Perspectives on Perfection: A Reflection on Teamwork in the Field

Ian Final Blog

Ian Pshea-Smith

MPH 2023 Global Epidemiology Graduate

Working together is often a distinct challenge. I love working in teams - but challenges inevitably arise when several people with extremely high standards all attempt to achieve a goal. 

This past week, I worked on an interdisciplinary team to accomplish a set but slightly undefined goal. Our team was composed of only three people, with varied backgrounds, experiences and approaches to our set goal. One key feature we all shared was our love of perfection - it is perhaps more rare in a Master’s degree to find someone without high standards. This was our greatest challenge: approaching a set goal, from varied perspectives, all while shooting for the moon.

I prefer a more formal, heavily structured approach to projects. However, one of the most valuable parts of teamwork is that my expertise and preferences are not representative of what will work for our target audience, so my teammate’s perspectives were extremely valuable in toning down and altering our approach. However, our greatest issues were in the minutiae: the tiny, little details that no one but us would notice or care about. We spent more than an hour on a single slide in our presentation, discussing the best words or the most appropriate spacings.

I write all this to reinforce the old adage that “perfect must not be the enemy of good.” We all generated great ideas and came up with things that were great; however, we often vacillated between each other’s choices, as we saw the values in another person’s perspectives. Eventually, we had several discussions that helped overcome this problem; we discussed, recognized and decided that we could pursue infinite variations and still find slight changes to improve our presentation and final products. However, no one would benefit from our doing so.

We didn’t let our varied approaches to perfection impact our final product. What we accomplished turned out great, and we all gained valuable insights into teamwork and generated something that will be useful for our partners.