CS #205: Is your perfectionism holding you back? I'd bet it is (+ why projects fail, body language hacks, and more)

Today's pick-me-up is from Oscar Isaac, from the movie A Most Violent Year (see the actual clip from the movie here):

"When it feels scary to jump, that is exactly when you jump, otherwise you end up staying in the same place your whole life, and that I can't do."

My takeaways:

When navigating our career, those scary leaps might be exactly what we need to progress. Two examples:

1. You're reluctant to build your personal brand on LinkedIn because you're shy and don't want to put yourself out there. But, doing that is exactly how you increase confidence.

2. You're hesitant to seek speaking engagements or panel discussions because you don't see yourself as an industry expert. But, doing that is ironically how you build credibility and professional brand in your field.

Side note: A great first step to building your brand is to optimize your LinkedIn profile. This tool is by far the most effective thing out there for it. It'll scan your profile for free, tell you where you're going wrong, and what to do to fix it so you get more profile views.

Unraveling the mystery of project failures

I recently stumbled upon a shocking statistic in the Harvard Business Review:

=> 65% of all projects fail to meet their business objectives.

Most projects never reach the finish line, and even when they do, they're off target. That's a lot of wasted effort from you and your team.

It should be your priority to turn this around. So, let's dive into the two main causes of project failure and explore how to counteract them.

1. ⚖️  Muddled ownership. One main reason projects crumble is the foggy view of a team's workload and deadlines. Everyone seems in the dark about who's responsible for what.

The fix? Make roles clearer and create a system that keeps everyone in the loop about what's committed and when.

Enter our sponsor, Notion, with their newly launched Notion Projects, that makes this a whole lot easier. In our own workspace, we have a birds-eye view timeline, but we can still dive into the nitty-gritty.

2. 🌪️  Project disarray: Most teams use a ton of tools to manage their projects — email, Asana, Google Docs, Confluence.  The result? A scattered information landscape that leaves teams in a lurch when decision-making time comes around.

The solution? Centralize your workflows. Notion excels at this — you can create docs, databases, meeting notes, calendars and launch plans in one place. And the best part? A unified search bar.

What's my advice? Upgrade how your team runs their projects by trying out Notion Projects. With their 1-click templates, you can get a workspace for a project you're on and start using it from day 1. 

Plus, you'll get access to AI Autofill, a new set of AI features made for project management, to streamline tasks such as pinpointing action items, outlining key tasks, and generating project reports.

Give Notion Projects a whirl for your team here.

There's a free Personal plan, and the Plus plan starts at just $8/member. Plus, startups can get up to3-6 months of Notion for free + unlimited AI here.

Are you often a perfectionist? Here's why you should stop being one.

In the Museo del Duomo in Florence, you’ll find one of Michelangelo’s greatest sculptures, The Bandini Pietá.

Starting at age 72, Michelangelo spent 8 years on it, working most of the time in candlelight.

Unsurprisingly, millions have traveled to Florence to see the Pietá since its completion in 1555.

But what might surprise you? 

The Pietá you see isn’t exactly what Michelangelo intended. Because after eight years of work, he tried to destroy it.

In a fit of rage, he took his hammer and smashed off a leg, then bits of the face, and took off another six pieces of marble before his servant could stop him.

Why would Michelangelo destroy one of his greatest pieces of work?

Simple.

Perfectionism.

Luckily, when Bandini bought it years later, he managed to repair it…

… but our careers might not be so lucky.

Because while a servant & a sculptor saved the Pietá from perfectionism, the only person that can save your career from perfectionism is you.

So today, I’m going to explain why we should be wary of ‘perfect’ and how to protect yourself against it.

Let’s dive in.

🤸  There’s a time and a place for perfect (just not all the time!)

Perfectionism isn’t always bad. There’s some professions that demand it: brain surgery, rocket science, air traffic control etc.

(and your resume, too *hint hint*) 

But in others, somewhere between good enough and really good is a better target.

So ask yourself, do I need to be 100%? Or is a strong 90% OK?

Why would 90% be OK?

Well...

📐  Face the math

To understand why perfectionism can be a vice, check out this curve. 

The first hour nets you a 40% increase in work quality, but the second only 2%.

Is it worth squeezing out an extra 2% of quality if it means producing half or a third the amount of work? 

Nope.

🔄  Perfectionism doesn’t lead to perfect

A photography professor at Florida U ran a fascinating experiment:

He divided his class into two groups: 

Group A, which were graded only on the quantity of photos they took. 
Group B, which were graded on the quality of a single photo.

Which group do you think produced the best photo? 

It wasn’t even close…

Group A - the quantity group - produced photos leagues above Group B’s.

Why?

Because they took thousands of photos, Group A’s skills improved massively, so they ended up producing truly brilliant work.

On the flipside, Group B got hamstrung aiming for perfection, and spent more time theorizing & thinking than practicing.

Their work? Mediocre.

The extremely ironic moral of the story? Perfectionism doesn’t lead to perfection. 

(Sidebar: Although Michelangelo’s perfectionism almost destroyed the Pietá, at heart he was a “Group A” artist - drawing a staggering 28,000 sketches in his lifetime. That’s why the Pietá was so good!)

=> To sum up: Quantity produces quality, but quality produces neither.

Ok, two more.

🤝  Pick your battles with delegation

When you’re delegating to others, it’s very hard to not jump in - after all, the person probably won’t do the job as well as you can - at least at the start.

Resist this temptation. Your job as a team leader isn’t to do the work of your team!

⏳  Give yourself a deadline

The best cure for perfectionism is a deadline. If your boss doesn’t give you one, make yourself one. (Parkinson got it right - work fills the time allotted.)

Well, I hope you enjoyed this one. Ironically, this newsletter was one of the toughest ones to write, because I wanted to find the perfect story about perfectionism 🤦

Do me a quick favor, if this was helpful, reply with a quick "yes". I try to experiment with the topics I cover each week so you're able to look at your career from different perspectives, and you're more rounded as a result. 

1/ Career tip (Source): If you’re a new manager, one of the best things you can learn how to do early on is to create a safe environment for mistakes. Set your team up for success and when they make mistakes support them by encouraging learning so they can progress.

2/ 7 body-language mistakes that could ruin you (link to infographic): This is a useful infographic. The tip on avoiding exaggerated gestures is my favorite and one I see a lot of people overlook. While you should use gestures when speaking, don't overdo them. That could get you to come across as inexperienced or lacking confidence.

3/ How to respond to a rejection email (+6 templates): When you receive a rejection email, you might instinctively want to delete the email and move on to the next job. While that's understandable, know that you can turn the situation into something more positive and useful to your career. And it only takes one email.

🤣 (link if the image doesn't load)

Why and how to show teamwork on your resume

Read the full article here.

❌  You can't just say things like "I'm a team player" and expect hiring managers to believe you —  using subjective buzzwords on your resume is a common mistake people make.

✅  Instead, you want to show evidence of working in a team and what you accomplished with them — for example:

• Collaborated with 10+ developers to assess project outcomes and prioritize future app features; launched 6 customer-focused features in just 5 months.

Notice how we state a measurable accomplishment we made in a team. Hard numbers (i.e. 6 features in 5 months) show clear evidence that we work well in teams.

🎯  You should use a tool like Score My Resume to check if your resume shows enough evidence of teamwork. One of the components of your resume's score is teamwork (among 20+ other recruiter checks), so it's a great litmus test to see if you've checked this box. Try it.

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