In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen - Thomas Curran: Perfectionism: The Power Of Good Enough In A World That Always Wants More

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

When did ''good enough'' become the same as ''perfect''? Why does society increasingly promote ideals that are hard to achieve? And what does perfectionism mean?Thomas Curran is a Professor at the London School of Economics. He is the world-leading expert on perfectionism. In 2023 he published his debut book, ‘The Perfection Trap.’ We will discuss his interesting book and much more!The production team on this episode were PLAN-B’s Nikolai Ovenberg and Niklas Figenschau Johansen. Background research was done by Sigurd Brekke. Links:Watch the episode on YouTube: Norges Bank Investment Management - YouTubeWant to learn more about the fund? The fund | Norges Bank Investment Management (nbim.no)Follow Nicolai Tangen on LinkedIn: Nicolai Tangen | LinkedInFollow NBIM on LinkedIn: Norges Bank Investment Management: Administrator for bedriftsside | LinkedInFollow NBIM on Instagram: Explore Norges Bank Investment Management on Instagram Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi everyone, and welcome to our podcast, In Good Company. I'm Nikolaj Tangen, the CEO of the Norwegian Southern Wealth Fund, and your host today. Today, we are doing a bonus episode with a world-leading expert on perfectionism. Why do we work so hard? Does it lead to better results? What does it do to the workplace? What does it do to us? Tune in.

Tune in. So a lot of people are just kind of grinding away day and night, tireless pursuit for perfection. You know, trying to get the perfect grades, perfect job, perfect partner. I guess that sounds familiar for a lot of people. But what if I told you that this relentless quest for perfection is actually not just exhausting us, but it's also not making us perform any better. So to discuss this and other things, really pleased, got the world leading expert on perfectionism, Thomas Curran. Welcome. Thank you very much. That's a lovely introduction. It's great to chat. Great. Now,

what is perfectionism? Okay, so I guess the starting point for understanding perfectionism is really to get into the weeds of it a little bit and understand where it begins. And perfectionism begins with a place of lack, of a place of deficit, of a feeling that we are not quite enough, of a place of deficit of a feeling that we are not quite enough not perfect enough and from that starting point what we're trying to do as perfectionistic people is conceal disguise hide to repair in some way what we know deep down to be an imperfect self so perfectionism is really about trying to overcome what we feel is deficit and lack through excessive standards through trying to project into the world a perfect image of ourselves we want other people to see perfect performances perfect appearances um because of that starting with lack so in the book which is

by the way a fantastic book the perfection trap you all have to read it um you split perfectionism into three it is the self-oriented perfectionism, the kind of thing you cause yourself. It's how you impose your perfectionism on other people, and how in a way you make a lot of people miserable. And then the type of perfectionism that the society is imposing through you, now also through social media. But if you start with kind of the self-oriented perfectionism, what that self-oriented perfectionism is a i guess a burning need to be perfect and nothing but perfect and and it comes with self-critical tendencies when we haven't met those high and excessive standards so when we feel like we fell short we feel very self-critical we go in on ourselves

how could you be so stupid what we were you thinking? Sort of internal dialogue. Are you born with it? To a certain degree, yes. About 30 to 40% of self-oriented perfectionism is inherited. So if you have perfectionistic parents, it's highly likely you'll probably carry some of those tendencies through yourself. But that also leaves a lot for the environment to explain. So it's a mixture of both. And any geographical differences i mean for instance i just saw the that speed train in in japan uh the last what is it uh 50 years the average delay has been less than one second

whilst in the i'm not going to say what happens to trains in the uk but uh they are always on time you know in switzerland everybody's on time uh everything works uh you go to spain everybody's 15 minutes late if if not more yeah is it is it tied to geographies of course look there will be definite cultural differences in perfectionism we don't necessarily we don't again is this is a great thing about perfection in some ways as an academic because the data is very limited so there's a lot of opportunity to explore these research questions what we do know from the data that we've collated is that if you look at self-oriented perfectionism for instance that i self-set need and desire to be perfect well that's really high in the us for example but not so high in european countries uh so the kind of very individualistic focus of

the u.s economy you know the kind of american dream so to speak certainly is impacting on people's psychologies in terms of self-oriented but less so in other areas so we do see some differences that are linked to culture and there's a lot of grounds to suggest that this is a very culturally dependent trait and that's certainly the basis of my book actually is perfectionism is a cultural phenomenon um so we need more data but i'd certainly say that there's strong links between culture and perfection thomas can a perfectionist be married to a non-perfectionist oh uh because you tried right yeah yeah um well i would say it would be tricky not impossible but i think uh there would be a lot of uh clashes a lot of um tensions perhaps but that's not to say it couldn't be

worked through that's not to say that you know love is love at the end of the day and uh but yeah i would say it would be a challenge for sure. Moving on to the second strand of the perfectionist model, what you call the other-oriented perfectionism. So you are perfect and you expect everybody else to be perfect. Yes. So tell me about that. Well, the other-oriented perfectionism is really perfectionism turned out outwards i suppose is what freud would call rejection right so you've got this idea of i'm

pouring myself over hot coals to be perfect and i'm very self-critical when i haven't met that high standard so it's only fair that everyone around me is going to have to carry those same expectations the same pressures with them right like this is this is just a moral question in the mind of the other oriented perfectionist and which is fine and i'm sure we've all experienced another oriented perfectionist very high demands can't tolerate substandard performances and let people know when they haven't performed up to their standard um but it's not necessarily conducive to harmonious relationships see a lot of relationships of oriented perfectionism and interpersonal conflict, for example. In the workplace, it can create tension. In personal relationships, it also can create dissatisfaction with expectations that we're placing on other people that are unrelenting.

So, yeah, it's an interesting form of perfectionism, probably the least well-researched, but certainly exists. We've all experienced it, I'm sure, and can have some negative impacts when it comes to relations. Well, isn't this kind of the description of the boss from hell? Yeah, I would say so. Yeah, there's a lot of high-profile people who I would say have had other oriented perfectionistic tendencies uh steve jobs for instance uh pioneering entrepreneur turned apple's fortunes around clearly a hugely successful guy but also a perfectionistic person and testimony from ex-colleagues have described him as having exceptionally high standards and not being

able to tolerate when things haven't gone quite to plan and that of course has had some good benefits but it also had some negative effects in the workplace around apple and i think that's important to bear in mind that you know other oriented perfectionism can can drive in an organization exceptionally high standards a culture of exceptionally high standards but it does so by fear by a sense that if we don't get it quite perfect we make a mistake then it's going to come down on us like a ton of bricks and and so um i think yes overall it's probably something that to be avoided yeah uh well i've seen some stats which says that um 70 of people who leave the jobs they do it because of the immediate boss.

Yeah. Do you think there's a lot of this micromanagement involved here? I think so. I mean, when people feel like they're under surveillance all the time, when if they make a mistake, there's going to be ramifications, sometimes quite severe, then that stops us from allowing ourselves to be wrong. What does it do to you? Well, it creates in us a sense that, okay, well, we've got to do everything at 100%.

We have to do everything perfectly, essentially. Every single job, every single email, every single project, every single presentation has to be absolutely nailed to the satisfaction of our bosses. And if we slip up, there's going to be problems. And bosses and if we and if we slip up that's there's going to be problems and of course you know we are human beings we're imperfect we do make mistakes uh we fall short um and that's the whole you know it's part and parcel of the learning process you know nobody comes into a job bulletproof and i think if you create a culture where mistakes

are punished and people feel very fearful of failing, then you create a lot of reluctance to take risks, to be creative, to push the boundaries a little bit in terms of what's possible. And all of that, of course, is not conducive to high performance or harmonious relationships. So I have no, it doesn't surprise me that 75% of people leave because of their bosses. I think it's quite stifling. And when we're in environments that allow us to flourish and take risks and take chances and fail, we feel a lot happier and more engaged. Moving on to the third part of the model here, the socially prescribed perfectionism. What is that? Socially prescribed perfectionism is perfectionism that comes from the outside. So yes, perfectionistic people want to be perfect for their own ends. And yes, sometimes they can

project those expectations onto others. But also there's a sense in the perfectionistic people that other people have the same expectations that i have on myself for me so and where does that come from can come from the immediate people around us or it can just come from the environment more generally it's just a a lens through which we view the world which tells us that everybody's watching they expect flawless performances and if i don't meet up to those high and excessive expectations then they're waiting to pounce they're coming for me they're going to criticize and so socially prescribed affections and is perhaps the most extreme form of affections and in some ways it's certainly got the strongest correlation with serious mental health issues and i don't think there's any surprise there if we constantly feel like we're

under surveillance with being watched then we're going to go through the world concealing hiding avoiding and feeling exceptionally self-conscious a lot of shame a lot of embarrassment a lot of guilt when we have shown a chink in the armory so socially prescribed perfectionism certainly is very uh live right now we well you talk you talk about a perfectionist epidemic exactly and this is the exact form of perfectionism that we're seeing rise really really sharply it's very widespread it's on an exponential curve which means it's rising very fast and will continue to rise even faster into the future if we don't do something about it seem to seem to have started around 2005 now what happened around that time i don't do something about it. It seemed to have started around 2005.

Now, what happened around that time? I don't know. That period was very simple. We kind of know what happened. Yeah, there wasn't much going on in 2005, 2006, 2007, was there? But then what happened? Clearly, you know, there was big events around the mid-2000s. We all know what happened. And there was a lot of things going on.

Of course, the economy crashed. We entered into a quite deep recession. So opportunities dwindled. Young people found it harder to get into the workplace. There was more competition for college places. So we start to see an acceleration of societal pressure which makes life difficult uh the response to the crisis of course was lower interest rates money printing which pushed asset prices higher which means rents and property became more

expensive so young people found it more difficult uh to set up stability. You also had technology start to take off at this time too. We had iPhone, for instance, Apple released the iPhone in 2007. But don't you think that's the really main thing here? Yeah, I think so. But I think certainly, look, there's no doubt about it that that day is significant in terms of social media platforms being transported into our lives 24 7 no escape from limitless images of perfect lives and lifestyles that are beamed us almost 24 7 so what so what what does social media do to us well social media creates a scrambled reality a hyper reality so to speak where everybody is curating uh perfect lives and lives into which we feel like we have to

conform we have to match right like that what we see around us is this kind of limitless aura of perfection and so we we not only feel we not only feel that that's desirable i.e that's how we should be living too should be living but also that it's eminently obtainable because everybody else seems to have this luxurious life and lifestyle attractive fit healthy productive and all the rest of it and that if we don't match those excessive expectations those warped expectations that there must be something wrong with us that somehow we must be flawed deficient imperfect and of course that intensifies these perfectionistic tendencies. So look, I've no doubt that social media is certainly a key piece

to the rising socially prescribed perfectionism. But as I write in my book, I think there are other broader macroeconomic factors, which I think we also have to bear in mind when it comes to pressures on young people and those pressures being internalised as excessive. And in order to survive in order to feel like they matter or of worth in that society it's important to be to be perfect and

i think that's what we're seeing in the data well it seems to be i mean there are numbers and research showing the relationship between how much time you spend on social media and your level of happiness and so you would have thought that there was an element of that in there oh sure sure yeah yeah there's a lot of there's a lot of research to show that social media can undermine happiness uh particularly overuse of social media uh the more time you're on there the the less happy you are that's what the data seems to be suggesting um but i think we have to also be very careful to extrapolate from that social media is universally bad. I think there are very enlivening parts of social media that we need to hold on to, bringing about community,

sharing interests, finding out news and bits of information that perhaps we wouldn't have had access to ordinarily. These are really important things. But there is certainly the comparative element of social media, that very visual comparative element that I think is part of the problem. I've seen research lately which seem to indicate that, well, I mean, the results vary a bit, but everywhere from one in three to one in five of young people have psychological problems.

How is that linked to perfectionism? Yeah, I mean, we have to have to be careful to extrapolate too much from the data of course all i've done is done a big wide a very large piece of cohort analysis which is showing that perfectionism is rising over time and what i'm trying to do in the book is say that perhaps there's something underneath that trend which tells us about these more observable outcomes that we're seeing in society, i.e. the links between perfectionism and depression, anxiety, eating disorders and all the rest of it. Perhaps one of the reasons why we're seeing those things increase, rise in perfectionism, rising in lockstep with those things, there's a circumstantial correlation. there's a circumstantial correlation um and i've you know i've talked about why those things are linked but i think also we have to be very careful that there are lots of factors at play and i think

perfectionism might be one of very many now perfectionists um rarely seek help or go to therapy why is that because there's such an intent need to disguise hiding. The base motive for perfectionistic people is to avoid showing any chink in the armoury, to avoid failure, setback, shortcomings. And they will avoid them to such an intense degree that they are happy to sabotage their chances of success. The primary motive is not to be seen to slip up, not to be seen to be vulnerable. primary motive is not to be seen to slip up not to be seen to be vulnerable and so you know when you move through the world uh with that focus and and uh and that priority then of course when things go wrong when you hit setbacks which you will when we encounter grief heartbreak um things that are outside of our control you know when a global pandemic comes along and makes things really tough,

the perfectionist tries to push through those things, tries to put their foot harder on the accelerator to try to use their perfectionism to overcome what's happening to them. Well, of course, that's not a very good way to cope. It certainly doesn't allow us to slow down. It certainly doesn't allow us to seek help. And those things we know are really important in order to recover from those stressful events. So perfection is a bit like anti-resilience in some

ways you know it doesn't allow us to take setbacks and things that we can't control on the chin to you know absorb them to let them in to slow down when we need to it makes us push past these things at all costs and that cost can can be quite significant when it need to. It makes us push past these things at all costs. And that cost can be quite significant when it comes to our mental health. The slightly counterintuitive thing here is that, or you say so in the book at least, that perfectionists are actually not doing better at school

and they are not doing better in the workplace. So they're not more successful generally. How come? Well, there's a very interesting psychology among perfectionists and this is something that we didn't expect to see when we did our studies and yet it came back time and time again and i've called it the perfectionistic paradox because what happens with perfectionistic people is that whenever you tell them to do something for the first time they'll put everything in of themselves into it.

So this is why you see hard work and perseverance associated with perfectionism. These people work harder, they work more hours. In fact, perfectionism is probably correlated with things like workaholism, for instance. We know they do these things. But the moment they encounter challenge is when you see something really interesting happen. So perfectionistic people, when you put them in the lab, you give them something to do. And then at the end, you say, OK, you didn't quite achieve the success on this task. Right. You failed, basically. But it doesn't matter. Have another go.

You can redeem yourself. And what happens is people who aren't very perfectionistic will not really change their effort on the second occasion in fact they'll put a little bit more in perfectionist people do the opposite they just completely withdraw themselves because they felt so ashamed and embarrassed of showing that weakness of not meeting that target that they will completely take themselves away so they feel those feelings again it's really an anxiety management technique taking ourselves away from the anxiety to not feel this thing that's linked to avoidance but it's also linked to things like procrastination too why that's why perfectionism is so strongly correlated procrastination the avoidance of really difficult tasks uh to to manage the anxiety of thinking that we might not succeed this time that's not at all conducive to performance that's um uh that's not conducive to creativity it's not conducive to innovation uh which are all you know things

that companies and organizations really need today in a knowledge economy so yes i think one of the reasons why we don't see very strong links between perfectionism and performance is because perfectionist focus is on avoiding failure rather than shooting for success what i think is really funny here is that we try a lot of people try to be perfect but we just don't like perfect people i mean we don't right we like people who got failures we we actually trust people more when they admit mistakes than if they don't and i just think that's really really odd well okay i'll put that question to you in the in the you've obviously have an esteemed career have you worked in in organizations where that hasn't been the case

that's to say that you felt under pressure to perform to a certain level and that mistakes have been punished and and has has has that created a lot of anxiety in you is it more is it easier for you to work in places where vulnerability is allowed where mistakes are allowed absolutely absolutely i have worked uh places where it wasn't allowed and I was pretty miserable. Yeah. And why? But why was why were you miserable? Is it because you didn't like that culture and you wanted to get out of it? Or is it because of the fear that those cultures instilled about making mistakes? Or was it because it didn't create harmonious relationships?

I think all the above. Micromanagement doesn't sit well with me. I mean, if somebody tells me what to do, I very often would do the opposite. It's probably also a dislike for authority. I mean, being in the army didn't sit particularly well with me either. No, yeah. like for authority i mean uh being in the army didn't sit particularly well with me either no yeah so um moving into the to this area this perfectionism in the organization um what what does it do to a workplace well i think that's a question for you as much as it is for me

because i'm an academic. I mean, I can tell you about cultures and organizations and certain practices that firms have employed that have been successful in addressing these issues. But I don't know what it's like to work in these organizations on a day to day basis. So maybe that's one for you. Like, what do you think these kind of pressures do to you? maybe that's one for you. Like, what do you think these kind of pressures do to you? No, I think it's, I mean, on the one hand, you want to strive for excellence and do really good work.

At the same time, you want to give people the opportunity to make mistakes and, you know, provide that kind of psychological safety, which is important for creativity and so on. So it's a finely balanced thing. But, you know, some companies i think mckinsey has said that they hire insecure overachievers you know kind of perfectionists yeah i mean look there's no doubt that there is a um there is a certain degree of perfectionism that I can understand firms looking for.

It wouldn't necessarily be the fear that's conducive to the performance, but the anxiety that goes underneath some of the perfectionist tendencies can push people really far. I speak from personal experience in this, by the way. I consider myself to be a perfectionistic person all throughout my 20s. I pushed myself well beyond comfort in order to be where I am. But it came at great cost too. And while that's something that perhaps might be great for the organisation or the firm,

it is the short road to burnout for a lot of the individual employees that carry those tendencies into the workplace because it's not sustainable nicola is is you know you can work evenings weekends you can put yourself to all sorts of intolerable pressure under intolerable pressures uh and you can find at the end and at the end of all of that that whilst you may be ostensibly successful in your career that there is something that is taken from you in terms of your mental health, in terms of your time with family, friends and all the rest of it.

And so really, I think for me, it's about balance. It's about understanding that, yes, there are elements of this mindset, if you want to call it that, that are conducive to high performance and can elevate people.

But there are also elements that we need to be extremely cognizant to um sand down to manage to try to create environments that don't emphasize or amplify those tendencies and that's our challenge i think it's about trying to cultivate the excellence that you talk about whilst also making sure that it's sustainable and that people can come to it vitalized, happy, rejuvenated, one of which we know are really important for their lives. It's interesting. I recently spoke with the CEO of Adidas,

and he talks about burnout being a function of people not being themselves, trying to pretend they're somebody else. And I think that's probably related to that as well. So it leads to a lot of burnouts. Now, I try to advocate for bringing half-baked ideas, which is not easy to do if you're a perfectionist, I guess. No. Because the unknown, right?

Like there's too much uncertainty there. You don't know if it's going to work. It's highly likely to fail. That's going to be really tough. And we also try to call things a pilot if we think it may not succeed. So for instance, this podcast, it was a pilot. We didn't know whether it was going to fly. And to kind of take away, to diminish the embarrassment in case it was a total failure,

we called it a pilot. So that's a pretty good way of doing it, I think. I think that's great. And also it calibrates expectations from the very start. Yeah. You know, if you put too much pressure on something flying from the get-go, there is so much that we can't control about these things too. And I think it's really important to make sure that if we want something to be successful, that we have realistic expectations of everybody on the team. But can you think of a successful organization which hasn't been perfectionist?

I can't think of a specific organization, but I know that a lot of organizations right now are wrestling with how to create cultures that are different to how they've been structured in the past as a kind of rank and young performance based outcomes and all the rest of it. I know Google experimented with a very radical idea to pay people to fail, to give people money for taking chances and failing. I mean, that's very radical. what that instilled is is a readiness for people to take chances and most of them aren't going to come off but if one does then that innovation you know could be the next could be the next multi-billion dollar technological tool it could be right um atom bank is experimenting with a four-day weekend and so it was four-day work week in the uk again they're

trying to figure out can we get more from less that's to say that you know yes it sounds radical to take a day away from employees but on those four days are they more focused are they coming to work rejuvenated are they coming to work with uh more productivity essentially and seeing that in a lot of the experience in the four-day week that it seems to be working. That's to say, you can get more for less. And again, that's one environment

that I think says to people that we value your work, but we also value free time. So what's the sweet spot here? What should we target? Because getting something 100% right is very, very expensive, right? And it takes,

the last 10% takes a lot of time and a lot of money and it's tough. So should takes a lot of time and a lot of money and it's and it's and it's tough so should we target like 90% good 85% good 80% good what do you target I mean it's really difficult to put a number on it because what is a single they was 90% good I think the best way to think about it is this look when you do any project at work yeah there's going to be hundreds of ways that are good enough that's to be hundreds of ways that are good enough.

That's to say hundreds of ways you can produce that project, that report that is good enough. That's to say that hits the targets, that provides the client with what they needed and gives some value back to the organization. Hundreds of ways that are good enough. But there is no perfect way because perfect is an impossible outcome. You can be iterating, you can be iterating you can be changing you can be editing to the midnight right and and all the while probably compromising the quality because you you're starting to meddle with with the things that we'll find right so it's really really important to bear in mind i think in an organization that just letting things go

when it's of a level that fulfills what's expected the criteria of what's needed and the expectation of both the firm or the client that's that's the good enough moment to go out and then move on to the next thing and then move on to the next thing you know it's so so important to just have in your your mind uh an ability to let things out into the world because that's that's the thing that stops perfectionistic people uh succeeding it's an inability to just let it go they diva they procrastinate they're over they're over schedule and of course this has massive knock-on implications for the organization and the fact can i ask you a question yes because you're going to ask me a question here about ceos yeah and i'm really interested in that because i i was like oh if you ask me that question i wouldn't be able to answer it but do you do you think in in your world

that in order to be a ceo like to get to the very very top of what is a very elite profession that you have to have a little bit of perfectionism because i don't sense in yourself that you have strong perfectionistic tendencies and yet here you are so I'm wondering your take on this do you think it do you think it's necessary or do you think it's something you could do well you probably know that I'm not a perfectionist because you may have even read my dissertation which I wrote at the your department at the LSE you know what I think it kind of helps not to be a perfectionist, to be a CEO. Because in my mind, a CEO is about setting the direction, deciding which mountains to climb, and rally the troops. And I think the way to rally the troops is through motivation.

It's not about micromanagement. I think it's really counterproductive. And I also think, and this was something that Sam Altman said in the podcast we did with him, if you should not be too prescriptive in what you want people to achieve. You don't want to have two specific targets. You want to tell them the task

and then see what they come up with. And that's the amazing thing. And I see it with our own organization that sometimes you give people a suggestion or a task and they come up with something which is amazing and beyond what you would ever expect was possible. And so if you are too specific, too micromanaging, you would just destroy all that.

You destroy people's creativity. You destroy the ownership of their work and you take away the pleasure and the fun part of work. That's interesting. That's really interesting, yeah. And it's so important for someone like yourself to say that because I think right now we have a lay perception

that you've got to push yourself to the nth degree and that you have to be relentlessly working in order to succeed. And actually what I hear you saying is that sometimes it isn't just about that almost unrelenting pursuit. Obviously you need the hard work, of course you do. But also there's other aspects of getting to the top

that fall outside of that. You see, in a way, I think it's probably, I think it's counterproductive in another way as well. I think it's about, in my mind, managing an organization, it's about seeing the people. And it's about not seeing just the results of what they're doing, but it's trying to see the person, what makes the people tick, thrive,

when are they in the flow, and try to make sure that they are in that situation as often as possible. Now, if you just focus on the results and wanting perfect results, you will just not have time and not have the ability to work with them as people. I think that's very, very important.

I think it's more important than ever before. Yeah. I'm just listening to music to my ears because it's really nice to hear somebody like yourself talking these terms because i think this is a bit of a paradigm shift that needs to occur um that actually you can get you know the folk the focus really is is is is on people right like you know um if you focus too much on productivity and and you know profit margins and all the rest of it then i think you can easily forget that there are people underneath those those margins that

that are doing incredible work to make sure that the company grows year on year on year but you've got to look after them you know you're going to make sure they're in a safe comfortable environment where they can feel free to express themselves their ideas take risk and all the rest of it and i you know i think there's a counterculture occurring but it's it's slow to take take off and it's really nice to hear someone like yourself uh really speaking in glowing terms for those kinds of areas of um productivity if you want well-being, as opposed to just the bottom line. Is there a link between extremely hard work and perfectionism? Do you have people who work extremely hard who are not perfectionist?

Yeah, they do work extremely hard. But again, it goes back to this paradox, right? They work extremely hard in certain circumstances. But do you also know people who work extremely hard who are not particularly perfectionistic yeah of course so people are conscientious people who are diligent people are meticulous you know uh work exceptionally hard is it worked is it linked to grit in any way grit is um an interesting uh i i like what angela duckworth has done with this um uh with this aspect of character and purpose and perseverance it's it's a very um i think it's been extremely

helpful for a lot of people clearly she's a best-selling author people seem to resonate with this this topic and and can see that being gritty resilient being able to um push past adversity all these things are really positive um for performance but i would say also nicolai everything in moderation right there are times when sometimes it's not smart to persevere you know if the project is going down a dead end it's really important you actually know when to quit know when to stop and move on to something else as well so it's like anything perfectionism is is kind of achievements from being taken to an extreme right and and i think it's the challenge of people and organizations to find as you mentioned that sweet spot where's the sweet spot the moderation will be capturing that hard work and that

perseverance but we're also making sure that we're working smart too and that we're we're identifying what's working on the focusing and we're making sure that we're working smart too and that we're identifying what's working and we're focusing and we're making sure that we can identify issues challenges setbacks mistakes and we can put them right you know and that that's the challenge everything in moderation so thomas let's move on now to what to do about it so let's now assume that i'm a perfectionist how should i cope with it well there are many different ways you can think about it from a personal perspective also from an organization's perspective let's talk about it from a personal first the the key thing is to to know that things aren't as bad as what

you think they are in your mind when it's when we when we talk about the reluctance to let it go perfectionists find it difficult to let things go they find it difficult to push yourselves into challenging situations this is also one of the reasons by the way professionals struggle to succeed in their careers because if they put themselves into a situation where they might be judged like presentations or for job promotions they kind of recoil from that because they don't that fear is so paralyzing so it's so so important to know that the consequences of what you're so in fear of like the cons that that that imperfect person that you're living in fear of you try not to make sure that doesn't get shattered you know it's really it's it's really not as bad as you think

when you put yourself out there when you let things go when you do a bad presentation right you're going to get feedback and maybe it's not going to be very good but actually let yourself go through those experiences be courageous in some ways to push yourself out there and do things a little bit out of your comfort zone because you'll find that actually it's okay well you say that but how did you cope with that i mean you you're a perfectionist i mean do you manage to get through these kind of things easily no i don't and and and i still struggle but the the key point to this is that you've got to do it anyway putting a book out into the world for instance it's the hardest thing to do you know

and and the writing it is so triggering for your perfectionism because you want it to be bulletproof and you want it to go out in the world and you worry all the time about the feedback's going to come after you worry people are going to hate it they're going going to hate you. They're not going to like the book. I put it out into the world. I tried to make it as bulletproof as possible. You know what, Nikolai? People still didn't like it. Many people loved it. I loved it. Thank you, Nikolai. I appreciate it. But some people didn't.

And actually, I thought that that was going to be a huge threat. I thought that that was going to be really difficult for me to take. But actually, it isn't. And this is the point I'm trying to make. Just put it out there. The most important thing is to get things done and know that, yes, it's not always going to go well.

There is a good rule of thumb here. Even if you do something which is absolutely perfect and correct, 10% of people, per definition, will not like it. You will always have people not liking what you do. A hundred percent. That's a really good rule to have. You cannot please please everyone and there's always going to be bad feedback there's always going to be criticism and that's and actually you know it in many ways that's a sign that you've been brave enough to put something in the world for somebody to criticize like so it's

it's a reinforcement that this is a really uh difficult and important and achievement and and but you can't experience those feelings unless you get it out there so it's really important to be courageous no vulnerability push yourself forward for things that maybe ordinarily you wouldn't push yourself forward for and learn through that experience it's okay you also talk about self-compassion what do you what do you put in that well that's an important component of being brave, because you're going to encounter situations where things haven't gone quite so well. If you are willing to put yourself out there. So in those moments, you have to then be very clear to yourself that this is part and parcel of a learning process, of a growth process.

And that instead of going in on yourself like your perfectionism would tell you to do how could you be so stupid what were you thinking you need to treat yourself with kindness all the time remind yourself that you are a fallible human being and that sometimes things are going to not go as planned and that's okay this is just part and parcel of life uh there's always next time so you you know on top of being bold and courageous and vulnerable you have to at all times be kind to yourself because you are going to hit setbacks and kindness is way better than christ what parts of perfectionism needs more work and more research those are those are parts of perfectionism nicola this is a very um new area i think the cultural stuff that you talked about

earlier we need way more on this i would love to do cross-cultural comparisons of perfectionism to see where levels are higher or lower. I think that would be a fascinating research question. I think the relationship between perfectionism and performance at work is an important one also to try and unpack. A lot of meta-analytical studies have shown zero relationship there, but I'd like to know why that is. What are the mechanisms? Is it because perfectionists procrastinate? Is it because perfections tend to burn out more is it because they just don't deal with stress as effect as as healthily as non-perfectionistic people again the answer to those questions are still open and i'd love to do more work in that area so cross-cultural stuff perfectionism in the workplace I think these are really important areas of future work

well Thomas it's been great to have you on the podcast there is a Japanese aesthetic philosophy which is called Wabi Sabi which is about the perfect imperfect to celebrate the flaws and the things which are not fantastic perhaps that's where we need to go yeah i mean this is a philosophy that teaches us there's something beautiful in the broken in the fragile

in the in the chinks the curves and the um the harsh edges and that life is finite you know it's we are exhaustible creatures and we're mere mortals at the end of the day and and there's something there's something quite joyous about that actually there's that that knowing those things is incredibly humanizing and i mean i can i completely agree i think this is this is a philosophy that um has tremendous potential uh to help us through those difficult moments knowing that that's just part and parcel of life and sometimes the way things happen and the way things occur is just fate and fate is nothing personal we're just human beings i think this is this is a nice lesson great business big thank you thank you nicolas been a pleasure