The Perfectionist

As he walked by his eye caught something that did not meet his specification. He wanted it changed. It had to be like what he had envisaged. He would not rest till it met all his requirements. His team was always worried when he walked in. They were never relaxed as something or the other would not meet his requirement. This time too they were tensed. The whole building with 2000 staff was put on high alert for his visit. They had spent weeks preparing the agenda and for the floor walks, what he would see, what the teams would tell him, etc.  They spent lots of time away from customer issues. They could never be their natural self. They just couldn't afford to make a mistake. As he walked in to office that Monday morning, his eye picked up a poster that he felt was not well formatted. Meet the perfectionist.

An organization tries to get used to the quirks of its leaders and it takes months, if not years, to undo some of these habits. I am not one of those perfectionists. When I moved in to a new role, I started by visiting various centres where we did our back office work from. Weeks before I landed in one particular centre (my first visit after I took over the role), I sent a message to the Head of that Centre as to what I would like to see and do there. I sent word that they should be themselves. I landed up there and what I heard was that the whole centre had prepared for weeks before I landed up. During that visit, I let people make and accept their mistakes. Explained to them how many mistakes I had made before coming to this position. Told them that the most important thing is to accept the mistake, rectify and move on in life. Within 18 months, I could reduce the time spent by staff preparing for my visit and more importantly they were not under pressure any more. They just tried their best and that was enough. They also knew it and so the visits became more enjoyable.

I have seen many perfectionists and while they bring tremendous strengths, they also bring with them a host of issues. These issues are sometimes very large and range from not being able to delegate, to subordinates always under pressure to the mood in the office just not being relaxed. No one is empowered to make a mistake!!! I use the word "empowered" on purpose. No one makes mistakes on purpose. And there are consequences to mistakes. However, to err is human and all of us do make mistakes. You just cannot be perfect all the times. So, there is no point thinking that we will work without making mistakes. If you do make a mistake, just rectify and move on. However, the perfectionist is unable to handle this and it causes significant problems at the workplace (and at home too).

The biggest fallout of the perfectionist is that he/she is unable to enjoy the journey of life. They keep moving from one issue to the other, struggle to delegate and though things are going fine, they are unable to sit back, relax and enjoy the journey. They agonize over everything. As Anne Wilson Schaef put it, "Perfectionism is self-abuse of the highest order."

The reason why a perfectionist struggles to delegate is that he/she wants things in a particular way only. There are no other alternatives. The perfectionist, therefore, struggles to trust someone else with the work. This really slows down the pace at which the organization moves. Agility is lost and so is trust.

Please don't mistake me, if you are one of those perfectionists. The world does need the perfectionist. You cannot do detailed oriented jobs without the perfectionist. You need someone who is worried about the quality of delivery and looks at all possible issues. You need someone who is managing risks. And all these are critical to the functioning of an organization. Just imagine a pilot telling you as you strap your seat belt, "Ladies and gentleman, we are about to take off. However, please understand that I am not a perfectionist and so am not sure how the landing will be!!!" As Barbra Streisand once said, "I've been called many names like perfectionist, difficult and obsessive. I think it takes obsession, takes searching for the details for any artist to be good."

Does this mean a perfectionist cannot head an organization? Of course not. He/she can head an organization so long as it is not really large. If it is large, there will be a struggle from various angles and it will cause more problems than solve.

Does this mean leaders should not search for perfection? My opinion is along the lines of what Salvador Dali said, "Have no fear of perfection. You will never reach it." I believe a leader has to be moderate in approach to everything he/she does. The leader has to build a team that he/she can trust and then delegate so that the organization moves very fast and is agile. I will end this post with a quote of Ashleigh Brilliant, "I am not perfect, but parts of me are excellent."