And Vijay Says…

There are only two things in my life where I am even remotely a perfectionist – when it comes to writing clean code , and training dogs for competition . And those things can be traced back to specific instances .

As a young developer I once was asked to add some extra logic to an application which was mostly written by me – and had a very short time to get it done before it had to be deployed . The code base was dirty to put it mildly and I had to struggle with it to an extreme to fit in something new . I was pretty sure I will get fired for the mess – but with some heroics (and a good friend who did QA on the fly with me ) I ended up living to fight another day . It was enough of a painful experience that it made me obsessed about writing clean code from that day .

I was quite good in training dogs from a young age . My German Shepherd and I were a formidable team in my college days and we won a lot of competitions . And then we ran into a better team and lost a very prestigious show by a small margin of points . The judge took me aside later that evening and explained why the lack of perfection is why I didn’t win – and I agreed with him that it’s not my dog that was at fault . It was me . Those days I took winning dog shows way too seriously and became obsessed about even minute things about how I worked with my dog . I no longer compete – but I still enjoy training my puppy and I am still obsessed with precision .

Outside these two things – I never really cared about perfection all that much . I could bring it on when it mattered – an important assignment in college , a critical must-win deal , daddy-daughter dance at my daughter’s school and so on .

I live my life on what I call “appropriate approximations” .

Vast majority of things don’t need precision . If I am forecasting the next quarter in the middle of current quarter – I don’t worry about a 10% variance . I will progressively get closer to the pin over time . Since my boss knows this – there is no issue . If I am folding shirts to put in the rack , I don’t need them perfectly stacked . These are reversible issues – in the worst case , I can change to a higher level of precision on the fly with minimum trouble . Another good example is this blog . I don’t proof read or even do a spell check on what I write here . My readers are generally quite forgiving and I appreciate it a lot !

If I am hiring for my team – that’s something where I will take the time and attention to get it right . That’s not easily reversible without pain if I get it wrong . If it’s the first time I am explaining a valuable idea to a client – I don’t care for precise assumptions . But if we have general agreement and are trying to get a legal contract done , then I insist on dotting every i and crossing every t .

So what’s the big deal with all this ? As you would have guessed from the title of this blog – you don’t live and work alone . People around you could very well have different views on the need for perfection . If you don’t figure out a way to harmonize , everyone could get frustrated in a hurry . This is true in personal life and at work .

Here is how I deal with the perfectionists in my life

1. Mind my own business

If someone cares to neatly arrange everything on their desk , let them . If they want to do it for my desk too – I usually let them . Basically if it doesn’t truly cause a problem for me , I ignore it – and occasionally even indulge them . Don’t make it a big deal as much as I can . Live and let live !

2. Delegate to them appropriately

I don’t enjoy ensuring spacing in documents is perfect and consistent . I don’t get distracted by two random sentences being two font sizes larger . But I have colleagues who like to do it and they do it well and with passion . If the overall solution comes across better as a result – use that passion instead of fighting it .

3. Provide clarity on time and scope

If you don’t – then perfectionists will generally go for more scope than is useful , and might not do it in reasonable . My favorite QA colleague was very very good at finding bugs – but when we struggled to get new functionality into production in one day , I often would remind him “dude – if a bug stops deployment , or will make the company lose money – tell me and I will code again . If it’s a corner case that we can fix next week , pls just raise it as a lower priority issue that we can fix in next release” .

As a development manager, I learned to assign problems with perfection requirements like compliance , reconciliation etc to developers who thrived on perfection and give them clear timelines to plan and execute . I also learned to use them judiciously for QA on code that people like we delivered 🙂

When you bring them in is a make or break issue . Perfectionists don’t often like constraints on time . If you bring them in too early – you need to restrict scope . If you bring them in with little time left on the clock – aggressively restrict scope . My general principle is to not leave a lot of room to negotiate in the context of a near term deliverable . Instead I take the ownership of any potential failure arising from the constraints I place on them .

4. Teach, learn and evolve

One of my big lessons on this as a young partner came from a client who told me “I was quite distracted by the pictures in your slide deck – but since you drew the picture for me on the white board, I am onboard now and will award you this project”. I had no one to blame but me for that deck . A perfectionist team member did warn me a million times that the graphics on the deck should be redrawn . I said NO and went with what we had thinking he was being paranoid . He was right and I was wrong .

Similarly, in reverse – at least a few times I have been successful in debating with my perfectionist friends on the idea that there is a point of diminishing returns to being perfectionists . When there is no immediate stress of a near term action – such debates can be done in a healthy way . We can then point to what we agreed on when we are in crunch time .

Generally the world looks down at people who give up – they are called all kinds of derogatory things like “loser”, “quitter” and so on . We are taught from an early age on why hard work can overcome all challenges – often with stories of heroes to make that point .

I think this sets us up for failure more than success – at least for most people . There are always exceptions and by all means let us applaud them .

I started off this way too – thinking it will be a shame to quit jobs or projects or whatever and that it will all get better if I just worked harder , smarter etc . All that happened was that I became more miserable both physically and mentally . So I changed my mind .

To my horror – I realized that the hard correction I made was a terrible mistake . Quitting too quickly made everything worse . To cut a long story short – I figured out a rough framework to think through when to quit and when to double down .

Over the last couple of weeks – I had lengthy conversations on this topic with some young men and women that I mentor in India . I figured it’s a good idea to post this in my blog since it is a fairly common theme .

As always – these are strictly my personal thoughts and opinions .

1. Prevention is better than cure

The better we qualify upfront – the less our chance of facing grief later . That means you choose your employer carefully , your projects carefully , your sales pursuit carefully and so on . Easier said than done – because often we don’t have great choice in the matter . For example – you are assigned a sales patch by a manager and you have no say in it . But whenever you can – spend the time qualifying upfront . I will discuss options on what to do if you have no options later in this post .

Part of having choices is a safety net . That means having a little rainy day fund set aside , living under your means , keeping your skills and network active and relevant etc . Without a safety net you will never have good options .

2. Listen to your body and your family

Your body has a way of telling you if the stress level is getting to an extreme . For me – this used to manifest as extreme acid reflux and nausea . I would just take some OTC medicine to get over it – but my family could easily see it was stress that was causing it . Took a long time before I realized my mind was numb to the issue but my body wasn’t . Since then I have spoken with tens of people about it and it seems everyone has some physical manifestation of it – some people cry , others have heart burn or head aches … but at the height of stress everyone seems to have a physical symptom that is a clear tell . And I am yet to see a person whose family couldn’t spot the correlation fast 🙂 .

Unless you recognize you are stressed – you won’t act on it . No one deserves to be miserable for extended periods of time . This doesn’t mean you need to quit to solve it – but that might be one answer .

An easy way to test this is to take an immediate time out . If a week away from work makes you feel a LOT better – it should tell you clearly where the problem is . Irrespective of the decision to quit – it is always a great idea to take vacations whenever you can so that you can mentally and physically reset .

3. Can you make peace where you are ?

We often get miserable about absolute things in isolation – a specific salary raise , a promotion we didn’t get , a difficult manager, a less talented colleague moving up faster than us etc . When we are worked up – it is hard to put these things in context .

A few different things have helped me get through this aspect . One way is to write down on paper . For example – say it is important for me to stay rooted in technology and directly work with clients . If I get a promotion now – I might have a more internally facing role . Should I wait for another role to open up that better fits my criteria or bite the bullet and take it now ? Is the extra money worth the potential lower satisfaction ?

Another question to ask – are you looking for a promotion for more money ? If so – would you be ok with no promotion but a raise alone ? Would you be ok with a raise in variable pay instead of base pay ?

If I can’t make up my own mind – how can I convince my manager of it ?

The second way I get through this is by having an honest conversation with multiple mentors . One such conversation many years ago helped me come to grips with that fact that there will always be some people who will be better ,smarter and luckier than me in any short window of time . Another conversation clearly showed me I lacked some skills and there is no way I will move forward unless I got those skills . I don’t think I would have figured these things on my own .

Also – pls remember you need to have mentors in place to use them in a time of crisis .

4. Know where you want to go – at least roughly

As the Cheshire Cat told Alice , it doesn’t matter which way you go unless you know where you want to get to .

Till you know what is that makes you miserable and what will make you happier for a longer term , it doesn’t make a lot of sense to quit . The one exception to that is extreme stress . If my body tells me that I shouldn’t stay the course – I will quit . I only had to do it once in my career . I left with no backup plan (and left significant money on the table at that time ) and till date I feel I did the right thing .

The best time to plan your next move is when things are stable at work . Then you are in a better frame of mind to decide objectively and have no time pressure to act . Just as experienced drivers scan the horizon and the rear view mirrors even when cruising – it is smart for us to be aware of the evolution in our markets so that we are prepared to act without making it an emergency .

5. Can you change the rules to make it work for you where you are ?

Everything is negotiable at work . If you get a bad manager but the company is one you like – you could try to ask for a transfer . If you get a sales patch which has no immediate sales prospects – you can ask for a different compensation plan to make it work . If you don’t want to be an SAP consultant – ask if you can work on a UX design project .

You have to ask the question and present options before you quit . Just because the first answer is NO or because your friend heard NO when she asked – it doesn’t mean you will get the same answer .

It is also important to ask the right person who is empowered to act on it . In many companies the first line manager is not empowered to act on such matters . You as the employee should feel comfortable to find an up line manager to have this conversation before you leave . As an executive – I have often felt terrible that I could have easily made things work if only I knew what was going on . If your up lines don’t care very much for that conversation – then it’s usually pretty clear that there isn’t much of a point prolonging your departure .

6. Quit in peace

If you have gone through all the above and have had no success in resolving what makes you unhappy , then you can rationally conclude that quitting is probably the next best action .

As I mentioned above – unless your body/mind tells you otherwise strongly , try hard to have a place to go to before you quit . In most cases you can navigate the known devil a lot more than the unknown devil .

When you have made a rational decision to quit – it makes the process of leaving less traumatic . You send a very short resignation letter , give a courtesy notice and burn no bridges . It’s a small world and it pays to leave on good terms .

I personally do not accept counter offers if my employer makes one after I chose to quit . Ideally I would have thought through and negotiated such options before I made the final decision to leave . Once that decision is made thoughtfully – at a minimum , it is very unfair to your new employer to accept a counter .

So TV channels called the election and Joe Biden is the winner . Some of us felt elated and others refuse to accept it – and a large spectrum of people in between those extremes . No value judgment from me on that in this post – I just wanted to draw some parallels with the corporate world that I am a part of .

1. We often don’t trust data

The (often unrealistic) gold standard in corporate circles is “data driven decision making” . The hard part is not about having data – it is about whether you trust the data .

Just as right leaning folks won’t trust data shown on CNN or left leaning ones doing the same with Fox News – corporate world has its issues . The search for “one source of truth” was on when I entered the workforce in the 90s and it is still on . The reality is the best case is you settle for a version of truth that you make peace with and you stop worrying about other perceptions at some point . This is why CFOs get frustrated when the CIO implements a costly data lake and fancy BI on top – and the sales leader still believes “Big Ken’s excel file” .

2. We often don’t understand what the data is trying to tell us

Election results have been coming in for five days and it was clear for the professional data scientists where this was headed . But did it make any difference to people who were watching who leaned left or right ? Hardly ! Right leaning folks looked reasons why it’s all false and left leaning ones tried to hold their breath and tried hard to contain their excitement .

This is true in corporate world too . You look at data and try to find a way to fit it to your “world view” . This is why many corporate leaders do more of the same expecting different results . We only see and hear what we like and filter out the rest . Taken to an extreme that also means we often only collect and measure what fits our narrative .

3. We tend to think in binary terms

Last election , the polling industry lost their face in a big way . They thought Clinton will win and Trump won instead . That led to Trump and Clinton supporters both stopping to believe the models from statisticians like Nate Silver . It didn’t matter that many professionals tried to explain that what the model says is the chances of each candidate to win . If Trump had only 20% chance to win on the last day of last election – that didn’t mean that Clinton was sure to win . It just meant that she had a much higher chance to win . But that’s not how we see it – we often think in very binary terms .

I run into this routinely at my clients – especially when having discussions on data science related projects . There are only a few people who instinctively understand what probability means and that it is not binary . The smart ones immediately start mitigating the risk in various ways – but often I have to nudge them in that direction .

4. We can’t easily abstract and rationalize

Data often doesn’t plot into nice line or curve . It will always have some outliers . When we know of ten votes that didn’t get counted or three dead people who seem to have voted – its natural to think that the entire election is rigged . We often cannot easily think through whether there are enough of such votes to have changed the outcome of the election .

Similarly we look at aggregated and/or filtered data and make decisions that might not be useful . So when we wonder how a red state turned blue when everyone we know is a Trump supporter in that area – we don’t often realize that there are significant variations between zip codes or even within zip codes . We also don’t quickly realize that the dozen people we know in Georgia doesn’t represent all of Georgia 🙂

This happens quite often in the corporate world . Most decisions are done using aggregated data . I will make one example from a few years ago where a sales leader decided to over invest in the west coast business because sales was booming and every director there got two extra reps . A year later – sales rose only modestly and profit dropped a lot . It was a simple case of only one small part of west coast business over performing and everyone else not seeing enough demand . When you don’t know the details – you can make terrible decisions and get confused when you don’t get results .

I will stop here – there are probably a dozen more parallels . My puppy insists I need to go play with him 🙂