Perfection or Bust
Perfection or Bust
Photo by SIMON LEE on Unsplash
Here I sit struggling to write this next blog installment. The ideas are not coming together. Time is ticking and the deadline has now long passed. Each day I struggle more and more. As realism sets in, I admit I have failed. I am so disappointed with myself and unmotivated. I feel like I want to call the whole thing quits.What is going on? What is getting in my way? I say to myself. Then it dawns on me. I am struggling with the very thing I am trying to write about. That ever elusive 10 letter word. The enemy of good. P-e-r-f-e-c-t-i-o-nI am trying to write about women’s socialization to be perfect and here I am being blocked by my own need for that very thing. Talk about irony.Okay, I admit it. I am a recovering perfectionist.Disturbingly, I am not alone. As a leader, I have often had to remind the women on the team that ‘perfection is the enemy of good.’ I never have to say this to the men. Why is that?Reshma Saujani, founder of the non-profit Girls Who Code, found that girls working on a coding exercise would rather show no code than hand in code that didn’t work. They would quit before being anything less than perfect. Perfection or bust!Now, I sit here, also ready to throw in my towel without typing a word.In her book, Brave Not Perfect, Reshma Saujani notes this debilitating perfection shows up in other ways as well. For example, in discussion with her computer science professors, during office hours students come in seeking help with their code assignments. The male students come in saying, “There’s something wrong with my code.” But the women come in saying, “There’s something wrong with me.”Wow!When I google ‘perfection is…’, I get things like ‘the enemy of good, of progress, of done, of action, of excellence, of success, and the perfectly adequate’.Is perfection really the enemy of success? Isn’t it often considered the best version of success? I also turn up that ‘perfection is a mountain that has no peak’.If that is the case, it is illusive. It can never be achieved. So, why do myself and other women feel like this is the standard? Rashma Saujani says it is because women are socialized not to take risks. Boys are encouraged to get out there and try and when they fall to get back up and try again. But, girls are coddled. They are told to not climb the monkey bars, to keep their clothes clean, to sit nice and be polite, and to pursue the things they are good at rather than take chances. We are socialized to be perfect, not brave. A widely quoted statistic is that women only apply for positions if they meet every qualification listed, whereas men apply even when they only satisfy 60% of the requirements. Harvard Business Review (HBR) wanted to know why they didn't apply, and conducted their own survey of men and women applying for new jobs. When looking at the responses given, men’s responses tended to focus solely on saving time for themselves or the person reviewing applications. These were reasons for women too, but they chose these options less often. A few responses showed very different thought patterns and it was only these responses where women outscored men demonstrating the effects of this socialization. “...I didn’t want to put myself out there if I was likely to fail.”“I was following the guidelines…”
Again, we follow the rules and do what we know to ensure success. We would rather take ourselves out of the running and not even apply. Failure is not an option, but then neither are opportunities.This is really hard to hear. I don’t want it to be true. But, I look at some recent incidents in my own life and unfortunately I know it is.Even within my own company, a safe place, I doubted myself and my skills and didn’t put my name forward for a new position because I didn’t check all the boxes and it would be a change in direction. I wasn’t brave enough to even just have a conversation.In sharing this with the team, they were shocked. They see me as brave.In lots of ways I am. I have taken huge risks in life. My career for one. I had zero qualifications when I started in tech (I am not being modest here). But, it was the industry I wanted to be in. I decided to focus on getting my foot in the door and figure out the rest later, and I did. It definitely wasn’t easy. But, 23 years later, here I am sharing my story, failures and all, with you. As a guest on Adam Grant's podcast Work Life, Indra Nooyi, CEO of Pepsico, talks about her career experiences and how she eventually took her place at the table of a huge global company. She over prepared for every meeting as she had to prove she belonged. She struggled to earn their trust and respect. But eventually, she managed to convince the company to stop focusing on the competition in a single market and look at a much bigger picture. That is how she led the company to success. As I listened, I marveled at her bravery.All women are brave in lots of ways. But, I know we feel the fear of imperfection as well. Many don’t see their own bravery - I know I don’t.I attended a recent panel discussion of women in tech. Like me, and many of you, they are brave. They are in industries where women are a minority and they have been in them a long time. They have sat in countless meetings and conferences as the only woman present. They have withstood dismissal of their ideas. They stood strong despite seeing their male colleagues’ careers advance faster. They have struggled trying to balance motherhood and career, and have been ridiculed for not making a choice between these two or in some cases for making a choice. They have stood strong despite having no peers, not feeling good enough, having to fake it, and sometimes being overwhelmed with the fear of failure.Yet, as Brene Brown teaches, it is our imperfections that are our gifts. It is our failures and our challenges that are our opportunities for growth. But, we must be vulnerable and courageous to look at and accept the imperfect.As a way to battle her own need for perfection and her performance anxiety, Simone Giertz began creating useless inventions. She needed to give herself permission to express joy and humility. It was fun and so she started making and sharing them. As a result, she has given TED talks and she now has a career she could never have dreamed of. Her need to let go of perfection and her bravery to do so opened up a whole new world.So, what if we celebrated bravery and not just winning? What if we stopped holding perfection as the ideal? What if we saw as much in ourselves as we see in others. As leaders we can do this. As a matter of fact, I am going to boldly bravely say it is our job. I struggle with my own need for perfection. In some ways, being a leader has brought this on stronger. It feels like there is more at stake. But, perfection can become a self-imposed cloud raining on my parade. If I am honest about my struggles with perfectionism, it can create a sense of camaraderie in the trenches. It gives everyone the permission to hold up the mirror for each other when necessary. There can be some assured successes staying within the box, only pursuing what I know or what I am good at. But, pushing the boundaries, gives the team the space to be creative and to find solutions in unusual ways. Of course, we celebrate the wins. But, by acknowledging the lessons learned from so-called failures creates a safer space, open to all ideas. So…Did I make my deadline? Nope. Is this the perfect blog? Nope. However in the process, I re-learned that perfection is indeed the enemy of good. And for today, being able to accept good is actually the win, letting go of my need for perfection. Author Bio
Alann Demeester is originally from the prairie province of Saskatchewan, Canada and currently resides in the Vancouver region. She received her advanced bachelor’s degree in psychology with a minor in biology in 1988 and has worked in the technology industry since 1999. She currently works as the Director of Global Enablement at Elastic Path Software, Inc. An adventurer at heart, she is passionate about the role women play in creating a new paradigm of leadership by walking through vulnerability to get to courage. She is excited about sharing teachings, insights, and experiences by leaders in this area like Brene Brown in this blog series in the hopes that it will inspire you in your own leadership journey.