Comments on: The Perfect Corporate Culture Doesn’t Exist

By: Fannie LeFlore, MS,LPC,CADC-D

Fannie LeFlore, MS,LPC,CADC-D — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 17:43:06 +0000

Terrific article! It’s interesting that many who expect perfection from others often fail to be perfect themselves. I’ve seen situations where people could not handle legitimate differences of opinion, resulting in someone being scapegoated due to sharing a different view. I’ve seen other situations where someone who was passive aggressive (rather than an open communicator) set up conflict between two people who had no clue what was going on until the situation created bad feelings. Yet, the instigator thought she had no role in the problem. These and other situations where perfection is expected and tolerance for human misunderstanding is low create hostility and discord among people who otherwise could work well together. A key is to any problem solving is simply better, clear communication rather than people always operating from hidden agendas (and projecting their flaws onto others or not owning up to their own mistakes) in an effort to portray themselves as perfect.

By: Dominic Rajesh

Dominic Rajesh — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 11:21:45 +0000

Thank you for sharing your experience. “Strive for perfection in process and grace with people” is a great quote and the right way to deal with such instances. Otherwise, the organization just becomes too task oriented and everybody would be burnt out! And like you rightly mentioned, all the negativity and blocked creativity only adds fuel to the burning fire!!

By: working girl

working girl — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:18:00 +0000

Y’know it’s funny – case studies are constantly published where ‘top performing companies’ are analyzed as examples and I have friends that work at quite a few of them. More often than not they complain that their ‘perfect’ company is hell to work at!

By: Gireesh Sharma

Gireesh Sharma — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 04:18:20 +0000

An awesome article on “PERFECTION”. I sure gonna bookmark it and shoot at those managers who keep screaming on silly mistakes of their subordinates or peers!

By: Andrea Wenger

Andrea Wenger — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 22:48:20 +0000

Thanks for these insights, Jennifer. Perfection is expensive–in monetary terms as well as human ones. Striving for perfection in every aspect of business is ultimately a recipe for failure. A competitor is sure to come along who has a more balanced approach. It’s important to figure out where perfection is the appropriate standard, and where 99% (or even 80%) is good enough.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 21:00:25 +0000

Larry,

Thanks for stopping by The People Equation!

Eventually, that’s where the team ended up: agreeing they wanted to “have each other’s back”. This was a small company– about 100 employees and they were all moving so fast in their quest to put out quality product that they sometimes were less-than-forgiving with each other.

By: Larry Kunz

Larry Kunz — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 20:55:40 +0000

That VP’s quote — “We are so demanding of each other, there’s absolutely no room for mistakes” — is really, really scary. That would snuff out the tiniest spark of creativity or risk-taking.

I really like what you said: perfection in process, grace with people. I wish the VP had said something like “We’re dedicated to getting it right, so have each other’s back.”