“We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.”
―Henry Ward Beecher, Clergyman and Author
No sooner did VIM Executive Coaching post a recent piece on some viewpoints related to cynicism, when we saw a “kind of,” golden example in action. It is worth sharing and exploring in greater detail.
We were recently invited to a dance recital. There were, we suppose, many activities that might have been more fun on a Sunday afternoon, however a promise was a promise. This was not a major, professional performance with renown dancers flown in from throughout the world, rather a dance school that has been in operation for more than 25-years. They teach a variety of classes in ballet, tap and modern jazz with an incredible age-range (from our observation of 8 to 80). The recital was not in a prestigious hall, but a local high school.
We are sure many of you have been there, done that! What was thought-provoking were not the cute performances or the early struggles of those trying to coordinate their left and right feet in front of 150 or more people, some of the comments and pained groans coming from certain audience members.
We might add, because it’s relevant, that the audience was “upscale” and we would imagine that come Monday, after the Sunday performance, several of those fine folks went back to their jobs in the executive corps. We wondered if they applied similar mindsets and standards to all their employees, from interns to professionals.
It left us with more curious questions such as, when did we start expecting perfection in the workplace? And, the obvious follow-up, who is the executive leader pronouncing “perfection” has been achieved.
Impossible to Achieve Standards
In 2024, the National Institutes of Health published an article that first appeared in the scientific journal, Behavioral Science. The findings are complex; however, the long title conveys some disturbing findings: “The Perils of Perfection: Navigating the Ripple Effects of Organizational Perfectionism on Employee Misbehavior through Job Insecurity and the Buffering Role of AI Learning Self-Efficacy”
The major conclusion derived from the paper might be summarized in the following passage:
“(L)eaders should adopt a more balanced approach to performance management that emphasizes continuous improvement rather than flawless execution. For instance, organizations could adopt the [Japanese] ‘Kaizen’ philosophy of incremental improvement, which focuses on sustained progress rather than immediate perfection.”
Whether organizations use AI or not, it is relevant to understand that technology is yet another layer of stress that is coming down on everyone in the modern workplace. The behavioral science article echoes the 1870s Beecher quote with remarkable similarities.
Just as cynical adults at the dance recitals thought the missteps of older dance students to be, perhaps silly, the point is, the eighty-year-old dancer was up there trying. She will continue to improve.
Relating back to technology, AI has made it such that certain tasks are executed in flawless perfection. That said, many of the interaction’s customers, co-workers or vendors require is an outside-the-norm response, not perfection. It leads to this point: Far too often, leaders expect perfection when, what they really need, is improving effort; a willingness to try; a commitment to excellence and not excellence itself. In the example above, an improvement in the way an employee might respond to an outside-the-norm response.
It is clearly beneficial that organizations should seek an improvement in performance. However, believing every performance should be a perfect performance, is an impossible standard. Mindful executives must learn to know the difference.
One last point about the dance recital: a dancer we believed to be in her mid-20s, obviously dealt with Down Syndrome. No, she was not destined for the ballet stage of London’s Royal Opera House. However, her courage and willingness to perform was breathtaking in its action. She was the inadvertent star of the show.
It is in the imperfection of each intern, junior executive or even a worker seeking a second chance that matters so much as their willingness to try to improve and to overcome. Every mindful executive leader can mindfully elevate someone to greatness. In that elevation the leader elevates themselves as well.