I received the following from one of the brightest folks in the industry. She’s right, of course. JVH
If you’ve ever sat in on an interview, you’ve heard every interviewer’s favorite question, “What is your biggest flaw?” To which the applicant almost always gives this coy, bashful look, “I can be a bit of a perfectionist.” The interviewer’s face lights up (as that Interview Prep blog said it would), and he seemingly envisions the applicant sacrificing their first-born for the image of the company.
The parking industry especially loves perfectionists. From programmers, to hardware technicians, to accountants…and rightly so. But there is a need for the anti-perfectionist, especially in the realm of marketing and project management. It seems here, in particular, we need the person that says, “No. We’re not going to get Joe Shmoe’s opinion on this, and no, you can’t try out that other istock image for the 56th time.” Sometimes, projects that should have been delivered to a customer in 2 weeks take 3 months because of these so-called, “perfectionists,” and with changes that (sorry) nobody noticed.
This is something I noticed in my previous career and developed a reputation for myself….the one that always, “Pulled the trigger.” It instilled fear in some (which I secretly enjoyed) and also much needed haste. Our team was given a set amount of days and set amount of changes to make on a project. After that, the trigger was pulled. Any you know what? We were never late on delivery and it was always a piece we were proud of.
The thing is, if you’re doing the job you were hired for, you shouldn’t need to be a perfectionist. We should hire these perfectionists carefully, too many and you’ll ‘gum up the works.’ We still need them, (and do we ever in the parking industry), but in doing so, we should balance them out with more ‘anti-perfectionists’ ….preferably the proverbial whip crackers and trigger pullers.
Julianne Wilhelm, www.flowbird.group
