28 www.canadianlawyermag.com/inhouse
FEATURE
In a culture focused on achievement, success and making things
perfect, how can leaders know when striving for something better is a
waste of time? Lynne Cazaly explains how to let go of perfection and
embrace 'good enough'
HOW OFTEN while working on a task or
project have you thought, "It's not done yet,"
"It's not good enough" or "I couldn't share
that … it has to be better"? We can feel it's not
good enough yet and believe there's still work
to be done to make it better, to make it
perfect. Shouldn't you try to do things
perfectly? It turns out, no, not at all.
Research by Argyro Avgoustaki and Hans
Frankort, gathered from more than 50,000
people across 36 countries over a five-year
period, showed that extra work effort was
"associated with reduced well-being and
inferior career-related outcomes." Avgoustaki
and Frankort's research showed that the
harder people worked, the more likely they
were to report stress, lower satisfaction and
inferior outcomes.
Working too hard burns us out and doesn't
result in the success — career or otherwise
— that we might expect. It sounds crazy, but
their research found that doing less at work
can actually help us achieve more.
We can afford to spend less time on things
thanks to two theories of activity. The law of
diminishing returns (that our return on effort
When to go for
good enough
