Perfectionism
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Selling Sub-Optimal Products: Webcast Q&A: 15 Apr 2012, Question 4
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Question: What should a businessman do if he decides that his product or service is not really good? More specifically, what should a businessman do if he's rises up in the business world on promoting a particular product or service, only to learn decades into the ventures that there are better alternatives? As a fictional example, let's take a mattress manufacturer CEO. He has spent decades of his life trying to make the most comfortable mattresses possible, but then read scientific studies that concludes that there is no healthier sleeping surface than the solid floor, and in using his honest judgment he agrees. Being so high up and so long involved in the mattress world, what are the moral range of options for him?
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Completing Creative Work: Webcast Q&A: 21 Nov 2010, Question 2
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Question: A piece of creative work can be polished forever yet still be far from perfect. Besides, there comes a point where it needs to be brought to completion and made available to its recipients, if there are any, to use and enjoy. How does one make the judgment call as to when that point is reached? I hope to go beyond the ranking of values ("How important is this to me, and have I devoted enough time and effort to it already?") and discuss considerations such as: telling whether I'm still adding to the value of the piece, maintaining a clear view of which details are important, keeping the scope of the piece within reasonable bounds without oversimplifying it, and not letting my feelings about the piece interfere with my judgment of its quality.