80: How the Struggle for Perfection can Stifle the Team

Howard Teibel

For those who live with it, perfectionism can be a powerful tool for creating great work, or a blunt force impeding forward motion. In either case, we often refer to perfectionist traits as profoundly personal, a set of behaviors that impacts us, but that we confidently stow away when teams are involved. The truth: the team is an organism made of individuals. And as individuals, we bring all our behaviors with us. It is the collection of individual traits that determines the identity of the teams in which we work. 

This week on the show, Howard Teibel and Pete Wright unravel the nature of perfectionism on teams. From our common understanding of team norms to how this drive toward perfection can hinder the discovery of key insights that can live in the gap between awareness and action.