What to do when you are doing things with a perfectionist
For us to know how to achieve result with perfectionist,first we need to know how their minds work.
The first thing you need to realise is that the name “perfectionist” is a label that you and other people have given to this person. In truth,nobody is a perfectionist,anybody you see as a perfectionist only has his/her method of doing things and will like anybody who runs errand for them to do it exactly the way they do it themselves.
This is where the challenge lies,other people do not like that way or cannot adopt that method so they do the task their way and this their own way will seem substandard to the “perfectionist”.
If you look closely,you will find that those labeled as perfectionist usually have a high standard of doing things or they just love doing their stuff in a particular way. There can a thousand other ways of doing stuff but they prefer that their own way.
If you watch them closely,you will see that they live by strict rules or principles,some like routine soo much the can sit in a chair in the pew in church for the next 10years and will go to any length to make sure they get that chair before anybody as sitting elsewhere is equivalent to not coming to church.
Step 1
When this type of person assigns a task to you,ask for guidance,let him show you what method or what specific standard he wants,ask him if there is a particular method you should follow to achieve desired result.
Some of this type, as lecturers, will fail you if you use another method they didn’t proscribe for you,even if you got the right answer to a question they asked. Even simple task are not spared. Eg,if this type asks you to iron his cloth,make sure you have seen him ironing his cloth before because if his method is iron the shirt hand first,then iron the back then the front before the collar. Follow this same schedule. Most probably he has a reason for this method,maybe ironing the body before the hand will rumple some areas you had ironed,so he designed this system which works for him. You will likely find out that whenever you do a task for this type,he will scrutinize what you did in front of you. This scrutiny is to check for flaws,this scrutiny can ve annoying or demeaning.
So the first step is to ask for guidance.
Secondly,be smart when working with this type,these-k guys are people with a sharp sense of the right way of doing things and are smart learners who learn easily and seek for the best method at the same time(they are learning) even if they have to be so detailed and consume so much time.
If you apply these two principles,you will achieve more positive result with them but most importantly,do not see them as perfectionist,they just want a good job and that’s all,they themselves put in so much effort to produce the best hence they expect that level of efficiency from others.
written by Eleas stanley