Perfection At Work

People often aim for perfection at work. Obsessing about perfection can cause anxiety. Should people aim for perfection? When is ‘good enough’ an acceptable goal? How can people make a distinction between the two?

I was asked to write about perfection. Perfection at work is a complex subject. The dictionary definition is ‘complete, without defect, blemish or flaw, a perfect embodiment of a concept, an ideal instance’.

Whose concept is it? How can an individual perfectly embody it? In general the path to perfection is rarely clear. Lack of clarity usually means that it is impossible to get a sure sight of the target, to take a strong aim, to pull back, fire and hit the bullseye!

Secondly there are many interpretations of the description ‘perfect’. Your boss will have one point of view, your boss’s boss will have another perspective and you will have a different one. Our points of view are based on our experience, knowledge and training.

As you clarify the goal, it is important to ensure that all parties with a vested interest get on board with a specific, measured, achievable, researched and timed goal. (SMART). The more individuals who carry the same picture or ‘near as damn it’ picture in their minds and have an unambiguous expectation of the result, the more you are likely to succeed in a manner to which everyone agrees is what they wanted in the first place i.e. perfect.

In my career as a journalist running one of the world’s first 24-hour news channels, ‘good enough’ was how we got breaking news on air, in the early days it was rarely an elegant process. More important than perfection was telling the facts, being accurate, fair and fast and still it was uncomfortable seeing our mistakes, day after day, in real time, flashing around TV sets all over the world.

Because perfection was so hard to achieve, as a leader and programme editor I needed to come up with some idea pretty quickly. My solution was to support my team to get better, to develop their in born qualities, to be fast and accurate and also brilliant, imaginative, organised and responsible.

I asked the same of myself. I made sure that everyone knew what their jobs were, where the parameters lay and what excellence in the job was. If an individual performed excellently then we all knew it, they shone with pride and we all celebrated with them. When the whole team performed excellently, there was a huge uplift of energy and excitement and we felt capable of anything. We were orientated towards continuous improvement and the search for excellence.

These days, I am a life coach and I have transferred that experience of excellence under the intense pressure of a newsroom, to the individuals and teams I am working with. Working through what perfection, excellence and ‘doing my best’ actually means in practice and looking at which scenarios are acceptable and appropriate at which times.

Whatever the fears people express about having their flaws and limitations exposed, what I have seen time and time again is that it is worthwhile setting out on the path towards perfection because on that path you will discover excellence and that will not be something learned or imposed through motivational schemes it will be your own personal in-born quality of excellence.

For many years now I have been using excellence to raise my standards whatever I am doing (work, hobbies and general day to day activities) whether it is learning to make bread or to play the ukulele. I have a firm, clear, strong and transparent intention and desire to do my best with all my clients. My regular orientation towards excellence has become a habit. This enables me at times to give the perfect performance or the perfect response. I am not the perfect coach. I come face to face with my flaws and no longer flinch because inside those flaws is the perfect learning.

In every task towards perfection in the workplace it is vital that goals and the criteria for getting there are clear. Striving towards perfection brings up complicated thoughts and emotions.?Pressure, fear of failure, confusion, and sleepless nights. Fear is restrictive. It leads to a mind looping in worry, to an uncreative, limiting mind-set.

For that reason as I have said before, I replace the word perfection with the word excellence. Excellence feels achievable and from that place people can be supported to push through obstacles, hammer out the blemishes and nurture their existing inborn qualities of strength, will power, perseverance, imagination, discipline, focus, clarity, originality and so on which all lead to excellent and sometimes perfect performance at work.

Through repeatedly taking action in their work, people develop all these ‘resource muscles’ from inside of them. It is not up to the manager or the trainer of the organisation to impose them on employees or to tie them to an annual bonus or to promotional opportunities.

?If you have a genuine desire to better yourself, to improve your performance, to grow your inborn capabilities, to aspire beyond your limitations then orient yourself towards excellence, see the perfect outcome, and whatever challenges you meet on the path, commit 100%!

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