DEVELOPMENT
of their study. Because of our drive to make things
better, perfect, faultless and flawless, we might
actually be creating more problems at work.
The four hidden
dangers of
perfectionism—and
what to do instead
Chasing that perfect report, or getting the
presentation exactly correct might be doing
us more harm than good says Lynne Cazaly.
It’s time we try to make it just ‘good enough’.
THE EXPERT
Lynne Cazaly is a
keynote speaker and
adviser on new ways
of working. She helps
businesses think and
work in ways that
are more productive,
collaborative, creative
and effective. She is
the author of ish: The
Problem with our Pursuit
for Perfection and the
Life-Changing Practice
of Good Enough.
The drive is on in workplaces to deliver good
value, top quality and efficient service. This
pressure to make what we’re doing ‘perfect’
seems to just be one of the basic expectations of
the job these days. But despite these noble goals
at work, we’re experiencing some of the highest
levels of stress, depression, anxiety and mental
illness than ever before.
What’s going on? Why are we so uptight at
work and unhappy about it? It might be worth
us looking at something that doesn’t usually get
much attention, because it’s our ‘favourite flaw’
and that’s the trait of perfectionism. The danger
with perfectionism comes about because, as PhD
researchers Thomas Curran and Andrew Hill say,
perfectionism is “An irrational desire to achieve
along with being overly critical of oneself and
others.” They gathered data from over 41,000
people and found that perfectionism is increasing,
at alarming levels and say there are three key
types of perfectionism—Self-oriented (when we
set unrealistically high standards for ourselves),
Societal (when we perceive that society expects
us to reach a certain standard) and Other-oriented
(when we have high standards for others).
All three are on the increase with the second,
Societal, increasing by 33 percent over the duration
60 Chief of Staff | Issue 3 2019
The horror of the perfectionist boss
Many people can recall the horror of working
for a perfectionist boss who wasn’t happy with
anything, nothing was ever good enough and
reports, presentations and projects go through
endless corrections. Often it’s only a tiny change
like a word here or the typeface, type size or line
thickness. We might be worrying about things
that don’t matter so much. Here are four of the
hidden dangers of perfectionism at work:
Longer hours aren’t better. If you’re regularly
putting in extra hours trying to make something
‘good enough’ or ‘better’, you could be wasting
your time. Working harder just causes burnout,
sleeplessness, stress and anxiety and doesn’t
deliver on the quality we hope for. Harvard
Business Review research revealed that extra work
hours just make us feel better about the quality,
they don’t really impact the quality.
w Too hard on yourself or others. We might be
too harsh, expecting high standards and being
disappointed or moody when things aren’t
‘perfect’. But perfection doesn’t exist, so reaching
it is impossible and the pursuit doesn’t deliver the
feelings we wish it would.
w Conflict and tension. Unnecessary conflict and
tension can crop up at work because of uncertain
or ill-defined standards. We often talk about
deadlines, but we don’t talk enough about the
standard or quality that’s required. As a result,
people work endlessly, doubting what they’ve
done is ‘good enough’, when no standard has
even been discussed or agreed to.
w No party for no success. Some perfectionists
don’t celebrate the wins or the achievement of
milestones because they’re terribly disappointed
they didn’t meet their own self-imposed
standards. While everyone else is high-fiving,
they might be berating themselves near the
doughnuts because nothing was ‘good enough’.
w
Rather than pursuing perfect it’s better to define
and aspire for ‘good enough’ and to get feedback
and responses from peers, clients or customers to
make sure you’re on the right track.
If you want great progress, put your ideas out
there sooner, test and get feedback and iterate.
It’s the new way of working. It’s how to truly
identify and deliver good value, great products
and efficient services. You can do the same. Tone
down the perfectionism; it’s harming us all and
our abilities to work well and get a good night’s
sleep. S
www.lynnecazaly.com