Overkill vs. Underkill: Learning How to Balance Perfectionism and Winging It
Do you routinely find yourself nitpicking your emails for no reason? Or are you more likely to leave a major presentation to the eleventh hour?
You might be a perfectionist. You strive for immaculate PowerPoints, detailed spreadsheets, and zero typos.
Or you could be a winger. You maximize momentum, responsiveness, and moving work forward quickly.
Perfectionism: Doing a task to perfection. Making it as best as you can. Putting more focus on the quality of the outcome than the time you spend.
Winging it: Doing a task quickly. Putting more attention on getting the work done than the product or result itself.
But can we only belong to one camp? I find myself at either end of the pendulum all the time.
I have worked with successful perfectionists and successful wingers. One camp isn’t better than the other. The one you lean towards depends on your style, your work philosophy, and the job you’re in (i.e., whether you are a surgeon or salesperson).
While we may lean towards one or the other, perfectionism and winging it are not mutually exclusive states of being. In fact, we need to know how master both worlds.
Perfectionism
In her excellent book Mindset, Carole S. Dweck talks about the danger of perfectionism and how perfectionists stunt their growth by only taking on projects that they are perfect at.
Perfectionism for a team – that often comes in the form of overkill, over-thinking, and over-consensus – can be the death of projects or processes.
But that isn’t the full picture.
There is healthy perfectionism that is trained into professions like accounting, engineering, legal, IT, writing, and so on. That is a good thing for keeping our bridges standing and our newspapers comprehensible.
While I agree that perfectionism as a permanent state can be bad, a bit of it can be a great thing.
Perfectionism is like salt. Use it sparingly. But use it or your work will go bland. What are the few assignments, projects, articles, that can you give a little WOW factor? What do you want to be remembered for?
Winging It
Winging it can be synonymous with low effort into what you're working on. And who wants to work with someone like that?
As a business owner and parent, I feel the same way. Sometimes it’s just knowing that people (maybe my kids) aren’t trying that's the worst part.
But let’s rethink what “wing” really means. It doesn’t mean slacking off or minimal effort. It is about emphasizing output and momentum which can also be a great thing.
In James Clear’s bestseller Atomic Habits, he quoted a fascinating piece of research. A photography professor divided his class where one group would be graded on their quantity of photos and another group upon the quality of photos taken. Guess which group had the better quality? The one graded on the higher quantity of photos. Why? Because they took more.
Getting more done makes you better overall. In most jobs in the business and corporate world, winging it should in fact be the default state for maximizing output, workflow, and continuous learning. What can you wing to get more done today? Where can you get more done to multiply your learning?
How to balance Perfectionism and Winging It
Here are tools to leverage perfectionism and winging it – and to let them live in harmony as part of your work.
Practice the Action-Over-Perfection Protocol
Most systems (except for those obviously related to safety) should be designed around driving action and changing outcomes, not around perfect files, control, information, or setup. Systems that drive momentum are more valuable than “perfection”. I use this protocol specifically for documentation systems but it works for most processes or habits at work including how you manage your calendar, emails, meetings, to dos, or other systems like around sales and project management.
Sprinkle perfectionism where needed
Understand where you want to sprinkle your perfectionist “salt”. You might use 80/20 or 90/10 or whatever as your personal benchmark. But the point is to be selective and channel your energy accordingly. When it comes to most jobs, it often comes down to a handful of key things – a big assignment, key presentation, or winning a major client – that we do in a year that really matter. Be selective and choose where you want to give it your best shot.
Try the “Use What You Know” draft
The Use What You Know draft means that you build your first drafts of anything (e.g., documents, code, project outlines, contracts) using the information in your head based off your own experiences and instincts. This technique doesn’t work for everything – but it works for way more assignments than you think. Use this technique to quickly “wing” your first draft, and just GO. After you have a first draft, decide where to sprinkle perfectionism if you need it.
Skill stack your team for the best of both worlds
Skill stacking is about building the collective talents, disciplines, experiences, mindsets of your team to find the best mix of people. Most teams need a balance of perfectionists and wingers. I would label myself a winger for the most part. But I hire and work with perfectionists who are better at the details. Combine the talents of both for best results.
