Thos article you are about to read will be littered with errors, spelling errors, grammatical errors, things that don’t read well, and many other things I wish I could rewrite.
This is deliberate, because the article is about our need fo perfection, and the unhappiness it brings.
In my coaching work, I see this need for perfrection permeating almost evey aspect of our working lives.
As such, it seems to come into nearly every piece of coaching work I do in some form or other.
My coaching falls into two main camps. Organisational work and Individual Work. The line between the, is easily blurred. I may be coaching a leader, a team, a manager, a salesperson, a trader they all have an organisational aspect, and also a personal aspect.
Underlying this is a need to be seen as perfect, or as perfect as can be. No one wants to admit they made a mistake, everyone appears to be looking to blame someone else, good enough is never err, good enough!
This feature of orgnaisations, organisational life, and modern life is one of the major reasons wby so may people, business and organisations fail, and why so many people are unhappy and disillusioned. It is also why in my opinion we are reaching near epidemic levels of mental health.
Even as I write this, I am thinking of the number of unhappy red face sympbols are going to appear on my WordPress page when I try to enter this artivle into my blog. Perhaps its not a bad thing, but the Sad red face symbol is perhaps symbolic of our times.
It is telling me that the article is not perfect in any way. It will be read badly, and will have poor SEO visibility. — Well tough!!!!
Shit happens!!!!.
I had a conversation with a senior manager in one organisation recently. He is being made to take the blame for something which happened on his watch. But the thing that happened was completely unforeseen, he could not possibly have stopped it. — yet in the organisation, someone has to take the blame.
Why! Why does someone always have to take the blame???????? Shit happens. –
The Behavioural Economist (Sorry Americans — I’m keeping the British ‘U’ in Behaviour, despite what my spellcheck tells me) Gary Kline wrote a brilliant article just recently about how an American footballer was being blamed for a play which effectively cost the San Francisco 49ers the game.
The article can be seen here . It is called ‘Costly Mistakes’ and focuses on ‘Error-Phobia’.
In the article, Klein talks about how the Quarterback’s error actually had no outcome on the result of the game, but the San Francisco head coach and the media focused on the Quarterback’s costly mistake.
I meet this attitude so often in organisations, its become pervasive. And once it starts to become pervasive, it takes over and slowly affects the organisation. Ultimately leading to the traumatised and failing organisation.
The Biggest Thing to Fear, is Fear itself.
I don’t know if I have the quote itself exactly right, I am sure there is some perfectionist out there looking to pull me up on tht. And if they do, that is Ok, I’m not perfect, far from it.
The idea of being perfect, of getting every call right in a world increasingly complex and uncertain is ridiculous.
VUCA stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambigous. It has been increasingly used to describe the modern business environment. — Another term increasingly used is to describe many of todays’ problems is ‘Wicked Problems’. A wicked problem has many dimensions, and no clear right answer.
Think about that, no clear right answer. And yet people expect their managers and leaders to get things right. And if they don’t they remove them. — Wrong! Sometimes you may be removing people who are getting you closer to getting the right answer. —
Failure is not an option!!1
Getting it more Right than Wrong.
In a VUPA world, getting it more right than wrong is the right way to go, if you pardon the irony.
I am adding a link to an excellent short video clip form Business Insider, which talked about the success of the big 4 High tech firms. Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook. It explains why failure is an important aspect of success for these firms. — The clue is in the title of th artiicle : ‘There’s a psychological reason why being open to failure often leads to insane success.’ — It explains why failure is an important aspect of success for these firms. — They literally embrace failure as an inevitable part of failure.
So ditch the blame game, stop chasing perfect, its unobtainable. Embrace a new attitude where perfect is imperfect, and imperfect is the path to success and happiness.
As I finish off. I could apologise ofr the dreadful grammar and spelling and punctuation. But I hey I got this done in less than 20 minutes instead of the 2+ hours it would usually take me. — Screw-it, im not even proffreading it. –
If you enjoyed this article (despite the errors):
You may enjoy some of our other articles which explores a range of themes related to Human Performance in Financial Markets. This includes, ‘It’s Not the Market You Overcome, It’s Yourself‘ and other posts on our Articles Page.
We are passionate about working with those who want to better themselves.
If you are curious about any aspect of our work, or would like to understand more about how coaching could help you or your business: Then please email me at steven.goldstein@alpharcubed.com.
