Wasting Away in the Pit of the Perfect

Last week we published a blog written by my colleague Harry Stoll focusing on the optimal time to turn placements over to a collection agency.

Harry shared some very good guidelines to help the process, but sometimes it just boils down to someone waiting for the ‘perfect’ time.  Rarely is there a ‘perfect’ time to do anything, however.  Optimal, yes.  Timely, yes.  Perfect, highly unlikely.

Perfectionism as an attribute can be a blessing and a curse.  In the medical profession perfect is the goal and often times ‘good enough’ just does not cut it.  However, in other businesses, close is often the best choice as the penalty for waiting is lost business, market share and competitive advantage.

So, when does close enough roll over into too perfect, or perfectionism?

In an article titled “How Perfectionists Can Get Out of Their Own Way” by Alice Boyes, PhD, (Harvard Business Review, read it here) she wrote about ways of mitigating the negative impacts of trying to be perfect.

She writes “…perfectionism can be a double-edged sword. Having high standards and being hardworking can help someone stand out in a crowded field, and their tenacity can help them improve their skills over time.”  Yet these traits also cause perfectionists to “get in their own way.” She lists the following as just a few of the challenges being, working with, or for, a perfectionist can have:

  • Struggling to make decisions or take action: “Perfectionists are motivated to make the absolute best choice — even when doing so isn’t strictly necessary. This can lead to decision paralysis.”

 

  • Worrying excessively about sunk costs: “Since perfectionists tend to ruminate over even tiny mistakes, they’re strongly motivated to attempt to recover situations involving sunk costs…they can spend too [much time] working on marginally productive activities before moving on.”

 

  • Avoiding challenges to avoid failure: “Perfectionists want to feel absolutely ready before taking on challenges. This can lead to holding back from advancement or leadership roles.”

 

  • Applying their high standards to others: Sometimes the “…perfectionist also expects others to conform to their standards…being too demanding can harm relationships and sometimes lead to…being socially excluded because they’re emotionally hard…to deal with.”

 

  • Ruminating about weaknesses, mistakes, and failures: “One reason perfectionists are so strongly motivated to avoid small mistakes is because making them triggers their tendency to ruminate… [this can lead to] irritability and feelings of depression, and can disrupt the person’s performance and relationships.”

 

What can we do about it?  She suggests several things:

 

  • Learn from successes: “The idea of learning from your mistakes is likely to feel too confronting to a perfectionist, and trigger rumination. An alternative is to learn from your successes. By reflecting on the pathways that led to your successes, you’ll be able to see that you achieved a meaningful end despite not doing everything completely flawlessly…”

 

  • Develop heuristics to enable faster decision-making and action taking: “Heuristics or rules of thumb are aimed at producing good decisions most but not all of the time. They help balance the benefits of faster decision-making against any incremental gains you might get from delaying action and continued thinking.”

 

  • Ask yourself “How could I improve by 1%?”: “Because perfectionists want to be flawless, they’re typically dismissive of incremental gains. By looking for how you can improve your behavior by 1%, you’ll start to see that there are easier ways to improve than what you’re imagining.”

 

  • Learn strategies to disrupt rumination: “It’s a lot easier to tolerate making mistakes and having flaws if you know how to curb rumination. Notice when you are starting to mull over something, and ask yourself if obsessing over it is really helping you. Often, rumination feels like problem-solving — but it isn’t. If your thoughts are just going in circles, or you’re noticing that your rumination is putting you into a bad mood, let it go.”

 

There is, of course, no perfect plan of action.  We are human after all.  Sometimes it is just better to try ‘ready, fire, aim’ to achieve at least some progress. And after all, since none of us is perfect, progress over perfection is often the best path to follow.

A. Alliance Collection Agency, Inc. is a full service, licensed accounts receivable management and debt collection agency providing highly effective, customized one on one management and recovery solutions for our business partners.  Founded in northern Illinois in 2005, we have been proudly improving the bottom-line on behalf of our business partners in and around Chicagoland for over 13 years.

Image provided by: : Alpha Stock Images – http://alphastockimages.com/  Original Author: Nick Youngson  – http://www.nyphotographic.com/

 

All Work and No Play Makes Jack and the Workplace More Than Dull

Back in the day when I first entered the labor force, work was a serious matter that needed to be taken, well…seriously.  When we were taught how to do something, it was done that way or the highway.  Socializing too often at the proverbial watercooler was frowned upon and kept to a minimum. If not, you risked being labeled as the office slacker. And the idea of having fun while at work was pretty much unheard of. Why? Because the prevailing thought was that if you were visiting with a coworker or having fun, you weren’t working.  Working and having fun were mutually exclusive.

Fast-forward many decades (ouch!) and company culture is all the buzz. It’s no wonder, since a company’s culture is in essence its (collective) personality.  Thankfully, today, a lot of organizations understand the philosophy behind a strict hardnosed work environment is not only antiquated, but the belief that workers having fun aren’t productive couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, research published in the book 301 Ways to Have Fun at Work by Dave Hemsath has shown that when employees enjoy themselves at work they are typically: more productive, more creative, experience greater job satisfaction, have more loyalty to their employers, and lower levels of absenteeism.

Another study published in the Journal of Vocational Behavior revealed a link between having fun and informal learning (a common way employees acquire new skills that improve their job performance).  According to one of the study’s authors, Michael Tewes, it isn’t necessarily the fun activities that teaches the new skills, it’s the fun atmosphere that creates a better learning environment. Fun in the workplace can also bring co-workers together to create a cohesive team of workers that are able to get to know each other better, build greater trust, and are more apt to help each other.

Of course, like everything, there are pros and cons to a fun-loving company culture.  Moderation is, of course, important—it can’t be just a free-for-all. Common sense will tell you too much fun does have the potential to hurt productivity, plus there are those, especially older workers from my Baby Boomer generation that still haven’t embraced the new philosophy.  Like with everything in life, balance is key.

 A. Alliance Collection Agency, Inc. is a full service, licensed accounts receivable management and debt collection agency providing highly effective, customized one on one management and recovery solutions for our business partners.  Founded in northern Illinois in 2005, we have been proudly improving the bottom-line on behalf of our business partners in and around Chicagoland for over 10 years.

 

 

Our Biggest Mistakes? Not Admitting to Them

Our Biggest Mistakes? Not Admitting to Them | United Credit Service, Inc.

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” ? Napoléon Bonaparte

I gather Napoleon uttered this line before he got to Moscow.  Or perhaps the Russian Field Marshal Kutuzov took it to heart and made it a point not to interrupt Napoleon in the midst of one of Napoleon’s biggest mistakes.  The rest, as it is said, is history.

Yes, we all make mistakes. How we handle correcting them, let alone admitting them, is a true test of our character, the character of those we know and work with, and the character of the companies we work for and do business with.

Elizabeth MacBride, writing for CNBC, discusses the subject of making mistakes and what to do about them, especially in light of the recent Wells Fargo “debacle.”

As you may recall this ‘mistake’ caused horrific damage to the bank when it was discovered that “…over 5,300 employees…opened fee-generating accounts for customers without authorization, ultimately leading to the Senate grilling for Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf…”.

Not only a grilling for the CEO, but the loss of jobs for those 5,300 employees. A big company, yes, but the breadth of that number is staggering.

Adding insult to injury, Stumpf and some of his senior executive team “…first placed the blame on certain Wells Fargo employees and denied any problem with the bank’s culture. ‘Underperformers’ was the term they used to define the culprits.” Ouch.  5,300 underperformers?  The fact that it went undetected for so long simply does lend credibility to a statement like that.

By the time the ‘debacle’ had hit its peak, Stumpf found himself in front of a Senate hearing and the recipient of a scathing attack by Senator Elizabeth Warren. Whichever side of the political isle you are on, the last place you want to be, really, is on the receiving end of such an attack by Senator Warren.  No good can come of that.

Macbride poses the question: “Could the Wells Fargo CEO have nipped this headline scandal in the bud if he had been more contrite?”

She turned to the venerable Jack Boggle, the founder of the Vanguard Funds, for some insight and perspective. I like Jack Boggle and listen to him when he speaks.  He has been around the track just a few times, openly admits has made his share of mistakes, yet is one of the most revered legends in the mutual fund industry.  Truth be told, I like a little gray hair when it comes to seeking perspective and wisdom.

Boggle relates a story about making a huge mistake when he merged Wellington Funds with another firm that dealt in riskier securities. The deal lost a great deal of money.  Apparently, defending the deal as the whole thing cratered, he subsequently was fired.  After that experience, he launched Vanguard “…and realized the only thing worse than making a mistake is refusing to admit it.”

Quoting McBride: “If you get it right, research suggests that the ability to admit that you are no better than the people around you, that you are humble, is the trait that sets great CEOs apart from merely good ones.”

So, what to do? The virtually universal advice is to own up to the mistake, take responsibility, sincerely apologize right from the get go and of course make appropriate amends.

Amends can come in many forms, but Boggle has another good suggestion: Identify the problem and commit to fix it. “Look around and see if you’ve done material damage to something that already existed…When something results in a catastrophe, it’s like those people who say, ‘I wouldn’t have done anything differently.’ … Well, yes, if the house burned down, yes, you should have.”

Mistakes can be costly. In the collections industry honesty, accuracy and transparency are paramount to ensuring that genuinely delinquent debts are collected in a professional and legally sound fashion. As a result of our focus on detail, our track record is excellent when it comes to professionally colleting debts on behalf of our clients.  This is no mistake: you can count on us to always work in your best interests with professionalism, integrity and tenacity.

A. Alliance Collection Agency, Inc. is a full service, licensed accounts receivable management and debt collection agency providing highly effective, customized one on one management and recovery solutions for our business partners.  Founded in northern Illinois in 2005, we have been proudly improving the bottom-line on behalf of our business partners in and around Chicagoland for over 10 years.