What drives you? Process, Pressure, PERFECTION, or Play? (Part 3)

PERFECTION driven people are great at spotting errors, doing things the right way, and are driven to be the best - whatever it takes. Is this one of your drives?

We’ve all had that team member that is driven by perfection. They love to be right, they are committed to being the best, and they have the skill of spotting even the smallest error or problem. Perfectionism has gotten a bad reputation in recent years - we’ve been encouraged to give ourselves more grace. But people with this drive naturally bring incredible work ethic and high standards to teams. 

We are all motivated by different things. And the best teams in the world recognise the different strengths of each team member. 

This is part 3 of a 4 part series. 

• Process

• Pressure

• Perfection

• Play

Let’s dive into Perfection.

Driven by PERFECTION

There are a couple of sibling duos in global beach volleyball, and I’ve always wondered what it would be like to play next to someone you know so well. 

When I was first starting the sport of beach volleyball, Jordan and Justine were iconic to me. Sisters separated by only a couple of years. They were tall, athletic, tanned from constant practice and Queensland sunshine, and consistently made the medal rounds on the National Tour. They had almost identical technique. If you lined up against them on the other side of the net you were faced with very the problematic question of who to serve since their game’s were so similar.

In 2019, Justine stepped away for a season to have a baby, and Jordan asked me to play. Our matches were always intensely hard fought battles, now we had to take that respect for each other as opponents, and play as partners. 

Jordan is a professional. She believed there is a right way to play the sport and be an athlete. And she always strived for that. It showed up in every decision.

‘It’s bucketing down,’ I said. Jordan and I were huddled under the tournament tent at the the Victorian stop of the National Tour. Honestly the tent wasn’t doing much. 40km winds meant the record setting deluge of rain was coming in sideways. We were drenched and shivering. 

‘Our game starts in 30 minutes,’ she said.

‘It might be delayed…’ I said. Players from games that were underway were huddled in the tent with us taking very extended time outs. And their referees seemed in no rush to get them back out. 

‘We need to start our warmup now.’ 

And we did. We were the only ones out there trying to pass a volleyball. Making sure we’d be ready to go no matter the conditions. 

‘Outside!’ called Jordan. Telling me where to put the set after she passed another perfect ball. We’d practiced this play hundreds of times. The outside set gave her the most hitting options.

‘Outside!’ called Jordan. She’d just sprinted across the court, dived to dig a high line shot from our opponents, and was now scrambling to get up to hit the ball. She still wanted the set in the right spot.

Outside!’ called Jordan. It was late afternoon, windy, and a challenging set to make. Still, that was where she wanted the ball set. 

‘We play better when we specialise,’ Jordan pointed out the week before a World tour event. 

‘You’re right, but we’re both defenders,’ I said. So far, we’d shared the blocking responsibilities between us. It’s less demanding as you don’t have to serve then sprint to the net to block, and we both got a chance to do what we were good at: defence.

‘One of us needs to block full time,’ she insisted. 

I think we rock, paper, scissored to decide. I’ve never been good at that game, which is how I found myself as a full time blocker for the rest of the season.

Jordan’s decisions were always based on doing what was best, what was right. A professional warmup. The optimal set. The right division of roles on court.

Driven by perfection. 

What matters to PERFECTION driven people

For a Perfection driven person, these things light them up. For someone not driven by Perfection these things can seem rigid, annoying, and unattainable. 

1) Being right

• There is a right way and a wrong way to do things

• Already knowing the answer, and having that confirmed by others

• Checking, questioning, confirming things are correct

• There might be more than one answer, but there is one ‘most correct’ answer

‘The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character.’ ~ Margaret Chase Smith

2) Driven to be the best

• Being the best. Being world-class

• Comparison. Knowing exactly where you stand in the rankings

• Happy to practise the basics in order to achieve perfection

• Always prepared

‘It’s better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one, than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.’ ~ Whitney Young

3) Problem solving

• Asking ‘why’

• Having purpose, and a higher mission

• Intellectually challenging problems

• Asking questions, trying to understand from first principles

‘A relentless barrage of ‘whys’ is the best way to prepare your mind to pierce the clouded veil of thinking caused by the status quo. Use it often.’ ~ Shigella Shinzo

4) Focus on what’s wrong and needs to be fixed

• Great proofreaders and analysts as errors are obvious

• Can see where projects are most likely to go wrong

• Quick to assign responsibility for failure (including taking accountability themselves) 

• Jump into ‘fix it’ mode when problems are raised

‘The goal of an effective leader is to recondition your team to be solution focused rather than problem focused.’ ~ Jim Rohn

5) Resilience

• Strong instinct for perseverance 

• Will explore every option, but once clear in the best decision will remain deeply committed

• When faced with failure, will double down on work ethic

‘Mastery requires lots of practice. But the more you practice something, the more boring and routine it becomes. Thus, an essential component of mastery is the ability to maintain your enthusiasm. The master continues to find the fundamentals interesting.’ ~ James Clear

Designing your life for more drive

Think of an analyst who partners with business managers to help them answer tough questions related to strategy. Want to know how many customers are closed by each sales person? She’ll give you that, and also point out that whilst you think the sales person is the number one driver of whether a deal is won, it’s actually the affluence of the customer that matters most. 

She designed the template your team uses for monthly metric reporting to management (and gets cranky when anyone changes the margins so they can fit more text in). You also send her all the reports for double checking before they are shared as you know she’ll always pick up the errors that everyone else skims over. 

In your last performance review with her, she showed up with a ton of datapoints on where she is elite, and what she is working on. And asked you to rate her against all the other analysts. She’s doing her MBA in the evenings as that is what all the high achieving people in her field have done before her.

You don’t need to be driven by Perfection to make a good analyst. But she’s designed her role to work for her Perfection drive. Can you do the same?

Ask yourself…

• Do I work in a field where there is a right and wrong answer?

• Who do I look up to that can confirm I’m on the best path to be highly ranked in my field?

• Can I own ‘checking’ what my team produces to make sure there are no errors?

• What are the best individuals and teams in the world doing? Can we mimic that?

• How often do I check that I’m working on the right things?

• How can I track my ranking over time to measure my improvement?

Ultimately, perfection driven people love to be right and to be the best. Since they will do whatever it takes to make that happen, we often admire their killer work ethic. 

If you’re driven by PERFECTION, this blog is your cheat sheet to feeling more motivation. And if you’re not driven by perfection, perhaps it helps you understand your teammates and colleagues who are just a little better. Watch their eyes light up when you tell them they are right, or you give them recognition for being the best at something.

This is a 4 part series. You can read about my other beach volleyball partners who taught me the drives of: PROCESS, PRESSURE and PLAY.