A Surprising Outcome from a College Pottery Class

There’s a modern fable about a college pottery class with a surprising lesson. In the story, the professor of the ceramics class tells half the class that their entire grade will be given on a single pot they produce and turn in at the end of the year. The other half of the class got a different prompt. For them, their grade would be decided by how many pots they produce during the year. 

Naturally, group one moves with deliberate attention to detail for their pot project. They moved slowly and meticulously. Group two went right to making pots over and over again without much time to critique or question their work. 

The result was surprising.. 

The group that was given the prompt to create the most pots not only made more pots than group one, they made better pots across the board. 

The lesson here is that excellence is often a volume issue. Moving slow doesn’t pay. We need reps and we need them fast, so get to work making pots when you find yourself thinking about the perfect pot.