Dr. Greg Chasson reveals the double-edged nature of perfectionism—and provides expert strategies for managing it.
You’ll Learn
- How perfectionism differs from high standards
- How inefficiency can make you more effective
- How to deal with another perfectionist at work
About Greg
Dr. Greg Chasson is a licensed clinical psychologist, board-certified cognitive-behavioral therapist, Associate Professor, and the Director of Behavioral Interventions of the Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders Clinic in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Chicago. Over the past two decades, Dr. Chasson has provided cognitive-behavioral therapy for clinically severe perfectionism and has owned and operated two mental health practices.
As an active scholar, Dr. Chasson has authored or co-authored more than 70 scientific publications and one academic book (Hoarding Disorder: Advances in Psychotherapy – Evidence-Based Practice). He also serves as the editor of the scientific journal and the behavior therapist, and he has served on the board of directors for a variety of professional non-profit organizations.
Resources Mentioned
- Book: The Selfish Gene (Popular Science) by Richard Dawkins
- Past episode: 278: The Critical Factors Separating High and Low Performers with Morten Hansen
- Past episode: 482: David Allen Returns with the 10 Moves to Stress-Free Productivity
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Greg Chasson Interview Transcript
Pete Mockaitis
Greg, welcome!
Greg Chasson
Thank you. I’m excited to be here.
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I’m so excited to hear about some of the wisdom you’ve got for us in your book, Flawed: Why Perfectionism is a Challenge for Management. But first, I think we need to hear a demonstration of your beatboxing skills and a segue for how that relates to perfectionism. No pressure.
Greg Chasson
Well, I think it relates to perfectionism in that I stink pretty badly at beatboxing, so it’s a bit testing my perfectionism at heart. Are you really putting me on the spot for this one?
Pete Mockaitis
Well, I mean, I’m curious.
Greg Chasson
All right, I am warning everyone, it is not amazing, but here we go. I don’t know how good that sounds on a podcast, but there you go.
Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m fired up. I kind of want to hear the other lyrics that are kind of getting integrated from there.
Greg Chasson
Yeah, I’m not Rahzel by any stretch of the imagination, so.
Pete Mockaitis
Well, I think you said something there, and I think it’s my own experience, is that it could feel good or even therapeutic for me to do something I’m terrible at and feel okay about being terrible at it in terms of my own relationship to perfectionism. Is that a common thing?
Greg Chasson
Absolutely. It’s a tremendous exercise and it’s something that I think there’s a spectrum of it. You can do things in a goofy silly way, getting on the dance floor, and just being a total goofball and not really caring, or if you do care, doing it anyway, how badly you’re dancing. You can take those principles to a place like work and, I like to say, make mistakes on purpose.
And that is part of the way that I approach perfectionism based on some of the research literature and the treatments that we do for people with really severe cases. But the principles also can really trickle down and be useful for people that are experiencing some levels of perfectionism that might not reach that severe level but still has an impact on their life.
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s cool. And it’s interesting, Greg, when you say severe cases, I think a lot folks will say, “Oh, I’m such a perfectionist.” Could you paint a picture for what a severe case of perfectionism really looks, sounds, feels like in practice?
Greg Chasson
I’m really glad you asked that question because a lot of people don’t really understand what perfectionism is. They sometimes even think it’s a good thing or kind of a cute thing. They might even answer their interview question, “What’s your greatest weakness?” they might say, “Perfectionism.” And, truly, when you see some of the most severe cases, it will change your perspective on what perfectionism is.
I run a clinic at the University of Chicago for behavior therapy for OCD and related conditions. Now, real quick, not all people with OCD have perfectionism, and not all people with perfectionistic tendencies have OCD. So that’s an important distinction. There’s a nice Venn diagram overlap there, and that’s why I see a ton of cases of perfectionism at the severe level. Because when it gets severe, it becomes paralyzing.
People can’t get their work done, their procrastination becomes profound, they’re constantly checking and rechecking and seeking reassurance, thereby sucking in everyone around them, causing resentment and frustrations. So, it really can become very toxic and debilitating to the point where people can’t even get through college or hold down a job.
Pete Mockaitis
My goodness. Okay, so then let’s talk about that Venn diagram overlap between obsessive compulsive disorder and perfectionism. I guess I could see a little bit because when I imagine OCD, I think about, it’s like, I have to triple check, quadruple check, “Did I turn off the oven?” or “Have I arranged these things in just the right way?” or “I just have a feeling, I may know it’s not rational, but if I don’t lock this four times, something terrible might happen.” So that’s what I think of as OCD.
And you could tell me, you’re the expert if that’s an accurate picture of it. And then perfectionism seems, I could see a bit of that overlap in terms of, “Oh, I need to make sure this is just so, or I have a great deal of anxiety about it not being so.”
Greg Chasson
Yeah, you characterized OCD very well. And, really, OCD is defined by two things: obsessions and compulsions, which is inherent to the name. Obsessions are just thoughts, images, or impulses that pop in your head. They feel really alien to you. They feel like they’re trespassing. They’re inconsistent with how you see yourself, your sense of self, your values. And so, in that sense, they’re very distressing, and because of that distress, people do things to try to bring that distress level down. They try to calm themselves and get relief. Those are the compulsions, which I call safety behaviors and lump them into one giant category of compulsions and avoidance and escape behaviors.
These behaviors are done with a function of calming yourself because of your obsessions. And so, when you look at perfectionism, you can see overlap with OCD in the cases in which people are having these intrusive thoughts about needing to do things just right, in just the right way, or getting a just right feeling where it needs to feel just right, or they worry that they’re going to get something wrong even though they know it’s not that important or that they did it correctly, that they’re worried about it anyway and they’re almost obsessing about it.
And when it really feels excessive and inconsistent with what you want to be thinking about and doing, and it’s causing you to do all of these compulsive behaviors, like checking and reassurance-seeking and internet researching, and it really can look a lot like OCD.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. So, I think you’ve painted a picture for what a maybe severe or clinical kind of picture looks like. I don’t know how you define it in terms of a continuum or spectrum in terms of, I think some would like to say, “I’m perfectionistic and it’s a good thing…” but I guess they would define that differently, “…because I have a high standard of excellence and I demand it from myself and from others.” Can you help draw a real clear distinction or guideline for, “Okay, yeah, that’s cool, but here’s where that’s problematic and/or dysfunctional”?
Greg Chasson
So, I think it’s an excellent question, “How do you draw the line?” And I think it’s important to note that perfectionism is not the same thing as high standards or high expectations. Perfectionism is characterized by two primary things. One is excessive expectations. So, these are expectations that most people would find to be beyond what is reasonable or is feasible.
The second piece is that you have a certain level of rigidity to your thinking. You have a hard time being flexible and shifting your gears and moving from one thing to another and being nimble and adapting, and other synonyms that I can’t think of in the moment.
But the idea is that you have those two things together and it’s a really, really problematic recipe, because you have people who are just continuously trying to reach for things that are not feasible, maybe even impossible, and they have a hard time shifting gears when the feedback is telling them, “Look, this is not possible.”
And so, they’re just constantly hitting their head against the wall like a hamster on a wheel. And it’s really very different than having high expectations because high expectations, in and of themselves, are perfectly fine. I would never tell someone not to have high expectations. It’s really the rigidity around it, and then are those expectations unreasonable and infeasible?
Pete Mockaitis
Well, I like that definition a lot in terms of that combination, because you may very well be trying to do something cool, innovative, never before done, and it’s like, “This may very well be impossible, but we know that going in, and if we discover that it’s impossible, we’re not going to flip out about it. We’re just going to say, ‘Oh, shucks. I guess the way we were pursuing that just isn’t going to work. We’re going to have to try something very different in order to pull off this never-before-accomplished thing we’re after here.’”
Greg Chasson
Totally. And so, what you’re describing is the very essence of innovation and risk-taking, and I think perfectionism stifles that more than just about anything. It really puts a dead stop to creativity and innovation and smart risk-taking. In fact, when I give talks to organizations and groups, or even patients, who are struggling, they really struggle with this sort of term that’s been floated out there called “fail forward.” The idea of, “It’s okay to fail. Take those failures and grow from them, do it quickly, and do it a lot, and move forward, and learn from it.”
The problem is, I’ve learned, that nobody knows what “fail forward” means in terms of how to implement it. No one knows what to do in order to fail forward. They get the concept, but it feels almost like a hollow cliche because there’s no framework. So, I think I’ve drawn on from a lot of the perfectionism research literature and some of my clinical work to really develop, I think, the foundation of a fail-forward framework that just hasn’t been explicated yet.
Pete Mockaitis
Intriguing. Well, we must hear that. But first, maybe just to continue getting the context. In your book, Flawed, could you give us sort of the big picture, main idea?
Greg Chasson
The book’s main idea is pretty simple. Perfectionism is not your friend, and it’s not great for your business. It’s not great for your teams. It’s not great for the bottom line. It’s not even great for the culture in which your teams are working. It really has an adverse impact on all of those things, and it’s not to be underestimated. I think we don’t really keep a great eye out for it. And, in some ways, I think the culture and the company environment and the messaging reinforces perfectionism instead of tries to reduce it and open the floor for innovation and creativity.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, then it’s not just an individual problem, but rather it’s a problem across the whole organization, workplace management. Could you maybe paint a picture for how you see that showing up frequently, or if there’s any numbers on just how pervasive and damaging this is to kind of get our arms around the problem?
Greg Chasson
I don’t have data on perfectionism in the workplace, but I can tell you that perfectionism in the population at large is increasing over the generations. So, we’re seeing this increase, I think, it’s in large part because of the achievement culture that has kind of sucked us all in even from childhood. And I think we see some of that extend into the company culture, and the sort of mentality give it your all.
And there’s this fear of making mistakes and not doing your work properly and costing the company, something like costing them money or costing them reputation, and then really worrying about your own status at the company, “Am I going to get fired? Am I going to be seen in a negative light?” And so, there really is a messaging that you can use in your workplace that I think allows people to feel a little bit more open to taking those risks and to making mistakes instead of, essentially, being closed off to those opportunities.
Think of a marketing team with a sales team, and they’re basically creating a whiteboard of all the most impressive sales numbers and sales people for that month, like a star monthly whiteboard, where they go through and they celebrate the top sales and the top salespeople.
The problem with that is that there are going to be people who work their tail off, and perhaps it’s because they didn’t have the right circumstances or they didn’t have the right resources to get the job done, to get on that winner’s list, but they might feel particularly demoralized by the fact that all this praise is being thrown at somebody else and not themselves.
And that really, I think, reinforces an environment of perfect performance that I think can be demoralizing for a lot of people, and that’s not to say incentives and praise is entirely bad. But I think what it does, yes, Pete, I think you have to be careful in terms of how it’s communicated in that kind of environment.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, I’d love to dig into some potential solutions and tips here, maybe both at the individual level and in the organizational managerial level. I’m curious, you mentioned in terms of perfectionism, you’re worried about perhaps losing your job “If I don’t do this just right.” And I’m thinking of a buddy of mine who worked at SpaceX, and so Elon Musk, really, is pretty hardcore and fires people kind of a lot.
And so, part of me thought, “Huh, maybe that is a completely valid, rational fear, or maybe it’s not.” Because I, too, have had the fears that, “Oh, the worst could happen,” but they were not. So, any pro tips on how we kind of get anchored into reality, and if we are catastrophizing, get back in a good spot?
Greg Chasson
I think it’s important to recognize that you’re not going to have all the information you need to be able to understand the situation, and that sometimes you’re going to have an accurate reading of the situation. If you’re working with Elon Musk and you think you might get fired, you might be right. This is the reality of the world. You can’t always predict, and in a lot of ways, anxiety and control go hand in hand.
I think control tends to be highly overestimated. People with anxiety overestimate their control, and so they’re constantly trying to do things to take over the situation and make sure that they can predict what’s coming next. And the problem is most things aren’t predictable or controllable, and so you end up with a lot of anxiety, especially over things that you can’t control.
And I would tell people, use your values as a guide in the situation, figure out what’s really important to you, and then use that as an indicator of which things to take risks on and which not to take risks on, and understand that a risk is a risk for a reason. You might be wrong and be comfortable with the possible end result. If not, then I would be very careful even doing it in the first place. So, I wish I can say that everyone is catastrophizing in these situations, but that’s not true.
Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, I think that sounds very wise in terms of, like, “You’ve done this before, Greg.” Anxiety and control going hand in hand, and a desire to predict what’s going on or to control what’s going on when you can’t. That feels like a potential Holy Grail right there, is if we can develop some comfort and peace with just the hard reality that many things are outside our control, and the future is kind of unpredictable, and we could just kind of do our best to influence things, and the chips will fall where they fall, and then to become okay with it. That sounds like an amazing mental health place to be. If we’re not there, how do we get there?
Greg Chasson
I think that’s exactly right, and it goes in multiple directions. So, I think anxiety is the misperception of having more control than you really have. Whereas, I think depression is the misperception that you have less control than you really have. So, people with depression often don’t think that they can do much to control the situation. They end up getting hopeless, when, in reality, there are some potential things they could do. It just doesn’t feel that way.
Whereas with the anxiety, they’re misperceiving their control. They think they have more than they really do. And so, you really have the seesaw going on, and in the end, both of them are illusions of control. And so, really, we just need to make sure that we’re not letting control, control us. And how do we do that? That was your question.
Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.
Greg Chasson
And, really, I think it is, again, I’m going to keep talking about this, figuring out what are the things that are within your power. Those are the things that you then need to check in with yourself about. And then even though you may have the power to change them, that’s not where the story ends. The story then continues with, “What is worth my efforts? What is worth the attempt to control?” because not everything is.
I have something that I call the emphasis framework, which has three different levels: emphasis A, emphasis B, and emphasis C. And this is really a framework for understanding effort allocation for tasks. So, if I want to do something perfectly, give it my all, 110%, that’s emphasis A. Emphasis B is to just get it done, just the get it done strategy. Doesn’t need to be garbage, doesn’t need to be perfect, doesn’t need to be amazing, doesn’t need to be beautiful.
And then there’s emphasis C, which is not to do it at all. And you might think, “Well, some of those sound better than others. Emphasis A obviously is better than B.” Actually, I take a step back and I’m agnostic to that, judgment free. Because there’s a time and place for all three of those. Emphasis A certainly makes sense if something is very important to you.
Maybe you’re getting married and you want to plan your wedding day. It’s super important to you and your family. Maybe you’re studying to get into law school, and the LSATs, the entrance exam, is really important to you, so you want to put in an emphasis A effort.
Emphasis C is also a totally legitimate strategy. And I never, ever answer the customer satisfaction survey at the end of my call with AT&T. I just don’t because it’s just not important to me, right? I’ve used my values as a judgment call. And so, that was a strategic selection of Emphasis C to protect my time and my resources.
Now, to be honest with you, Emphasis B is what most things warrant most of the time. Not everything can be that important to you at all times and really gets and deserves all of your attention. It’s just not sustainable. And the problem with perfectionism is that people with perfectionism try to emphasis A everything, and what happens is that you can’t do that.
So, what ends up occurring is that they attempt to emphasis A everything and it ends up pushing things aside, and so they end up emphasis C-ing things because they can’t get to it. And so, essentially, their perfectionism has selected their priorities and chosen for them rather than their values.
Pete Mockaitis
Ooh, that’s powerful. This reminds me of insights from our previous guest. David Allen says you could either handle things when they show up or when they blow up, and/or if you don’t, you’re going to just be dealing with whatever is latest and loudest.
Greg Chasson
Absolutely.
Pete Mockaitis
So, like the AT&T survey, that’s there, that’s there right now, they’re asking for it right now, “Oh, okay,” you know, and so you didn’t actually make a choice. It just sort of you happened to be in a spot where they asked for a survey, and you did it. And you could make that choice in terms of, “You know what, I am all about everybody I encounter having the opportunity to learn and grow and improve every time, and so this is in accordance to my values, doing this survey.” Or, you could say, “No, that’s my value, but I don’t think they’re ever going to use my survey, so I will achieve that value better by calling a friend instead with that time saved.”
Greg Chasson
Well said.
Pete Mockaitis
And then we also had a guest, Morton Hansen, who said, “Do less than obsess,” which I think is so perfect in terms of those few things that are emphasis A. And then I guess you’re just going to discover naturally that we’ve got some just hard boundaries in terms of my time and my energy and my availability and my duties and responsibilities. It’s, like, “There’s only so many hours of brilliance I have available to deploy in a week. So where are they going to go?”
Greg Chasson
And, especially for someone that might be in the sandwich generation, dealing with kids and parents, juggling a job and family, I mean, this is a tough life sometimes. There’s a lot going on. It’s hard to keep up and you have to be judicious about where you allocate your time and energy. And that’s the problem with perfectionists. They have a really hard time doing that.
Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, but I think it’s so liberating if you sort of define that up front and in advance. I remember one time, I think I was in college, I kept getting in the habit of picking too many goals or tasks on the to-do list for a spring break, or a summer break, or a winter break, and so I just list all the things I just felt like I had an expectation to do them. But then at the top of the list, I wrote, “I am in no way committed to achieving all of these things,” and I felt amazing. It’s like, “Okay, this is just a menu of things I might choose to do, and that’s fine, and it feels great this way.”
Greg Chasson
I would maybe even say that you got more done than you would have had you not.
Pete Mockaitis
I think so, yeah.
Greg Chasson
Right. Because it puts you in a much better mindset. This is the thing. I call perfectionism the irony problem, because the more you try to perfect something, the more you end up kind of ruining it and making it not perfect. I have a story I tell about when I was a kid where I was working on a picture of Spider-Man, drawing Spider-Man, and he has this really very specific web design on his costume.
And I would just keep trying to get this right, and I would sit there and just erase time and time again, and I was so frustrated. And by the time I was done, I had completely destroyed this picture, completely annihilated it. I mean, Spider-Man looked like he had spaghetti arms by the time we were done. And it was a perfect example of how perfectionism is so ironic.
Pete Mockaitis
That’s powerful. All right, Greg, any other top pro tips, do’s and don’ts on perfectionism at the individual level before we shift gears to the managerial level?
Greg Chasson
Yeah, make mistakes on purpose. I use a framework called exposure therapy, which is a terrible name but it really is a gold standard treatment. It is highly supported by the research literature. It’s extremely effective, and you could use the principles to fight perfectionism. And this really requires you to, in a systematic way, face some of the things that are anxiety-provoking about not being perfect, and often that is making mistakes.
And so, I will have people make mistakes on purpose, and I know it sounds ludicrous, but I will start somewhere doable, and these will be smaller mistakes from our perspective, maybe not from the perfectionist’s perspective, and they might do something, like sign off their name with a typo, or send it to the wrong Jim in Accounting, something to that effect, and sitting with the anxiety that they really botched this up, and that they have to learn that they can tolerate that anxiety, that they won’t crumble. And maybe also learn that it’s not as catastrophic as they thought it would be.
Pete Mockaitis
I like that a lot. and I’m imagining all the ways that could actually be kind of fun, and you could start with like the lowest of stakes, like you’re at a restaurant, and instead of ordering a chicken sandwich, you asked for a “sicken chandwich,” you know, just like mixing up a couple letters, completely inconsequential, and then just sort of go. Is that your recommendation, sort of tiny bit and then a little more, a little more, a little more, a little more?
Greg Chasson
Yeah, that’s a great example. The problem is, the person with perfectionism typically doesn’t find it particularly fun or enjoyable. They tend to be pretty upset about these kinds of things because, to them, this is their worldview. We might find it fun because we realize that the stakes are just not what they think that they are. Whereas, they’re in that world and they’re really struggling. But I do think that starting at that level, that kind of mistake is what I’m envisioning.
I’m not expecting you to go accidentally take $20 million from your company and throw it in the garbage. That’s not what I’m talking about. These are things that are relatively tiny from most people’s perspective, but from a perfectionist’s perspective – which is hard to say really fast, 10 times, perfectionist’s perspective – I really think that you can loosen up their thinking. It’s about that rigidity. It’s about the risk-taking and fighting that fear of failure and learning from it.
Pete Mockaitis
All right. Understood. Anything else at the individual level you want to make sure to mention?
Greg Chasson
I think it really just takes a little bit of collaboration and making sure that the person has some insight around their perfectionism. It can be sometimes difficult to approach an individual with perfectionism and have that conversation. This is probably the number one question I get, “How do I approach so-and-so with this perfectionism?” And in an organization, you have to be careful right because it’s a different setting than if this was a friend or a romantic partner or a teammate. It’s a little sticky.
And to approach them, I often tell people to focus on the distress. Don’t focus on what you think is ridiculous about it, or that they’re not understanding, or that they’re being rigid. Instead, focus on the fact that they are probably suffering at some level with anxiety or frustration around the worldview that they have just been pounded with since they were a kid, feeling like they can’t take a breather, they can’t stop. They have to do this perfectly. That almost always comes with tremendous anxiety. And so, being able to tap into that and say, “Look, this anxiety, you don’t have to experience it like this.”
Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Okay. Well, so now let’s think a little bit about some management, or team organizational level things. What are some top do’s and don’ts there?
Greg Chasson
I think the top do is to make sure that you’re communicating what perfectionism is, and I would do this very explicitly. I don’t know that I would do this in a subtle way. I would recommend talking about perfectionism and fear of failure, if you need to use language that’s a little bit more understandable, and talking about how that kind of a culture can really lead to stagnation, and how, “Here are the things that we encourage in our workplace.”
Taking calculated, intelligent risks, get the support of the people, talk it over the risk and what it might mean, but don’t hesitate if it’s actually an idea that could lead to the latest innovation and could take this company to new heights. So, I really think that this failure fear is something you could address very specifically in an employee handbook or in your mission statement or values, and you could really hammer it home.
Of course, that would then need to be embodied in your behavior in the organization. I think everyone can sniff out a perfunctory mission statement or value and it doesn’t actually translate. But if you could actually translate that with the way that you are responding to people’s mistakes, encouraging them to take big leaps, these are the kinds of things you can do at the cultural level that I think would help protect against perfectionism.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay. I’d also love your view in terms of in a world in which we have public recognition, like, “Here’s the top five sales people,” or whatever, how do we think about that in terms of providing…? In some ways that incentivizes competing against your teammates and colleagues, and sometimes folks find that quite motivating, “I want to win and be number one.” But maybe that is problematic, and even more so for perfectionists. How do you think about motivating, recognizing, and these kinds of things?
Greg Chasson
Yeah, great question. It really depends very much on the individual, at the individual level. For some people, that kind of system really can motivate them and move them forward, especially if they’re flexible in their thinking and anti-perfectionistic, because they’re not always going to meet every goal. They’re not always going to be the top. And if you’re not, you need to be able to pick yourself up quickly and try to learn from it and go do better.
The perfectionist really struggles with this. They really struggle with getting positive feedback. They might be told that they’re the best at what they did this month, but they will find a way to not be happy with it. It’s part of the perfectionism is that they’re generally not satisfied with their performance. They’re the type of student that will argue when they got a 99% on an assignment instead of a hundred.
And so, when you have these kinds of public displays of who’s done the best in a way that you think will motivate your employees, it very well could motivate some, but the perfectionist is in the corner beating themselves up, even if they’re number one on the list. So, it really isn’t a one-size-fits-all, and I think it’s really important for people in management and leaders to understand that not everyone is going to respond well to that kind of a mechanism, and that you might need to be a little careful about tailoring it to that perfectionist in the corner.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so, then what might be some superior ways if we have a mix of perfectionists? And maybe I should have asked this earlier Greg, what proportion of us, U.S. professionals, are, in fact, perfectionists?
Greg Chasson
A very difficult question to answer because it depends on how you define that and where you draw the line. I’ve seen estimates from a quarter, 30%. I’ve seen some samples up to 80, 90%. I think the one thing I could definitely say with longitudinal data is that we are seeing an increase in cohorts over time. So, there is something going on that is making us more perfectionistic over time in terms of cohorts.
So not that I’m necessarily getting more perfectionistic over time, but 18-year-olds are getting more perfectionistic over time.
Pete Mockaitis
Intriguing. Okay. Well, so if we operate with that assumption that in a team situation, perhaps a quarter plus of folks are perfectionistic, how might we want to do some managing and some communicating differently? One thing was to be just very explicit, it’s like, “This is what’s going on.” And then how about some of the day-to-day stuff in terms of how we interact with folks?
Greg Chasson
So, one thing that I recommend is something that would drive people bonkers, but I think it really could be useful for reinforcing a flexible mentality in the workplace. So, if you’re in a work setting where people are extremely stuck on routine, everything is the same every single day, “There’s this task A, task B, task C,” and it’s sort of done in the way at the same time every day, I tell people to use a random work schedule to get people loosened up and flexible and learn that they can pivot and adjust.
So, when someone comes in at random, you pick which tasks they do in which order, assuming that that’s feasible or possible. Sometimes you task-require one is done before the other, but you can sort of randomize this in a certain way. And the bottom line here is to really reinforce this idea of flexibility. The more you can do things that push this idea of flexibility and get them to practice, the more, I think, you’re going to benefit from people being nimble and being willing not to get stuck on the hamster wheel.
Pete Mockaitis
You know what’s funny, Greg, is I’ve done that in my own world, just with my own to-do list with a roll of the dice, and I actually find I liked it because it just sort of eliminated the, “Huh, what should I do next? Well, maybe this or maybe I’m feeling a bit more energetic around here.” It’s like, “No, we just cut through all of that. Number six, okay. Doing number six.”
Greg Chasson
Exactly. In one chapter of my book, I call it process paralysis. It’s when perfectionism really gets a hold of the process, the planning. So which steps do you do in which order? And how do you be efficient versus not getting stuck being inefficient? And so, you get stuck on this, and it really could become paralyzing. And what I talk about is sort of the flexibility of sometimes you choose to be inefficient on purpose just to get it done, just to move forward.
And this is where I use that emphasis framework. Instead of emphasis A, the planning, sometimes you just got to emphasis B the daylights out of it, and like you said, roll dice and see what happens and go for it. And I think if you can start to do that more and more, you will start to loosen. Your rigidity will start to loosen. And I think if that culture is put forth in the workplace, you really can support people who are really working on that.
Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear some of your favorite things?
Greg Chasson
Yeah, a couple of things, if you don’t mind. The first is something I didn’t get a chance to talk about, which is other-oriented perfectionism. This is where you tend to project your perfectionistic standards onto other people instead of yourself. And I dedicate a couple of chapters to this, both in terms of how to deal with a coworker who has other-oriented perfectionism and also how to deal with a boss who might have some perfectionistic tendencies.
Now, I really focus on something called “moralism” because sometimes our perfectionism really gets us stuck on morals. “That person is being immoral,” and you end up really getting stuck trying to correct people based on what you think is correct and moral or not moral, and it really can look self-righteous, and that is another problem that we see in the workplace.
This is the person in your workplace who you find is obnoxious or policing people based on what they think is correct or okay, and that moralism sometimes can come from a place of perfectionism. And so, I often encourage people in the workplaces where I give talks or I train, is keep an eye out for some of these scenarios where you have this toxic interpersonal dynamic. There could be perfectionism at play.
The second piece that I would like to add here is that perfectionism is not all bad. I want to be very clear. I would not recommend ridding perfectionists from the workplace. I want to highlight that perfectionism comes with some tremendously positive characteristics. Now, I personally don’t think that those characteristics depend on you also being perfectionistic. So, I think you could work on your perfectionism and not lose all those positive qualities. But there are things like loyalty and conscientiousness.
And if there’s one ingredient I would want in one of my employees, it’s conscientiousness. Honesty. They tend to have some honesty that you might not find in other people. They’re detail-oriented. These are some great characteristics that you want in your employees. They’re the hardest working people that are on your teams.
And I would be remiss if I didn’t bring that up because I don’t want people to make this a witch hunt. I would absolutely hire a perfectionist, and my goal would be to leverage their strengths and to work on helping them with their difficulties.
Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?
Greg Chasson
I think my favorite quote really is about control. Shocker, right? It really is this idea of breaking the illusion of control, that we need to see when control is actually controlling us, because that’s when we need to do something about it.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite study or experiment or piece of research?
Greg Chasson
Some of my favorite research is around this idea of doubt and uncertainty, which is very close to this concept of anxiety and perfectionism. And there has been a ton of research that shows, and I love this, it’s so paradoxical, the more you check something, the more you doubt it. You know, checking the stove that we turned it off, or checking that we didn’t make a mistake, or checking that we pushed record on our podcast, these kinds of things actually make us doubt even more than have we not checked in the first place.
Pete Mockaitis
You know, Greg, this is so meta in real time, but when you said record on the podcast, I did check, and then having checked, I felt less sure than I did before you even mentioned it.
Greg Chasson
You’re embodying the very research finding that I described. Exactly.
Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite book?
Greg Chasson
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, and it flipped my entire understanding of human nature and biology upside down on its head. And I would say that that book has transformed me more than any other book that’s out there.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And habit?
Greg Chasson
My favorite habit is something I tell my kids because they have a hard time with it, but having systems at home so that you’re not losing your keys and your wallet because I’m finding them all over my house. I’m sure any parent can understand that. And so, my favorite habit is just having these systems in place so that I never lose my stuff.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks, and you hear them quoted back to you often?
Greg Chasson
It really is this idea of anxiety being a misperception of control. I know I keep pounding that home. But that’s the thing that has resonated the most with people, that anxiety is overestimating control, whereas depression may be underestimating control. And when you can start to calibrate that a little bit better, you can start to see yourself lift from anxiety and depression.
Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?
Greg Chasson
I think the best way to get in touch and to learn more about the message that I’m trying to spread, the movement I’m trying to create around perfectionism, is to join my mailing list, which you can do on my website at GregChasson.com. And I’d love to hear from people, so feel free to email me and let me know what you think of the podcast. Let me know what you think of the book and content that I put out there on the blog and the website. And if it’s something of interest to you for your organization, I do love coming and spreading my message and helping organizations get unstuck from their perfectionism and fear of failure.
Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?
Greg Chasson
Make mistakes on purpose. That’s what I would say. Go and lean in to making mistakes, and learn from opportunity and innovate.
Pete Mockaitis
All right. Greg, thank you for this deeply flawed conversation.
Greg Chasson
Deeply, deeply flawed, I’m sure. Thank you very much for having me.
