I am an imperfectionist.
Although I strive for excellence and I like when things work and always plan with the ideal in mind, it's very safe to say, I will never strive to be perfect.
Further to this, I believe that perfectionism is not something that is useful in the business world (and in fact, it's not useful anywhere in life).
*Good is good enough, it works, its functional and produces a result. Great just causes burnout, stress and creates unrealistic expectations.
Being an imperfectionist means that I can exist in the ambiguous, I don't need a clearly defined or strict set of rules to be able to start a piece of work. I don’t need a full manual to operate successfully as a member of a team. I don't even need a complete role description when I’m given a job to do. Being comfortable in ambiguity means that I can fill in the blanks when information hasn't been provided. Perfectionism demands things to be exact and fully complete often before action is taken - perfectionists get stuck at an impasse they can't overcome before they’ve even begun.
I'm great at taking direction, I don't require a full thesis or 10 step strategy on how we're going to get somewhere. Embracing imperfection allows me to start right away, focusing on my own work without burdening others or drawing them into obsessive details or constant reassurance, freeing them to pursue their own tasks. If you don’t have the time, give me the idea so I can disappear and work on it, I am more than happy to come back with drafts, plans, suppositions and theories that we can work on. What you won’t get is a completely polished piece of work that hasn't had anybody else’s input.
Failure is a fantastic. Imperfectionists thrive on the opportunity to test out theories and for them to fail. I do not see failure as a negative, failure is only bad if you cover it up or refuse to learn from it. My many years as an improv performer has taught me some of the best work can come out of mistakes. Perfectionism demands you to stick to a detailed road map and not leave the safe confines of the status quo, however what you can discover in the margins of mistake can often be something that you had never considered in the first place, and they could be results that were previously unthought of.
Recent research by Dr Thomas Curran looks into the effects of perfectionism on people and their psychological health, and overwhelmingly the evidence now suggests perfectionism and the striving to attain the perfect is leading to people being discontented and dissatisfied as well as causing deep psychological damage including stress, burnout and serious mental illness. He gave a great Ted talk on the subject which you can find here. Hard work in and of itself is not the pinnacle of attainment. And being the captain of your own perfect destiny might sound grandiose but it's awfully lonely, fraught with self-doubt and personally recriminative, and isn’t felt by people who are content with saying “that's good enough”.
All this being said, I don't mean that being an imperfectionist is about being lazy or sloppy in my work life (I actually love when things coalesce and work) but it is about not trying to achieve something that is either detrimental to me, others or the idea itself.
As a business architect when working on a project that has ambiguous parameters or is based on discovery, the idea of getting things wrong and being imperfect is a part of the growth and evolution of that project. Nothing is written in stone, so trying things that might fail will usually garner positive-enough results that can later be used in creating change, planning for the future or writing strategy. I can work with you and your teams to create momentum. This could be on growth, improving processes or planning for the future, let's not let the idea of failure stop us from trying something that could turn out to be a winner.
Contact me on shea@glassofwater.com.au figure out how we could make this happen.
We must remember to not let the perfect get in the way of the good.
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