90 % Bulgarian

In his weekly column "Max's Column" for TBmagazine, Maxim Behar talks about the difficulties and changes in the Bulgarian economy and business and the only force that counts - experience.

For years I have shared the thesis that the Bulgarians always lack three things - a thousand BGN on top of salary, a room in the apartment and one more day to finish work. I am not strong in history, nor in psychology to know the reasons for this fact, but this is the reality. I call this somewhere in my books "the 90 % syndrome" and I have been fighting ferociously since my first day in the business to combat it.

I often see around me, in offices, at business meetings, serving in restaurants and other establishments, in stores, wonderful people, young and not so young, doing their jobs professionally, achieving great results with or without smiles, but not so precisely that you gasp. They start strong, do well, then string together mistake after mistake, get up to 90 % and leave all. "I've done it, that's it! So what, something little left, big deal...".

That’s a problem. Politicians make laws, managers manage companies, finances and people, we drive cars and whatnot. We need to be clear and precise - 90 % is not enough. Nowhere and for nothing. To be accurate, to be successful and useful, we'll need the other 10. Forever from now on.