It’s the end of the week, you come home tired, the family’s tired, and you’re all hungry. You think, “Let’s order a pizza.” You pick up the phone and order it, saying, “Double cheese, no anchovies, please.” They reply, “No problem, sir, it’ll be there in 28 minutes.” Perfect.

So, 28 minutes go by—no doorbell. Then 38 minutes—still no doorbell. 48 minutes—still nothing. Finally, at 55 minutes, the doorbell rings. The delivery person cheerfully says, “Hello, sir, here’s your pizza!” You open it up, and yes, it’s double cheese, no anchovies. But it’s 55 minutes late, cold, and not so good. Not great.

Fast forward a week. It’s Friday night again, and you think, “Maybe we should order pizza tonight, but let’s try a different place.” You call up another pizzeria, ordering double cheese, no anchovies. “No problem, sir, it’ll be there in 28 minutes.” Sure enough, 27 minutes later, the doorbell rings. You open the door to a nice, steaming hot pizza, pay, and head inside. This looks great! But when you open it, there’s no cheese in sight—it’s got double anchovies, broccoli, and cauliflower. This is not what you ordered at all! Again, you’re not happy with the outcome.

In the first scenario, they got the right pizza—double cheese, no anchovies—but they didn’t deliver it correctly. They didn’t get it there on time. In the second scenario, the pizza was delivered right on time, but it wasn’t the right pizza.

So, for you to be completely happy, you need the right thing done right. You need the right thing, done right. As leaders within organizations, we need to focus on driving our organizations to do the right thing and to do it right.

Often, in our enthusiasm, we get one of these correct but not the other. We end up frustrated, unsure why, and it’s because we’re simply not doing the right things right. That’s really the goal: do right things right. It might sound simple, but within organizations, we often see the wrong things done really well, or the right things not done well at all. We can look at the organization, analyze, and ask: Are we doing the right thing? Is it being done right? If both are in place, then we’re optimally successful.