Perfectionism is often the path to success in business. Ironically, though, the very trait that gets clients to the top can work against them when they get there. How can the coach make them see that perfection has its limits?
Coaching clients who are perfectionists is a common challenge for executive coaches. After all, it’s a client’s attention to detail and high standards that led them to success in the first place.
In my experience, perfectionism has for years served high-achieving women very well in male-dominated fields. It got them through a degree or qualification and the first years of a shiny new career – times when they had to concentrate on delivery alone.
As women progress, however, that perfectionism starts to hold them back. It gets harder to give 100 per cent to your work while managing a team of junior colleagues – ironically one of the most common rewards of promotion.
1. Laying the groundwork
The challenge with perfectionists is that you are helping these clients look at habits that were originally highly adaptive, which means they may be reticent to change.
Without a sense of initial trust, you will not be able to help the client see the wider context – one in which perfectionism may be limiting their growth. It is imperative to remember that in transactional analysis terms, the ‘be-perfect’ driver is one that gives great results initially, with these hard-working clients producing excellent quality output. Getting them to open up to perfectionism’s limits, however, may be a challenge.
Make it work
- Talk about how perfectionism has served the client well in the past. This will bring the freedom to more honestly assess the limits of perfectionism.
- Consider where the perception of perfectionism is coming from. Has the client’s line manager made reference to it or is it something the client spontaneously brings to a session?
- Use the evidence to discuss exactly where the downsides to perfectionism are showing up in the client’s behaviour.
Fatal flaws
- Ignoring 360-degree feedback that may shed light on the impact perfectionism has on others.
- Forgetting to discuss how this affects the client’s relationships with others. Do colleagues routinely have to work late because the client was not ready to hand over his or her part?
- Not employing laughter. Using laughter in a session is a great way for a client to learn that he or she doesn’t always have to be so serious.
2. The dark side of perfectionism
As coaches we are not asked to coach the benefits of perfectionism: high-quality work and a client’s reputation for integrity. Rather we are brought in to work through what I call the “dark side of perfectionism” – overwork, unrealistic expectations of others, inability to trust, micro-managing and the bottlenecks that can occur because the perfectionist needlessly double-checks and rewrites the work of others.
Make it work
- After you have looked at how perfectionism has served the client, ask “How is it getting in the way?”
- Get the client to discuss times when he or she had to let go of something that wasn’t quite ready – maybe a presentation in which they forgot their notes, or a report they had to draft in an hour rather than their usual three.
- Ask what happened when they let go? Did they find that no-one else noticed a project wasn’t perfect and indeed that they were able to fix any major problems that arose?
Fatal flaws
- Trying to remove the perfectionist label from the person. This identity has served the client well, and will continue to do so in many contexts. Flirt with the idea of ‘relaxed perfectionism’.
- Comparing selves to colleagues. Their sense of integrity is often a way they define themselves as being different to certain co-workers. It can be an immense source of pride.
3. Outside the office
For many of my clients, perfectionism is an ingrained trait that overlaps with the need to feel in control. It often manifests itself in a client’s personal life. If the client is comfortable looking at this area it can provide a rich seam of information.
For example, I once had a client who laughed with exasperation about an ongoing argument she had with her husband about the laundry. She said, “Why can’t he fold clothes the way I want them folded?”
His reaction had been to stop doing laundry altogether, to which she realised she had two options – fold the clothes the “right way” herself or accept her husband’s own way of doing laundry. As an overworked multi-tasker, she soon saw the wisdom in the latter.
Make it work
- Ask for examples of how perfectionism is showing up at home. It is a rare client who is a perfectionist in one domain but not another.
- Brainstorm areas where the client can ‘relax’ some of his or her perfectionism and delegate to others, both in the office and at home.
Fatal flaws
- Ignoring instances when a colleague’s ‘wrong way’ has proven to be just as effective, if not more so, than the client’s ‘right way’.
- Forgetting to discuss how the client learned his or her skills. The client wasn’t born knowing how to do a job… it was a learning process like everyone else. How could the client’s juniors learn from being delegated to?
4. Getting to 80 per cent perfect
A few years ago, I was speaking on managing work-life balance at an event for Microsoft, focusing on women who worked in technology.
One of the panellists on the evening was a senior man in sales. He was asked for some of the best advice he could give his aspiring female colleagues. As with the strongest statements in coaching, his response was concise and simple: “Get comfortable with 80 per cent perfect.”
Interacting with clients on how a sense of perfectionism has served them well, is the best way to getting them to open up on how it could be limiting them and their relationships with colleagues and loved ones.
The focus is not on giving up the perfectionist tendencies, but rather getting comfortable with being 80 per cent perfect.
About the author
Suzanne Doyle-Morris PhD is an executive coach specialising in developing female leaders. www.doylemorris.com
References
- V Joines and I Stewart, Personality Adaptations: A New Guide to Human Understanding in Psychotherapy and Counselling, Lifespace Publishing, 2002.
- S Doyle-Morris, Beyond the Boys’ Club: Strategies for Achieving Career Success as a Woman Working in a Male Dominated Field, Wit and Wisdom Press, 2009.