't in always being precise. It's in discerning when precision matters and when "good enough" truly is.

I'm not sure I've fully learned that discernment. But I've found that simply walking through the consequences ahead of time helps. What if the can spills? What if I drive all the way to the store and buy every wrong part? My wife Mary Kay thinks that way naturally. I don't. I'm an optimist. The door won't hit the can. This measurement is close enough. Except it wasn't, and it cost me time and money.

Here's what these little failures keep teaching me.

1. Accept how you're wired, strengths and all

I spend so much of my life reminding people that they're uniquely wired. Well, so am I. Which means I will always lean toward the optimist who assumes it'll all work out if I just do what feels good enough and move on.

Yes, this has moderated over the years. I'm far better at this at my age than I was at twenty, because I've learned, repeatedly, what it costs to skip the details. But the tendency is still baked in: do it well enough and keep moving. I need to honestly own my gifts and the weaknesses that ride alongside them. I will never be a Mary Kay, and that's okay.

2. Surround yourself with people who see what you don't

Scripture never pictures the faithful life as a solo act. The Old Testament calls them advisors and counselors. The New Testament calls them friends, community, teammates, and other members of the body with gifts that complement one another.

God assembled the church, His body, precisely so our strengths shine and our gaps get covered by someone gifted differently. Having other voices at the table isn't a nice idea. It's essential to our effectiveness and to the Kingdom. Despite what our culture tells us, there are no solo stars in the church.

Yes, some gifts are more visible than others; Paul works through exactly that tension in 1 Corinthians 12–14. But in the body there are only team players, using their gifts in harmony with others using theirs. (The same is true in most team sports. It just takes some "stars" a while to realize they can't win without a gifted, functioning team.)

3. Be humble enough to actually change

Each of us has to be humble enough to admit we can't do it alone. That takes self-awareness, and a little self-deprecation, to appreciate what we do and don’t bring to the table. True humility shows up when a teammate challenges me, and I don't take it as a personal attack. It's demonstrated when I actually listen and change my belief, my position, my behavior because of who they are and what they bring.

I think I'm pretty good at the first two lessons. I'm less sure about this last one. I had the thought about the paint can and the sprinkler head. In both cases, I heard the wisdom and didn't change my course. So I paid the price.

By the way, I still have paint "scars" all around the crawl space door. They are there as permanent reminders to slow down and to listen.