Mackay: Why 'good enough' doesn't cut it

There's a good reason why Debbi Fields of cookie fame is so successful, and she summed it up in an aphorism I'll never forget: "Good enough never is."

Debbi told me how she coined that phrase after she visited one of her first stores. She walked in unannounced and saw a large crowd of customers in line. She noticed the most recent batch of cookies was overcooked, and she didn't want those cookies sold.

When she confronted the manager, he said, "They are good enough."

Debbie responded with her now famous line, "Good enough never is."

And she threw the entire batch in the trash and made the staff start over. She went through the line explaining what had happened. After apologizing to everyone, she said their orders would be free, if they came back and gave them another chance to show they were the best cookies in the world.

I can attest to how good they are because Debbi made a batch for my wife and me when we visited her at her Aspen, Colo., home. What a cookie, and what a lesson!

I also learned another valuable lesson from Debbi. She started cooking at an early age because her mother's cooking was just "good enough," and Debbi wanted better. Initially, her mother was not in favor of Debbi starting her cookie business because she thought it would fail.

Then there is the positive side that cheers you on and roots for your success. It's up to you to determine the best path.

Fortunately, Debbi Fields chose the positive side, as the company now has more than 300 franchised and licensed locations throughout the United States and in 22 other countries since she opened her first store in 1977.

Giving 100 percent in everything you do is so important. According to statistics compiled by the communications division of the Canadian oil company Syncrude, if 99.9 percent were good enough, then:

• 107 incorrect medical procedures will be performed by the end of the day today.

• Two million documents will be lost by the IRS this year.

• 1,314 phone calls will be misplaced by telecommunication services every minute.

• 268,500 defective tires will be shipped this year.

• 14,208 defective PCs will be shipped this year.

• 103,260 income tax returns will be processed incorrectly this year.

• 5,517,200 cases of soft drinks produced in the next 12 months will be flatter than a bad tire.

• 55 malfunctioning automatic teller machines will be installed in the next 12 months.

• 20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions will be written in the next 12 months.

• 114,500 mismatched pairs of shoes will be shipped this year.

• 315 entries in Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language will turn out to be misspelled.

• Two plane landings daily at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago will be unsafe.

Given numbers like those, does a pan of overbaked cookies seem like such a big deal? It is if your standards are as high as they should be. And never stop trying to exceed those standards.

Take it from Orison Swett Marden, founder of SUCCESS magazine, "The quality of your work will have a great deal to do with the quality of your life."

Mackay's Moral: There is no substitute for quality.