If it is not perfect, it is worthless!
My perfectionist personality has served me well professionally for sure, but at what cost? The self motivation that comes with perfectionism has impacted my work life balance negatively without a doubt. Many late nights have I locked up the office or job trailer, with a false sense of pride.
I would often look down my colleagues who found the time to get their work done and didn’t feel the self imposed pressure to stay late.
That same mentality would also close me off to constructive criticism or feedback of any type. I strive for perfection so my work must be perfect! How dare someone else say differently.
Should perfection be the goal?
Now to be clear my perfectionist personality was not born out of having an some personal higher standard. I was a vey under performing student when I was young, I did just enough work to squeak by in school. My perfectionism came out of deep insecurities and lack of self esteem, as I would come to learn later.
I did have the strength to harness this personality trait to some extent and work my way up in construction industry, but there was always a deep sense of something missing. Every success was underlined by thoughts of what I felt I failed at and others just had not caught on to yet.
Being perfectly “imperfect”
So why do I share these thoughts? I have learned to some degree that this endless perfectionist feedback loop can be used effectively when it is personally studied intensely. I have learned to stop and become aware when those emotions arise in a work situation.
Countless times I have been challenged by coworkers when something doesn’t goes as planned on the jobsite.
“See! There’s your lean construction techniques failing again” is the typical comment.
Construction projects are people building things for other people, being managed by people. Humans and all our best building practices and technologies are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but striving to get better each day is still an honorable endeavor none the less.
So to all you highly self driven perfectionist out there who manage others, I would challenge you to spend a little time focusing on just a couple of things on your continuous improvement journey.
Remember that perfection is an idea and concept, but unattainable. So keep striving to be perfect but give yourself some space to be imperfect. Set yourself and your team up with realistic expectations while continuously raising the standards.
Don’t ignore or obsess over the your failures, instead learn from them. For a team to fail to reach an important goal and then endure the suffering that comes with failure is very natural. Unwillingness to examine the pain and lessons to be learned from that experience is the real failure.
It robs everyone of the chance to grow and to learn how to be perfectly “imperfect.”