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Product Management
Perfectionism in the workplace
The Pareto principle is only 80% of the solution to avoiding burnout.
It is good to know when to stop. Here are more ways to understand the drivers for perfectionism and strategies to help shift your mindset.
It is good to know when to stop. The 80/20 rule applies most of the time as an answer to perfection in the workplace. This instills the best practice of getting the job done just enough that you are accomplishing your goal with a decent level of quality. For most of us, this is the quick and easy solution to relieve the urge to run a project or task to perfection.
What drives perfection in the workplace?
Fear of failure usually comes down to your personal reasons for not being seen as someone who can fail. The fallacy is that in most workplaces, asking for help to overcome your weaknesses is seen as a strength and can lead to the necessary coaching or mentoring that will help you to increase your skills and outputs.
A culture of micromanagement Leadership looks for transparency, accountability, and feedback when instead, their attempt translates to your feeling nagged or hounded. To avoid micromanagement, you ‘live under the radar,’ and the way to do this is through perfection in outcomes.
High expectations and misaligned objectives This has more to do with a misunderstanding of what you are working on versus what your managers think you should be working on. If you are working from your core integrity and SME, you know what is right and needs to be done, but that may be in conflict with the needs of leadership. How to overcome this is with better means of communication and resetting expectations. Sometimes it's easier to strive for perfection and stretch yourself thin than to have difficult and confrontational conversations that will shine a light on misunderstanding or a need to change your course. We are all pigheaded and righteous in our beliefs, and we want to think we’re in the right.
