“The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake. You can’t learn anything from being perfect.”

As a business leader, having a perfectionist’s eye can surely drive you to that extra mile. But aspiring to outshine in something you do and aspiring to be perfect are two different attitudes which are often perplexed.

Though having high values, principles and targets are a great strategy to achieve the business vision and make it profitable but perfectionism can, in fact, be detrimental to your achievement, accomplishments as well as employee motivation.

In business marketing, initially marketers used to chase for that ‘first-mover-advantage’ in the market where the first in market used to get an edge over the competitors. But as we evolved to a more technology and digital driven era, it’s not the BIG that eat the SMALL but it’s the FAST that eat the SLOW. Business leaders should understand that the ‘fast followers’ take the market by storm and emerge as the real winners and not the first-movers.

Why? Because they improved on these newly launched products/services and overcame any inefficiencies with reduced cost margins. What really matters in today’s world is ‘ being the best and not being the perfect’.

Beware of these Perfectionists’ Evils:

Perfectionists can often get fanatic over every little detail, thus directly affecting productivity of the business -

1) Robs the Dynamism of the Project: Innovation and creativity are essential for any business success but they do involve an element of risk. To stay competitive, it’s important to take risks and adapt to ever-changing market scenarios. Shift your mentality from perfectionism to optimism. Try to shift your rigid approach towards your business goals and become more adaptive. This will make your business more productive and keep you protected from unnecessary struggle you endure to get perfectionism under control.

2) Makes you the ‘dictator’ of the team: Try to keep your perfectionist tendencies in check and stop behaving like a Bully Boss. Emphasize on collaborative leadership and gain advantage of group synergy. For the solitary leader, it is really important to involve everyone from your respective teams and welcome their ideas. Team synergy plays a major role in accomplishing those great feats that would be impossible for an entrepreneur to attain as an individual. Work with your team, listen to their ideas, have trust and give them freedom to do their jobs. Because even if your thought process is flawless, it can be improved by an insight of other team members. Only then, you’ll be able to achieve success in your business.

3) Destroys Creativity: Innovation, Creative Thinking, and Curiosity are shaped from uproar, something perfectionists hate to the core. Perfection paralyzes creativity as the perfectionists are more likely afraid of taking risks associated with criticism and rejection. Instead of chasing to an impossible ‘perfect' business strategy, all those prototypical Type As should settle for something 'good' and let go of the idea of idolizing the pinnacle of perfection.

4) Prevents from meeting Deadlines: From its initial requirement phase to its delivery phase, a business plan constantly evolves. It’s important to set milestones to have that sense of accomplishment and to feel inspired to work for the next stage but not at the cost of stiffness. A business has to be flexible enough to update their plans and reach out to new customers. So set realistic milestones keeping in mind areas of improvement at every step. If you are always thinking about that perfect outcome, you are sure to skip your deadlines.

If the hare would not have waited for that perfect time to reach the finish line, he would have won the race far before the tortoise. So strive for steadiness and not perfection in your business and it will prosper, irrespective of the competition and environment.

Wrapping it with a very apt saying -

Perfectionism says,”Don’t start (it won’t be good enough),

Don’t finish (you’ll be criticized),

Don’t take risks (you’re going to fail) and

Don’t collaborate (they’ll never live up to your expectations)!

Perfection is ‘not’ an entrepreneur’s friend. It will kill your dreams, dampen your spirit and disrupt your entrepreneurial flow. Take back your power from this confidence destroyer and you’ll be unstoppable for your success.



