“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

From Voltaire to Shakespeare to modern self-help blogs, we see this sentiment repeated over and over again across the ages. So what does it mean? I take it to mean that in our zeal for personal and professional excellence we have to be careful not to overdo it. With today’s busy lifestyles and stressful workloads, it is easy to become overwhelmed. How do you ensure that your unique essence, your authentic self, is protected and preserved? When should you be content with what you have accomplished? Overachieving in every area of our life comes at a high cost, and I suggest it is time to take it down a notch and reexamine what is really important. What makes you happy?

I have personal experience in perfectionism. With the exuberance of youth, I believed that having it all was easy. My career was soaring, my family was a constant source of pride and joy, and I was doing really good and important work at one of the largest global insurance brokerages in the world. I was tired most of the time due to the grueling hours, but the adrenalin kept me going, until I began waking up at night with crushing chest pains. A trip to the doctor confirmed that my heart was fine—it was the pace that was killing me. My pursuit of perfectionism led to exhaustion and a high level of anxiety, which was having a devastating effect on my health. This was a literal wake-up call to reevaluate my goals, life choices, and my approach to work.

I had to accept that my previous approach to balancing both my private and professional life was not working. It was leaving me tired and anxious, unable to serve my family and clients from a calm place where I could use my talents to truly listen to and respond to their needs. I needed a more holistic approach. That was when it hit me. I realized that I am only one person, one whole person who should not split herself in two any longer. Integration of my professional and personal being was the key—not balancing two spinning plates. I knew I had to stop compartmentalizing my needs and learn how to plan my day differently. I needed to start making better choices in order to lead a more fully integrated life.

Choices

Living life in the modern world on your own terms requires introspection. We all make choices in life, and the choices we make every day will lead each of us down a different path and result in different outcomes; regardless of how similar we may be in other, more visible and measurable areas of our lives. Your choices are largely guided by your values, your interests, and your drive. Defining your own personal values can be a very interesting journey. But it will help set you on your own authentic path to achieving your goals. To take back control, ask yourself some fundamental questions. For instance, is it more important for you to be relaxed and to have more free time to pursue your hobbies and interests, to live richly in a deeper sense but perhaps have slightly less material wealth than others? Or is it more important for you to work harder for bigger rewards, sacrifice your personal time, and lead others in order to effect great change or even make the world a better place? Both are equally valid and respectable approaches to life. Are you living by your own values, and have your choices helped you achieve your goals? Each person has a different drive and sense of what they owe to the broader community. That sense may change over time as you grow and gain more experience. Understanding what makes you feel satisfied, centered, and happy is important to goal setting and making decisions that allow you to take back control over your life and career.

My nighttime wake-up call drove me to write down my personal goals in life. I highly recommend this activity even if you believe you know them. Ask yourself, how well do your daily commitments—the things that take up the majority of your time—match your goals and interests? I was surprised to find that my day-to-day activities were out of alignment with my goals and core values. For instance, good health was one of the top personal goals I had identified for myself; yet I had failed to establish a regular exercise routine, often telling myself I didn’t have the time. Upon reflection, this was one of the sources of stress for me. I knew I should be taking better care of myself and failing to do so left me feeling guilty and anxious. This period of introspection also reminded me that at my core I am a very creative person. I majored in theater at school and loved the arts, yet that facet of me had been completely swallowed up by my obligations at home and at work. All that perfectionism takes a lot of time!

Following my visit with the doctors, I made a choice to sit down and take stock of what had to change in order to create some much needed breathing room in my life and time to pursue other passions. I was lucky because at just that time I came across a study conducted by McKinsey called the Leadership Project. It highlighted a fact we all know, that fewer women occupy the top leadership seats despite the same high levels of intelligence, education, and commitment as men. The study aimed to find out why. They focused on five leadership attributes they call the Centered Leadership model, which they believe enables and sustains leaders in an ever increasingly complex world. The five themes of Centered Leadership discussed in the article are Meaning, Framing, Connecting, Engaging, and Energizing. The conclusion of the study was that while many people possess a few of these leadership qualities, the most successful leaders excelled at all five.

I was intrigued by this, and reflecting on these five attributes I thought about my own journey.

• Meaning. I know that both my home and work life filled me with a sense of purpose and meaning. Providing for my family and serving others is what truly motivates me. I have a great respect for the industry I work in and believe it exists to offer people peace of mind by providing for them when they or their companies are faced with disaster or loss. Within my company I set out to solve problems and create a work environment that is generous and supportive in helping both the company and my colleagues achieve their goals. When I think about meaning as a leadership quality, I believe it goes back to my point on making value-based choices that lead us to a place where we feel we are doing something important and making a difference.
• Framing. Positive framing is a way of viewing potentially negative situations and finding the opportunity within them to create positive action. One door closes, another opens type of thinking. I have encountered too many people who waste tremendous amounts of energy focused on the negative. They tend to take situations personally and allow it to paralyze them, rather than taking the necessary steps to move past the event and onto a successful solution. I was lucky enough to be born an optimist and view difficulties as an opportunity to make things better. Regardless of your natural disposition, all of us have the ability to develop this capability. If you lead people, mastering positive framing is a critical skill to keep teams motivated and focused on the goals. I have found in my career that the biggest achievements often stem from a point of failure. So face the challenges with a smile!
• Connecting. The benefit of working in the insurance industry—and for that matter, the same company—for many years is that you get to know everyone over a long period of time and know what each of them is working on. One of the characteristics I am known for is that I love connecting people and helping others find a network. I also tap into these contacts if I need to find an expert, so the concept of reciprocity is big when you think about your network. You have to be willing to give freely, secure in the knowledge that it will come back to you tenfold. Building a strong network of allies and mentors is essential to your professional growth, as they provide insight and opportunities that you are unable to see for yourself. I became aware that while I was very good at connecting others I was not very good at keeping up with my social network on a more personal level. Who had time to socialize? I had a wonderful mentor who was also my boss at the time, and he was the first person to tell me that while I accomplished 120 percent of what was expected on the job, I needed to start making time to be more social with my colleagues. At first, I thought he was crazy. With so much to do shouldn’t he be telling everyone else to work harder rather than telling me to slow down a bit and spend social time with the team? Once I stepped back and thought about what he was telling me, I understood the wisdom. What a gift! I realized I was wasting time trying to achieve perfection when increasing my impact by interacting with more people would provide a better result. With time at a premium I had to build social networking into my schedule. That was when I developed the habit I now call “three phone calls and a lunch.” Each week, I try to schedule one social lunch and make three phone calls to colleagues that have no business need involved. Research shows that while women tend to have deeper relationships with people, the circle is much smaller than men who create wide but shallow networks. The result is that men naturally tend to have a wider sphere of influence and have a greater ability to enlist people to their cause. I realized that a concerted effort to increase social interactions and to volunteer more would create more followership for my work than the extra two hours spent perfecting a report.
• Engaging. Nike’s slogan “Just do it” is my career motto. My interest in how things worked, in finding creative ways to do things more effectively, and my experience in problem solving led me to take on different projects and new opportunities throughout my career. I have always been open to jumping into new challenges and believe this quality has been a key ingredient of my success. Men are more likely than women to jump into a new role without possessing all of the skills, knowing they will pick it up on the job. Never hold yourself back from trying something new because you may not be perfectly qualified. I have relied on the subject matter experts on the team to provide the detailed knowledge I may not have possessed when moving into new roles. By acknowledging the value of others, you provide them an opportunity to shine and a path for their success as well as your own. Frequent interaction with your team builds a sense of common purpose, and I want to relay one of the tips a former colleague of mine shared on how he makes sure he stays engaged with the people on his team. Recognizing that at around 3 P.M. every day he needed an energy boost, he got up to get himself a can of Coke; he decided to use that time to walk the floor for 15 minutes while he drank the soda and engage with his team informally. Sometimes the conversation was focused on a project they were working on, but other times it was about a recent vacation or family event. For the team members not sitting in his physical office, he would make a 5-minute phone call just to check on them and to say hello. As a result, his teams loved him, and they felt he was a very engaged manager and was in touch with what was going on. Think about small changes you can make to achieve the same result.

• My goals have always been focused on creating constant improvement, so I have moved outside my comfort zone for most of my career. That is where I believe real growth occurs. You have to have the courage to take risk if you expect to achieve great things. Go out and create the change rather than wait for it to find you. Be bold and audacious, and be flexible in your approach. Revise direction when the facts suggest you should, and don’t be afraid to speak up when that is necessary.

• Energizing. Looking at energy as part of the five Centered Leadership attributes, it hit me that this was my Achilles’ heel. I have always had a lot of energy, but I had to acknowledge that there were areas of my life that created a drain of energy. I have always been self-directed and self-motivated, but I was pushing myself too hard. Harder than anyone I reported to could possibly push me. I wanted to be perfect in accomplishing all my projects at work, but as a result, I was beginning to experience burnout. I needed to find things that boosted my energy. This was the missing ingredient. In order to sustain the pace and demands of my daily life and the increasing responsibilities, both at work and at home, I knew that I needed to address the exhaustion and find a way to energize myself. Leaders need to maintain the resiliency required by today’s demanding business environment.

Changes

With a fresh perspective on my goals and the understanding that I needed to manage my energy in a new way, I set out to define new routines for myself. I identified the main things that nagged at me and drained me. I wrote each item down and began to check them off my list. Next, I began posting my goals in a place I could see them each morning and reviewed them at the end of each week to make sure that at least some of the activity was driving toward my goals. The sense of relief was immediate.

I read a book a number of years ago on getting things done at work, and it touted the idea of immediately placing work requests into one of three categories for action—Do it, Delegate it, or Defer it. I decided to try this on for size. I began thinking about my colleagues and realized that delegating more to the people on my team and building their skill sets was not only key to their personal development but would also help me focus on the most critical items and allow me time to think more strategically.

This realization led me to evaluate all of my relationships at home and at work. Was I taking on too much of the burden? Where could I use more support? I began making requests and taking steps to improve my partnerships. Create more balance—more free space in my schedule. Once you look at where you spend your time, you will be surprised to find there are things of low value that you really should stop doing. Or you will find a way to reduce the amount of time spent on them. For instance, if you find you spend a lot of time each evening getting dinner ready, you may decide to cook double portions and immediately freeze half for future meals, cutting your effort in half. I had a lot of fun identifying time wasters in order to make room for the things that would boost my energy. Small changes paid big dividends. Below are a few of my changes, but you will need to find what works best for you.

• I created more productive hours in the day by negotiating work-at-home days. This saved hours in commuting time each week. I split that saved time between work and family. This was harder back when I made this change, but today most business environments are much more open to remote workers.
• Have an agenda for every meeting and hold people to it. I hold crisp 45-minute meetings, not hour-long meetings, and use the extra 15 minutes to check e-mail or write the follow-up notes. Creating breathing time between meetings allowed me to become more organized; no longer did my approach to meetings feel like speed dating! By building some free space into my schedule I was able to collect my thoughts and show up more fully present and engaged.
• Schedule stressful meetings—those that drain your energy—in the morning so you get them out of the way while your focus and energy are still at their peak. Don’t schedule these types of meetings back to back or even on the same day if you can avoid it, as they zap your energy for the entire day.
• Reserve time for yourself in your schedule. I now book 30 minutes in each day for what I refer to as “pop-up sessions.” Use this time for all the people who drop by just to ask you a question or would like a minute to discuss something with you. Tell them you are free to meet with them during the time you reserved, and this will eliminate a series of interruptions during the day that can derail your own focus and deliverables.
• Do not constantly check your e-mail. It pulls your focus. Unless you are awaiting something urgent, set times during your day to read your e-mails and respond.
• Pick up the phone and speak to people instead of using e-mail as the sole form of business communication. Conversations will reduce the number of e-mails that fly back and forth, and they help build relationships.
• If you can manage, hire people to complete the weekend tasks like the lawn, housekeeping, laundry, and shopping. Sometimes it is less expensive than you thought. Your time is precious, and you need rest in order to restore your energy.
• Lay out your workout clothes the night before so they are waiting for you when you wake up. Even 15 minutes of exercise in the morning will help prepare you for your day. You can do the other 15 minutes when you get home. The point is that even a small amount of exercise is better than none, so stop waiting for the perfect workout morning and just do something to get your motor running.

Compensation

Make sure your partners in life, both at home and at work, share your goals and respect what you bring to the table. This is a critical step on the path to integrated happiness, but it is also a key component in the area of compensation. This is a lesson my mother taught me at an early age, and the wisdom of it has guided me in selecting my partners carefully. I was fortunate in my career to attract good bosses and mentors who understood my value. Even the tough ones taught me something that I carried into the next position. It is important to understand that your success is tied to theirs. When they look good, the entire team looks good. Good results for the company means there is more income for shareholders and employees. When you tie your goals to the company goals, you have a better chance at improving your compensation.

I believe in servant leadership, and that has shaped how I operate. Servant leadership is a philosophy and set of practices that builds better organizations, enriches the lives of individuals, and ultimately creates a more caring world. I have always given more than I expect in return. I believe in creating a generous work environment and identifying and exceeding the needs of colleagues, customers, and communities.

When it comes to the wage gap between male and female colleagues, I don’t believe there is a magic bullet. There are, however, topics to avoid when asking for a raise. It is always best to avoid comparing yourself to others, or using other people as a benchmark of what you should be achieving—to quote King Lear, “That way madness lies.”

Always approach the promotion and raise discussion prepared to identify your value in both qualitative and quantitative terms. Be able to identify how you contribute to the success of the company and why a raise or promotion is justified. Too often, I have had members of my team come to me and say that they deserve a raise because of the years on the job or because it was unfair that someone else appeared to be getting something they were not. Also, while it may be true that your personal bills are increasing, that is not a great approach to the raise discussion. Companies prefer to focus on the value you bring to them to help them achieve their own financial goals.

My commonsense approach over the years has been to do the job that was asked of me, ask for the jobs I wanted and even create roles for myself when I saw there was a need, and to articulate the impact and value of what I achieved. This last part is very important. If you do great work, but you keep your head down and don’t engage, who do you think will notice? Ask for the pay increase and articulate why you deserve it! Companies need leaders in all shapes and sizes. It is a proven fact that companies with diverse leadership outperform others. So whose responsibility is it to make sure that all talent is recognized, promoted, and compensated fairly? I would suggest the responsibility lies within each one of us. At the board level, companies need to review pay disparity and implement governance procedures to eliminate it. I hope that when my two daughters come of age and join the workforce, there is forced disclosure of these issues and the pay gap will be a thing of the past. Until then, each of us as individuals need to use our platform to promote others, as a rising tide lifts all boats.

Closing

I have started to live life on my terms in order to navigate and succeed in a busy world. Integrating the various aspects of my life and keeping my personal goals in mind has paid me huge dividends in both physical and emotional happiness.

Reviewing the three “C’s”—Choice, Change, and Compensation—has led to the realization that perfectionism is overrated. Please stop trying to be perfect and remember the wise words of Confucius, who said, “Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.”