#11 Are You TOO Perfect At Work?

Are you being too perfect at work? Today I would like to address why focusing on perfection may bring you a reward - but not the one you’re hoping for!

For more information, please go check out www.wisewomensworkplace.com. 

Transcript

Hi! This is Anita from the Wise Women’s Workplace podcast and Facebook group. Today I would like to address why I believe you should focus on progressing in your career, rather than being perfect at your job, regardless of whether you want to stay in your current job, become the company leader, move on to a new adventure in a different field, or even become an entrepreneur!

Backstory (Desires internal and external)

When I started out, and actually for quite a while moving through my career, I operated under the assumption that if I did my job perfectly that it would be noticed and I would be rewarded by my boss or by my organization with a raise or a promotion. Truth be told, I often didn’t even get a thank you. And that felt pretty bad because I felt like I was really putting in a lot of effort to get noticed. In the first episode of Wise Women’s Workplace I talked about the importance of knowing what you don’t know and one of the things I mentioned was important was working smarter, not harder. In today’s episode, I would like to talk to those of you who strive for perfection and are hoping to be rewarded for that, because your reward may not be the one you’re hoping for.

I know when I had that mode of working, I really prided myself on knowing everything about my job, all the time. And, if I’m honest, I think I tried to know everything about everyone else’s job as well. I didn’t want to try to be better than my colleagues, but I did want to be a kind of “super employee”.  It was a source of pride and satisfaction for me – I was known in the organization for being at the center of everything, having the organization’s history, and I was the one that colleagues came to when they wanted to understand something that was going on in the organization. And believe me, when I could provide information at the drop of a hat, it increased my credibility even further with my boss.

And all of that is great! I wouldn’t really want to say otherwise. But like I said in episode 1, no one higher up in the hierarchy is probably going to tell you what you need to know to get ahead if you don’t ask. And maybe not even if you do ask. Why would they?

You see, striving for perfection gets you the reputation of being perfect – unfortunately that might be perfect for the job that you’re in and not the one you want to move towards… 

I think many of us are raised to believe if we do our job perfectly, we will be rewarded by being promoted. And in some cases, with the right bosses, that may be the case. However, in many instances, it will be too attractive for your boss to keep you in your current position if you do your job perfectly. And that isn’t really hard to understand, is it? I mean, you do the job perfectly well and you become the critical part in the work machine that makes sure things run smoothly. And often, when you are spending all of your time making sure everything runs perfectly, no one is noticing that you might be able to do something else really well, too. And, worse, if you are doing things perfectly well and not reporting on it – others may have no idea of what you are working on – just that things are running smoothly. Danger zone! In case you missed that, I talk about the benefits of reporting in episode #3.

But this episode it about helping you to understand that perfectionism in the workplace is a slippery slope. If you’re a perfectionist, you might recognize yourself in that need to make sure every single piece of work that you produce is perfect. And I don’t want to tell you that you shouldn’t strive for providing the best work possible, but I do want to tell you that making perfect output your top priority may keep you from moving forward. It may actually get you to be stuck in the same position, hoping to get noticed, and waiting for a big break that is long in coming, or may not come up at all. And this is really disappointing and frustrating in the short term. In the long term, it may really impact the trajectory of your career.

When I realized this was happening to me, I tried to be conscious of setting time limits to how long I would give myself to work on something and started paying close attention to how my boss and superiors were reacting to my work. And, honestly, I noticed that whatever I gave him - whether it was something that I had worked at really long to get it “just right” or whether it was something I looked at more like a good, solid, thought-through draft for discussion, my boss reacted pretty much the same way. And I realized that what I was doing when I was trying to be perfect, was that I was taking longer to make quite limited improvements, and these were often stylistic or downright personal preferences and not making a significant impact on the quality of the piece. I was probably hoping to be rewarded for providing what I considered to be the best piece possible. But with some distance and some experience, I see that often it is better to have a solid piece – great, outlines and structure, accurate information, good formatting, no spelling or punctuation mistakes – and to have it sooner, than to delay something to try to be perfect. And once I realized this and saw that there were no negative consequences, I could relax a little bit -  I didn’t have to work like a maniac to try to get the perfect in a really limited time and my boss was happy about a shorter turn-around time. And I actually had some mental energy left over to be able to focus on other things in my job – like career advancement and self-development opportunities.

So please, if you are a perfectionist, or have perfectionist tendencies, please take a moment to stop and consider where your perfectionism is getting you, because it may be getting you stuck in your current position.

Now, I know it can be difficult to hear this kind of information because you are probably great at what you do and you’re just working really hard to do your best and it can be upsetting to understand that what you were doing to get yourself noticed was perhaps what was getting you overlooked. But the good news is that once you realize behaviors that aren’t advancing you, you can focus on behaviors that will allow you to focus.

So here is what I would like to leave you with: Take a look at how you’re working and decide if you’re focusing too much on the little details and not enough on the big picture. And then decide what you want to do about it. If you’re happy in the position which you are in and like how things are going – no problem! But if you feel like you may have gone too far with perfection, take a step back and start to correct course to get you back on the progress track.

Remember, you are the one who is looking after you. And that’s normal – you are your biggest asset. So, knowing where you want to go, and how you’re going to get there, are key to making sure you get there!  Just keep trying - You can do it!