Perfectionism Q & A

A recent visitor to my website posted this question about her perfectionistic boss. Following is my advice to her:

Q: I work for a medical clinic, a specialist. The physician has a set standard that when a patient comes into the office you can spend no more than 20 minutes addressing all of this patients complaints. No exceptions. If your time runs out, we are to list that on our Encounter form that we "didn't finish because of time". We have to indicate what time we take this person in to work on them and then document what time we finish with them. Daily, each employee who goes "over their time" is wrote up and a copy put in their file. In the struggle to get the maximum out of every minute, the personal touch is lost, that personal connection with your patient, all for the almighty dollar. This clinic has always had the reputation of being the "friendliest and most caring staff" according to our patients but lately, all we hear are complaints about the doctor. All employees are either depressed or medicated and some of us have worked here 25-30 years and really don't know what to do about our physician. The doctor is constantly yelling at employees, interrupting employees during examinations with other patients..just bad behavior. We have even had patients start leaving now, one being a new patient that overheard the doctor cursing an employee. All of us are at our ropes end and don't want to quit but I am seeing a lawsuit in the future...which will be difficult because our physician's wife is an attorney.... HELP!


A: I am so sorry this is your experience at work. This is exactly why I put this site together. One thing you could do is post this quote:

'If you are determined to create a workplace of perfection, you will always create a culture of deception.'

This means that since perfection isn't possible, when a manager or person in charge insists on perfection, we are forced to lie, deceive, cover-up or do things to maintain this illusion.

A person who insists on perfection is actually struggling with self-hatred. Since humans are not capable of perfection, when this standard is pursued, the inevitable outcome is that they will fail. We all make mistakes. To insist on perfection therefore, sets us up for failure. It is self-sabotage.

Since we insist on this standard in ourselves, we then project this out to others. Since we can't trust ourselves to be perfect, we are hyper-vigilant in keeping this standard in the people around us. We cannot stand imperfection or mistakes, because we cannot stand it in ourselves. We have not made peace with our humanness, our flaws, and therefore we are intolerant of these in others.

Progress, not perfection, is the gold standard. When we are making progress, making things better, striving for excellence, we are at peace. When we insist on perfection, we suffer.

Stephanie Goddard Work Stress Solutions

See Stephanie's site Work Stress Solutions for more information like this.