So You Have a Perfectionist on Your Team?

As a manager it is usually not that hard to pick the perfectionists in your team.

They are the ones who fuss and agonise over every detail in a project - and put in the extra hours to polish and preen the final product when it comes to completion time.

Obviously this attention-to-detail can be seen as a positive, and it is great to see people taking pride in their work.

Indeed, the perfectionist’s high standards probably ‘raise the bar’ for everyone else in the team - helping even the most easy-going of employees take extra care in their work.

However, as well-known leadership expert Robert Muskovits - the Vice President of US children’s charityKars4Kids - points out on management-issues.com recently, working with a perfectionist can have its disadvantages.

For example, Muskovits says, a perfectionist’s excessive fussiness may mean you miss a deadline over something small and trivial.

Also ironically, many perfectionists actually exude pessimism about their work; never thinking it (or anyone else’s) is quite good enough.

So dealing with a perfectionist does take care and foresight, Muskovits maintains.

For example, he mentions the case of a web designer he worked with who refused to start a project until she had an exact vision in her head of what she was aiming to create.

Of course, once that vision was completed the designer would work like crazy until it was realised.

And although her image of perfection could take weeks to develop – the end result was worth it as it was so spectacular.

The downside of this was that you never quite knew when she would deliver.

Thus, Muskovits recommends that in these cases it is best to either give the responsibility for the website’s delivery to other team members, or outsource it entirely.

Then, although the designer might dislike the imperfect results, she will still be able to live with them, as the imperfections are not her own.

Muskovits also has a few tips about how to manage perfectionists when they are working alongside their team members.

Years of management experience have taught Muskovits how to harness and capitalize on a perfectionist's strengths - with one of the main considerations he says, being able to tread carefully about who you partner a perfectionist with on a project.

If you put them with someone who is not as skilled or talented as they are things are unlikely to go well, he says.

For example, this could lead to them criticising their colleagues - or becoming severely stressed.

And, he says, don't expect a perfectionist to assist with ‘training up’ co-workers - or going out of their way to help the slower team members.

As project managers they are poor taskmasters and often sweat over the smallest details; holding things up unnecessarily.

Very importantly, he adds, never ask a perfectionist to submit ‘below standard’ work.

If a project is running on deadline with no time for perfection, give the work to others or outsource it completely.

Submitting inferior work not only demoralises and discourages perfectionists, but it may also cause them to lose respect and trust for you.

That is not to say having a perfectionist on your team is all doom and gloom!

It can be liberating, enlightening and is I believe, well worth embracing.

In fact, I have found that successfully directing a perfectionist's strengths within the organisation is generally, well worth the effort.