“Perfectionism” is a problem, if and when implemented in one or a combination of two ways.

(1) When applied wholesale, across the board, to all things. Some tasks and work products just don’t warrant the exponential effort towards perfection.

(2) When the outcome becomes “never good enough”. Nothing is ever finished. Nothing is ever published. And all time, effort and focus is lost to an open loop.

If, like a great many top performers and high-potential people, you struggle with perfectionism, here’s a thought to turn what is most often thought of as a deficiency into a superpower.

(1) Get strategically selective. Certain important pieces of work will warrant the extra time and attention.

(2) Shift the focus away from achieving “perfection” (never truly achieved) and create a new focus for “A+ Work” (an achievable yet marked step up).

Why bother with any of this? Why not just drop perfectionism (or any similar reframe) in favour of “done is better than perfect”.

Because look closely, and you’ll notice the greatest returns exponentially fall to the very best work, outputs, services and people. Any casual review of the distribution curves will show that.

And so, improving something from 90% to 98% (A to A+) might be a numerical improvement of 8%. But the results and returns accrued at a quality score of 98% are way more than 8% above the returns achieved at 90%.

Take a look at your #1 project, your primary side-initiative, the focal points of your team’s work and at your own leadership priorities.

What do you and the team need to elevate to A+ work? (And what doesn’t? To create the time and space to achieve that A+ edge where it matters.)

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