Business leaders suffer from a “perfectionist syndrome”.
Aiming for betterment is good but trying to be perfect is not. Perfection is an illusion.
Companies are made of humans. The perfect organization doesn’t exist. Leadership is to deal with the imperfect side of people.
Organizational alignment and cultural fit are two perfect examples of perfectionism myths, as I wrote previously.
A workplace without tensions is an illusion too. But managers see them as something negative. And, when tensions show up, they either act on denial or try to silence conflicts.
Tensions are fuel to keep your team at the top of their game.
You can learn to address them. Or ignore them until they backfire.
How tensions get things together
Tensions are always present, even if we don’t notice them.
Take suspension bridges, for example. They are designed to be flexible. That’s what makes them strong.
The bridge towers support the majority of the weight as compression pushes it down. The supporting cables, on the other hand, receive the bridge’s tension forces.
Compression is a force that acts to shorten the thing it is acting on. While tension is a force that acts to expand it.
In suspension bridges, tension and compression forces are in constant conflict. Flexibility can balance both and keep the structure safe and sound.
Borrow the mindset of an engineer to analyze your team:
What pillars keep your team grounded?
What conduits help manage its tensions?
How flexible and adaptive is your team?
What stretches your team mindset? What compresses it?
Don’t avoid tensions, face them
“Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.” — Chinese Proverb
The biggest tension at the workplace is being in denial about tensions.
Tensions, like words, are neither good or bad. We make them good or bad.
Managers fear tensions. They prefer to avoid or minimize them. Until they backfire.
That’s because they believe tensions break teams apart.