Thought Exercise #1: Done is Another Person's Perfect

In this second bonus video connected to A Course in Production, we're going to tackle delegation with a little help from Tiffany Dufu.

With the next three bonus videos connected to A Course in Production, I wanted to present a series of thought exercises that you can do to immediately implement some new and useful practices to your everyday work. 

All of these exercises are based on the writing of some of today’s top career development writers. For today, I want to offer something from Tiffany Dufu’s book Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less, which I also mentioned in Lesson 8, which focused on working with your superiors.

Tiffany Dufu reminds us in Chapter 14 that "Done is a Another Person’s Perfect," which is the focus of today's thought exercise.

To be clear, Dufu is writing about leveraging diversity on the home front with one’s significant other, not Production in Animation per se, but her perspective is highly transferable.

Above: Tiffany Dufu, author of Drop the Ball

As a breed, those of us in Production tend to be pretty ambitious and aspire to perfection in a way that can sometimes come off as controlling.

As such, it can be tough for us to delegate tasks or to allow for exploration of another way of doing things - we might not have the time, and we might not be motivated to even try because we like to be in control and well, manage things how we prefer things to be managed.

There are a few problems with this classic Production issue of not properly delegating work:

1. We exhaust ourselves by taking on too much
2. We prevent the growth of our teammates by not allowing them the chance and opportunity to complete a task that you normally do
3. We prevent our own growth by shutting down opportunities for us to see or experience something different that might in fact be more successful or efficient than what we are currently doing

With regards to third point especially, Dufu says:

“Women must trust other people to tackle problems,

even if they do it differently from how we would.

It’s time to take a page from Princess Elsa of Frozen and simply let it go.

If we can do that, we’re likely to discover the kind of innovation

that can transform our lives on the home front for good.”

p.154

Dufu proceeds to share several compelling (and amusing!) anecdotes about how she and her husband, Kojo, have approached managing household chores together, again, highly relevant to delegating tasks in Production, saying, 

“It was just my way, the highway wasn’t even an option.

But once I began relying more on his help—

and really letting him do things his way—

I benefitted in new and unexpected ways […]

each of these disruptions served as a reminder that diversity,

when leveraged to solve problems in new ways,

is a magnificent thing.”

p.154

So here’s your first thought exercise:

Think of a task you have delegated to someone else that you were/are unhappy with the result of.

Consider:

Was this person’s attempt actually subpar or unsatisfactory, or was it simply different from how you would have done things? 

If it is indeed just different, is there something from their approach to handling this task that you found to be enlightening? 

• Ex: was it more efficient? Less expensive? Handled perhaps more slowly but more gracefully? 

Try to examine this honestly and see what you have learned and see if you might apply this tactic to your own work! 

Resources for Thought Exercise 1

Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less by Tiffany Dufu, of course!

See also Dufu's speaking video Drop the Ball Instead of Trying to Do It All

Previous Videos in this Series:

Bonus Video #1: Trends in Production

A Course in Production Series Overview (complete with links to all ten videos!)