[00:00:00] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: Hey Pete,

[00:00:01] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Hi, Dani.

[00:00:02] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: how are you?

[00:00:03] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: I'm great, thanks, how are you?

[00:00:05] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: I am good. What are we talking about today?

[00:00:08] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Today, Dani, we are going to be talking about perfectionism.

[00:00:12] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: That's been the shadow that's been following me around my whole life.

[00:00:17] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: I can relate to that too. I feel like this is going to be a bit of therapy.

[00:00:21] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: Let's get into it.

[00:00:23] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Let's, 

[00:00:24] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: We usually start with a definition.

[00:00:26] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah.

[00:00:27] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: What is the definition of perfectionism?

[00:00:30] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: I've actually got a couple of definitions here. Dani, I just googled perfections and the first one that came up was from the American Psychological Association. And it says perfectionism is a noun and it's the tendency to demand of others or of oneself an extremely high or even flawless level of performance in excess of what is required by the situation. And then the Cambridge Dictionary one is similar but it says the wish for [00:01:00] everything to be correct or perfect. And this last part of that definition is made me chuckle. Obsessive perfectionism can be very irritating.

[00:01:13] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: That gets to the point, doesn't it?

[00:01:16] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: yeah. I'm glad it made you chuckle as well. I had to share that with you and the listener. So there we go. There's a couple of definitions and I think in either one of those there's heaps. So if we put both together there is so much to, unpack. But Yeah

[00:01:30] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: I agree with all of those definitions. 

[00:01:33] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: Taking that definition into into another level there's two camps of thinking. One is that is a great thing, right? Perfectionists are high achievers. , at some point, we were all coached to say, , when you were asked in an interview, what's your weakness? We were all coached to say, I'm a perfectionist.

[00:01:54] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: So there is a, there's a camp of thinking that it's a good thing and then there's a camp of thinking that it's a bad thing. It's [00:02:00] actually both, and here's why. there's some conversation about there being two forms of perfectionism, what we call adaptive perfectionism and maladaptive perfectionism.

 Adaptive perfectionism is. You've got a high goal that you've set for yourself. You're pursuing excellence, but you're making progress towards those things , It's pursuing excellence without letting setbacks and failures hold you back.

[00:02:30] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: So that's one form of it.

[00:02:32] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: The other form is, and this is the unhelpful type of perfectionism, and this is where you have this unhealthy obsession of everything being flawless, if you're always pursuing flawlessness in everything, you're chasing something that cannot be achieved.

[00:02:52] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: It can be phased as a villain.

[00:02:55] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: But there's two sides to it.

[00:02:57] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: yeah, I love that. Thanks for expanding and giving us a couple of [00:03:00] labels. The adaptive and maladaptive, those are nice words to describe the helpful and unhelpful. And I guess maybe we were, we're chuckling the definitions, seeing, and seeing this conversation as being a bit therapeutic I'm sure because I think we both in our past and presence, probably in our futures as well, experience maladaptive where we get,, stuck on something because, we fall into the trap of getting too attached to the unattainable,

[00:03:28] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: okay, I've just got a couple more maybe definitions and these are, I'm not sure if these are actual, you might be able to help me, but from my experience and I guess self identifying as a as a perfectionist and I'm doing my best to be a recovering perfectionist. This is a relatively recent revelation to me in my life. And that's because, like you were saying, that a more common definition of perfectionism is someone who is producing things and, producing things that [00:04:00] are, very good, are excellent, even though, to other people, they might be excellent pieces of work, but to the perfectionists themselves, they're not they're not as good as they could be. So my kind of mental model of a perfectionist is somebody who's producing lots of things or producing things. Whereas I I realized that my, my perfectionist streak was stopping even getting there. My, my perfectionist side of my personality. It means that I'll think of an idea I'll create it in my imagination quite often instantaneously, and then my perfectionism basically stops me going any further with that because somewhere along the lines I've learned or realized that anything that I produce in reality is not going to, actually ever be as good as the idea I've just had in my head. So my perfectionism, rather than coming in and coming out as someone who's, producing loss prolifically working obsessively to craft something that is amazing and mine actually manifests as [00:05:00] not doing a lot, because I stop before the ideas go and you get out of my head. I don't know what the official definition for, I, and I haven't spoken to a number of other people about this, but fortunately there are other people who have my. Of perfectionism might manifest for them in that way, and other people, and whose perfection manifests in the kind of prolific output and style.

[00:05:21] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah, but for me, certainly my kind is perhaps more maladaptive than adaptive. 

[00:05:28] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: In this case that you're describing,

[00:05:29] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: perfectionism is getting in the way, that's maladaptive, right? Where I really don't want perfectionism to get a bad name is 

[00:05:38] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: that, Should be pursuing excellence. 

[00:05:41] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: We should have high standards, right? We 

[00:05:43] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: should be working and striving towards some sort of betterment.

[00:05:47] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: When that becomes all encompassing and it becomes that we are so paralyzed by making sure that pursuing [00:06:00] excellence happens with perfection, that's when it's maladaptive. 

[00:06:04] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: And one way to think about that is we have to recognize that We are, as humans, we are imperfect, we're fallible, and we live in a very imperfect world. Ideas are always, ideal how much you plan something, no matter and how well it's planned, the way it's executed and the way it lands in the real world is always going to be different because, you're taking something and putting it into an environment that is dynamic, that's full of imperfection.

[00:06:38] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: So there, there always has to be room for error. Now, there are things that depending on what you're doing and what the idea is, perhaps if you're building airplanes, the room for error is Much smaller, whereas if you're designing a new business process the room for error doesn't have [00:07:00] to be to the degree of if you're building an airplane.

[00:07:02] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah,

[00:07:04] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah, definitely that's a helpful way to expand on perfectionism and maybe then, just to come back to the reason I share my realization was or is is so that other people who go on perfectionism is all about people who are producing prolifically and continually, iterating and burning the midnight oil and burning themselves out trying to get something they've created absolutely perfect. I didn't realize that what I was essentially experiencing, what was stopping me creating was this different kind of perfectionism. So I just wanted to let other people know so that maybe other people have got. Maybe that helps other people go, Oh yeah, this is, that's me or part of me. Yeah,

[00:07:42] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: It's unrealistic to think like I always refer to myself as a recovering perfectionist

[00:07:47] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: because even though I'm It's something that's always going to be, that's just how I'm wired. Like [00:08:00] I care about things being flawless.

[00:08:03] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: and I won't, I don't like, I've 

[00:08:05] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: stopped. It's just something that I've had to accept about myself. That's just how I'm wired

[00:08:12] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: there's lots I can do to manage it so that it doesn't become a paralyzing factor.

[00:08:19] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: yeah. And maybe to continue that kind of reframe or, I think there's even more we can do to turn it from an inhibitor and something that holds us back to a superpower that can help us, actually, a difference change things. Did we stumble into the why or

[00:08:37] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: I think we stumbled into the why, cause

[00:08:40] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: Think so why are we talking about perfectionism?

[00:08:43] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: yeah.

[00:08:44] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: The why of the perfectionism is

[00:08:47] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: There's a relationship between perfectionism being afraid to make a mistake, being afraid 

[00:08:51] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: to fail, 

[00:08:52] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: yeah,

[00:08:53] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: which if you are in the space of innovating, creating change, really anything, [00:09:00] any kind of problem solving where you've got to take something in the current state and transform it into something different, the room for failure exists.

[00:09:11] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: So perfectionism in those scenarios can be very crippling.

[00:09:16] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: In organizations a lot where there is this ideal state of where you want to be or this ideal state of, we're experiencing this problem and we want to make this problem go away and you're looking for perfect solutions.

[00:09:35] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: And that doesn't exist rather than saying let's try a few different things and see where we get to like we keep, we stay in this constant state of ideation. Because we're too afraid to go, okay, here's a, here's 50, 000 ideas. Let's just pick a few and go try something.

[00:09:54] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: yeah, or yes, either a constant state of ideation on the one hand, sounds enjoyable to me, [00:10:00] just because I like coming up with ideas and exploring ideas I think also common is not a constant state of ideation, but a constant state of. Procrastination actually on making decisions.

[00:10:11] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: In most organizations, I bet there's one or two almost infamous initiatives that just go through cycle after cycle of conversation after conversation, and, up and down the organization, somebody not, decisions not being made to go ahead and implement. Wherever's being discussed because of this kind of organizational So yeah, it's that's, for me, that's not ideation. That's like a a decision making postponement which is less less fun. Not, getting stuck in any stage and without actually producing something and putting it into the world where the real. Answer lies is painful for me, that's another sign of perfectionism a maladaptive perfectionism where it's paralyzing the organization, sometimes grinding it to a [00:11:00] halt because one particular important initiative the pressure comes on, the fear goes up, and people's hidden inner perfectionist starts to manifest and yeah, nothing happens.

[00:11:12] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: Ideation is in my view, ideation is the easy part, right? It's really fun and easy to sit around and go, Oh, we could do this. We could do that. We could do this. We could do that. And it all feels safe because it's just talk.

[00:11:28] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:30] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: And I think the reason that, and I'm not diminishing ideation, by the way, like it is an important thing and we need to do it, but ideating for the sake of ideating or ideating because we're afraid to do anything else, isn't productive, right?

[00:11:45] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: Ideation has its place and it's the easier part of problem solving, 

[00:11:49] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: sitting around and talking about what we could do is easy, 

[00:11:52] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: perfectionism can also influence your ability to ideate. Because [00:12:00] you want to make that idea perfect before it comes out of your mouth or before you share 

[00:12:06] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: it. The problem with that is that then you end up investing a lot of mental energy and physical energy and, time, money, all of those things for something that may end up not being a good idea.

[00:12:20] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: Whereas I always preface my ideas with, this is me thinking out loud. 

[00:12:27] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:12:27] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: I get to the end of this sentence, this might be the stupidest thing that I've ever said.

[00:12:33] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: But the point isn't that everything that comes out of my mouth isn't going to be a brilliant, sometimes I do come up with really stupid ideas 

[00:12:40] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: and that's okay. However, if I'm operating in a sense of perfectionism and I'm really embracing that maladaptive form of perfectionism, I won't say those stupid things.

[00:12:54] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: What happens is we know that how ideation works is that [00:13:00] we need a lot of Ideas before we could find a few good ideas. And sometimes and actually scratch that most of the time,

[00:13:11] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: Crazy, wild ideas end up sparking the solution, I've seen this happen time and time again. When we are ideating or I'm ideating with client team, clients or teams within organizations that I'm working with, that somebody says something that. Everyone goes, that is crazy.

[00:13:31] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: And then a little while later, somebody will say, actually, if I think about what Peter said, and if we did this and that, that might be, and that's how.

[00:13:41] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: So one way that perfectionism robs us is

[00:13:45] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: We don't let our ideas formulate.

[00:13:48] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:13:50] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: In saying that though, Ideation is still the easier part of problem solving because you're just talking and nothing is really happening. So if you get [00:14:00] over the barrier of, I'm just going to stay all the stupid things that come to my head and something may, there may be something good in here. It's easier than, okay, I'm going to now take one of these things that I've said and go do something with it.

[00:14:12] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: So when you move from ideation to prototyping or experimenting, whatever you're going to call it, that is the scary part. That is the part that takes guts. That's the part that you're like. I'm probably going to fail. And again, this is where I think the perfectionism really starts to dial up and we get paralyzed because you're like, okay, if I tried this, these things could happen, but if I tried this could happen, but this could happen, but this could be, we play this, what if game and not, and this is not the, what if from a design thinking perspective, it's the other, what if game, which is catastrophizing.

[00:14:49] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: Right.

[00:14:50] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Everything you're saying, Dani, I think I can definitely relate to both from a, a personal experience point of view, but also, teams of people [00:15:00] are made up of individual people. And likewise, organizations are made up of groups and teams. I think what you're describing, This perfectionism, maladaptive perfectionism can manifest in a whole organization even without every single person in that organization having perfectionist tendencies so yeah the, Yeah, so it's an interesting, probably common situation where where that happens. It makes me think of this phrase, and I can't remember where I first came across it, but this idea of failures, there's two different failures of commission and failures of omission. So failures of commission, in other words, failures of commission thing failing by doing is actually much more productive, healthy, better than a failure. a failure of omission. In other words, it's better to fail by trying something than it is to have a failure of just not doing anything.

[00:15:56] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: And that's what you're talking about here is we get

[00:15:57] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: And not stuck in the fear [00:16:00] zone of being afraid to try something. And I actually think in an organizational, maybe even an individual level, but definitely I've seen this at an organization where that, that, that kind of getting stuck and the fear of failure. means that we stick to defaults.

[00:16:17] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: So it's a strange kind of link between striving for perfection, wanting to create something excellence, and almost for that very reason delivering mediocrity because we get we, as an organization, we've become collectively fearful of trying something new.

[00:16:40] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: yes,

[00:16:40] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Does that resonate?

[00:16:41] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Does that, does my crazy theory making sense to you? Do you see that same sort of thing?

[00:16:46] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: absolutely. So 

[00:16:49] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah. 

[00:16:51] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: actually that led me to want to do 

[00:16:53] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah. 

[00:16:55] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: and really sparked my interest in getting a PhD and doing the research [00:17:00] work what happens is, we default to something that we know, right? This is why it's really hard to drive change, because when we are thinking in that perfectionist mindset, the thing that is the safest, the thing that we know will work is the thing that you're already doing.

[00:17:27] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: So anything that moves beyond the tried and true feels too risky. There's an opportunity to fail. So let's not do it. Or what you end up doing is, okay, I am going to go do this, but I'm going to do it so perfectly. So I'm going to spend 10 years doing something, perfecting it before I share it, before I put it out into the world, before we do anything with it.

[00:17:55] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: In contrast if you. Dial down the perfectionism and you go, look, [00:18:00] this is a good idea. It may or may not work, but we won't know that till we try. And we're going to try it. We're going to learn, we're going to tweak, and we're going to just go with it. In that 10 years, you're going to have made a lot of progress.

[00:18:14] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: Whereas and look, maybe in the 10 years, there's not a perfect solution, but I guarantee you action will lead to some progress. Rather than nothing. And we need to come back to, I know we talk about how we created this podcast a lot, and this is a really good example of it because you and I talked about creating a podcast.

[00:18:37] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: I want to say for a good year. Before we actually did it. So the podcast is now two years old. It could be three years old.

[00:18:48] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah. Yeah. If only we'd recorded all those conversations that we're having about doing a podcast and then started talking about other things that could have been podcast episodes. Yeah. Heh 

[00:18:57] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: and I really think about that and I think it's such a good [00:19:00] example. 

[00:19:00] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: So we both agree and I hope. You agree with this as well, that our first couple of episodes stunk. I listened to them and I cringe. I'm like, Oh my God, we just really need to take these episodes down. They're terrible, but I never will.

[00:19:15] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: Because if we didn't do those episodes, we wouldn't have the episodes that we have now. So I think we just have to keep. Going.

[00:19:25] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah, agreed Yeah, it's a great yeah Thanks for the reminder, I'd forgotten where we started and, Look how far we've come

[00:19:31] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: So why it's important is need to pay attention to this perfectionism is that in one, in some ways it can help, you think about somebody like Steve jobs who had, who's, I didn't know him personally. However, if you read about him, he had very high standards and he pushed the boundaries to get to something bigger and better, which is good.

[00:19:54] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: We need to do that. Yeah. But he was also willing to fail to figure [00:20:00] out how to get to that. It's balancing the, how do we have high standards? How do we push for something better, but how do we not allow ourselves to be hindered because.

[00:20:16] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: We're coming, or I feel like as we get into the how we're going to come to the not so secret but big kind of unveil of an idea that we both share, I think. But before we get to that, one of my favorite favorite saying or phrase. Now I first heard this when I watched, I think, a video from the Stanford d.

[00:20:33] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: school. And I can't remember who exactly said it, but this idea of. giving yourself permission to have those extremely high standards. So that's okay. But actually partner that with having low expectations. I know some people will take that the wrong way, but for me, that's like a really liberating phrase.

[00:20:56] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: It's absolutely fine to have high standards, just like Steve Jobs. [00:21:00] And, probably most people who've helped made progress. They have an aspiration and a vision and are extremely ambitious and can see, visionaries especially, they can see how much better the world might be. If only x, y, and z. I think the first part of perfectionism is extremely necessary and helpful. But then I think that what I've learned is that the second part of low expectations is essential to have that in your mind so that when you are disappointed that your idea isn't actually as awesome as you thought it was, you can actually keep going.

[00:21:34] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: You aren't emotionally devastated

[00:21:36] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: to the extent

[00:21:37] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: that you can't keep going. And applying that to I've I have a I like to go, right? And here's an individual perspective, but then if we map that into an organization an organization, it might not, from the outside, it might be hard to detect an organization's emotional state.

[00:21:51] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: But let's say launch an idea onto market and it flops. And then as an organization, be prepared for you. Have the [00:22:00] expectations set low so that you can recover. Performance and keep going and keep going and yeah, so yeah, high standards, low expectations 

[00:22:09] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: and bringing that back to our podcast, right? We both wanted to create an exceptional podcast that added value to our listeners. Like we wanted to create something good. Then we got into the place of, we wanted to create something so good that we weren't creating anything.

[00:22:25] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: And then we said, okay, let's just do it.

[00:22:27] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: And the first couple of episodes, took us like, I think we had to make 15 episodes before we were like, Hey, we probably should have an intro, 

[00:22:34] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: why don't we add some music? Let's get more disciplined with it. But we didn't learn those things until we did it.

[00:22:41] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yes, exactly. Yeah, you have to get the ideas out, whether it's out of your head or out of. Off the whiteboard or off the digital whiteboard and into reality. So maybe this, we're segueing nicely into into the how Dani

[00:22:53] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: So how do we break up with perfectionism?

[00:22:55] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah.

[00:22:56] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: Can I tell a quick story though?

[00:22:58] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: please.

[00:22:59] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: So [00:23:00] my journey to breaking up with perfectionism actually started in design school.

[00:23:05] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Okay. 

[00:23:05] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: Because. One of the first lectures that I sat in design school went something like this, I don't remember verbatim but the gist of it was something like this. Your first couple of iterations are going to suck.

. 

[00:23:21] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: That was it. That was like, it's going to suck, but get over it, get on with it and do it. And I really struggled with that because I, and then like professors would ask to see your first couple of drafts and you didn't have a lot of time to do your first couple of drafts. And I really struggled and I would ask for more time and they said, no, turn in what you have.

[00:23:44] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: And I 

[00:23:44] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: had a blank page. And, that was the start of my journey to understanding, to break up with perfectionism was this idea, expect to fail in the beginning.

[00:23:59] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah.

[00:23:59] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: [00:24:00] In anything, right? And then when you think about that on a design, I was training to be a graphic designer and I'm being 

[00:24:06] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: told that the first couple of drafts of any project I do, I'm going to fail at, it's going to be crap.

[00:24:11] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: That's really daunting.

[00:24:13] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah. 

[00:24:14] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: you think about, I'm pretty sure the first time you, Learned how to ride a bike, you probably fell over. I'm sure we all have scrapes and bruises from that. The first time we learned how to swim, for most of us, it didn't go well. We ended up drinking water that we shouldn't.

[00:24:30] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: But we don't get to a level of proficiency over just magically

[00:24:35] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah, and I think it's ironic that the graphic design and learning that, I'm assuming your assignment wasn't white cat asleep in a snowstorm,

[00:24:45] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: no.

[00:24:46] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: and hence the blank page but yeah outcome. And I put great graphic design are pretty close to perfect, right?

[00:24:53] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: You go, you look at, to the extent that actually I'll note it is unnoticeably perfect [00:25:00] because it just works. Likewise, Paralympic athletes, they are performing exceptionally well, close to perfection. We're seeing these snapshots. We're seeing people's outputs and outcomes.

[00:25:11] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: We're not seeing their process and we're not realizing that actually the first step in almost any process is some sort of failure and it's some sort of learning. But I guess the important part is they've learned from that failure. And maybe in business, the, the common pitfall is we take big shortcuts because we get into the fear zone and start dialing up, pushing for deadlines and spending, trying to do things for the fear factor dials up.

[00:25:39] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: And that means that we think we forget all these lessons we've learned ourselves that the first step in most things is learning. And that usually ends up in some sort of failure rather than the first and only step in something is delivering the perfect thing in a straightforward linear fashion. Thanks for sharing that story.

[00:25:56] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: the first thing to think about when we're trying to break up with [00:26:00] perfectionism is the idea of iteration. be right. The first time I do this, it won't be right. And then preparing your brain to actually look for what can I do differently? Because if you start out with, okay, this is our first podcast episode that we're recording.

[00:26:20] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: It's not going to be good. Let's agree to that. It's not going to be good. But let's record it. Let's listen to it. And let's go, what can we do differently? For episode number two, it's the same with, in organizations when, you want to do a presentation, assume the first presentation you do is going to be terrible.

[00:26:40] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: You cannot, you want to bring up an idea, like this is what I said earlier, right? Most of the time when I'm just like. Free thinking ideation. I preface that with these are probably all terrible ideas, but let's get them on the board and see where we land because then it gives me permission.

[00:26:58] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: So I think it's really adapting this [00:27:00] idea of iteration because iteration gives you permission. Absolutely.

[00:27:06] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: yeah nice I love that. Em, I also think and this is something I've been riffing on recently And again, I'm gonna bring up this kind of one person's perspective it for then. It can also help a group of people, an organization. yeah, Getting over perfectionism. Often, or for my kind, I start to disappear inside my own head.

[00:27:29] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: I'm like living things inside my head. I learned a great way to get out of your own head when you are starting to when that's causing you to not make progress or worse, start to be fearful about things, then a really great human ability is to make whatever you're fearful about, or whether you're getting stuck in your head a bit, make it about other people. So actually to share a story myself, I learned that when I was learning improv theatre so my teacher Wade [00:28:00] Jackson it was a few years ago, weeks before what was going to be my first performance on stage and I was starting to forget everything. I'd learned about improv because I was so nervous about going on stage for the first time and yeah I was doing this thing of disappearing in my own head and he was experienced and gracious enough to first of all recognize that was what was happening to me and then the advice he gave me was when you're standing there either on stage or in a workshop and you're improvising with somebody else then make it completely about them not you. And that immediately helped me focus on them, not me, and that dialed down my fear. And I think in the same way in organizations, we can get lost inside our own organizational heads. And for me, this manifests often with, as designers, we're in this conversation with maybe technology people and maybe finance people.

[00:28:51] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: We get together and work collectively or individually looking at desirable, feasible and viable. And we can go around in circles and stuck inside our own [00:29:00] organizational heads, wondering what the right answer is. And then metaphorically, the answer is outside of our organizational heads. It's with the people we're trying to help us with our customers.

[00:29:08] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: So to get over our organizational perfectionism, the best thing we can do is go and ask the people. One of the best things we can do is go and ask the people who we're trying to help. They will help us get unstuck and move forwards.

[00:29:22] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: This is why empathy is paramount in so many different 

[00:29:26] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: levels. In your example, something to point out is that oftentimes are perfectionism. 

[00:29:32] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: or our imperfections are in our heads.

[00:29:35] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah. 

[00:29:36] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: the, and one thing we have to realize is that other people aren't paying as much attention to us as we think they are.

[00:29:43] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: So most people won't even know.

[00:29:49] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: This was a challenge for me when I first started lecturing. And when I first started doing public speaking or doing presentations, where I would just obsess about [00:30:00] something that, I misspoke or, and, I'll say it to somebody afterwards and they're like, what are you talking about?

[00:30:07] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: So I think recognizing that you're not as important to other people as you are to yourself.

[00:30:13] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Although, if I may maybe for 45 minutes on a Friday evening when somebody's paid money to come and see you on one stage thing, an improv show, they probably are hopefully paying attention to you,

[00:30:23] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: They are paying attention to you. It's the same thing, right? Like when I lecture students have paid.

[00:30:28] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: All kinds of tuition. 

[00:30:30] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah.

[00:30:31] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: What I'm trying to get across though, is the things that I used to obsess about 

[00:30:36] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: aren't things that people are paying attention to. I can't remember where this came up, we maybe this was a conversation that a previous conversation we had on the podcast, but it's like obsessing about grammar.

[00:30:51] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: There's been books that I have read and I'm like, Oh, that's not grammatically right. Or that should be a comma there. I don't throw out the whole book because it's missing a [00:31:00] freaking comma in one page. I just accept it and I move on. But from a writer mindset, Oh, this is where this comes from my dissertation because I, before it got published, it goes through so many editing processes, but I became really obsessed with, It has to be perfect.

[00:31:16] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: There cannot be one mistake. And then of course it got published and then I reread it and I found four different things and I'm just like devastated. The thing's been downloaded like 7, 000 times.

[00:31:28] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: So clearly nobody cares about the four mistakes that I've

[00:31:30] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: obsessing for months about.

[00:31:32] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Nice. Got you. Thanks for sharing that Dani yes, I definitely think it's a lesson to be learned. Nobody is noticing the things that you're noticing or, and fixating on them quite as much as you are, we are. Okay, so we've got iteration, we've got empathy maybe going back to iteration, actually, for, when we say iteration, for me, that brings to mind, of course, prototyping and testing, prototyping, testing, learning, turning everything into [00:32:00] a learning cycle, I think, is a great way to, and looking for the opportunity to find something to learn. By doing something, that's a great way to start overcoming that perfectionist tendency.

[00:32:10] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: This idea of prototyping, experimenting, whatever you want to call it, testing. If you go into that going, this is a good idea. It may not work. If you go into things with that mindset. Then it eases this wanting to be perfect. You'll still have it, but it eases it because there's permission to now fail.

[00:32:32] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yes.

[00:32:33] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah, nice. Maybe continuing on this thread I like this idea of, building a prototype as though you're 100 percent right but then testing it as though you're 100 percent wrong. And because the first part helps you, helps you fulfill your desire to have high standards, but the second part is, making it okay to fail because you're having low expectations about whether it'll fail. and It makes me think of something else. Going to, I'm going to [00:33:00] see it. I think I often from running a design thinking workshop, especially for people who are there for the first time will say, I am a reforming perfectionist and design thinking is my therapy. Because of some of the reasons we've talked about now, the other thing I like about taking a design thinking approach is it lends itself well to time boxing. And I think time boxing things can help our inner perfectionist, whether that's individual or organizations, because Coming back to ideation and prototyping and testing, if we limit the time we've got to do something that forces us to make decisions and make choices, even recognizing that they are not the best. But what I say to people is if we go with the best idea we can and in the time we've got available and then. Like I said, get it out of our organizational head and into the hands of our customers or the people who want to use it. That they will tell us whether it is good or bad or not. And we can always come back to all [00:34:00] of those other ideas that we didn't choose the first time around.

[00:34:02] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: And we can keep cycling through until we discover the right or best particular idea and solution is. But yeah, timeboxing I think we can use that as a great way to force us to keep going forwards, to get ideas

[00:34:16] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: This goes back to my professor in design school saying, no, you can't have any more time. 

[00:34:21] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: And the thing was, And later, you learn these things afterwards really is I really didn't care what was on the piece of paper. I just wanted you to turn in an iteration.

[00:34:33] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: And this is a good point because the expectation was that you were turning in an iteration. The quality of that iteration didn't matter. It just needed to be an iteration.

[00:34:44] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: You were getting graded on quality as you iterated. Your first iteration and your second iteration should improve in quality.

[00:34:54] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: And that's what you were getting graded on. I wanted to turn In the masterpiece. [00:35:00] In one go 

[00:35:01] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: yeah. You're actually giving me flashbacks to my high school art classes were. I was taught the same lesson but I did not receive the lesson. I would sit down and, bang my head against a brick wall trying to create the perfect thing and refuse to do sketches of anything.

[00:35:19] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: I'd get straight into the final piece of art. And, yeah, like I said I failed to even listen to the lesson, never mind learn it. You

[00:35:31] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: to be said about. The student has to be ready to learn the lesson you're teaching them. So that is a timing thing as well.

[00:35:37] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: know.

[00:35:38] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: So we're talking about how so we've talked about iteration. We've talked about empathy. What other, 

[00:35:45] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: the other I'll talk about this one.

[00:35:46] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: In design we learn about how to work with constraints.

[00:35:50] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: in design school, it was always, every project we had some kind of constraint, whether it was time 

[00:35:57] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: or there was some [00:36:00] demands like, purple has to be a central color, or you've got to make this work with Comic Sans font, which you're like, how in the world, that's the hideous font in the world.

[00:36:10] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: But everything that was given to you had a constraint. And the idea behind that was in life, there's constraints. Like I've never had a project that had no budget constraints or no time constraints or capability, like there's always something that you're having to contend with. And if you're sitting in that perfectionism thinking, the maladaptive perfectionism, what we tend to do is we go, Oh, if only this, if only that, and what design forces you to do is go, everything has constraints.

[00:36:46] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: What we have to do is understand what the constraints are and then figure out the good solutions good solutions are good because They're designed in a way to work with the constraints.

[00:36:56] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: The real world is constraints, isn't it? Whenever you talk about graphic [00:37:00] design, my mind goes into, yeah, we're just seeing the results of people's process.

[00:37:04] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: And that makes us, that tricks us into thinking that they just came up with the perfect idea straight away when they never did. So iteration and prototyping has become more and more of a kind of go to. Everything and anything can be a prototype. And the way that I continue striving to just to start creating stuff is to, first step, create a prototype.

[00:37:23] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: And that prototype might, is often no more than some sort of sketch on the back of piece of paper. And that's a sketch of, some, a piece of paper. Whether it's a process or an experience or a piece of communication, everything and anything. Just taking that first step to get the first idea out of my head.

[00:37:41] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: And then to start sharing that the important part is to start sharing that idea with other people to get feedback on it. Yeah, to the extent that I carry around in my bag some templates for prototyping. Just some prompts that help me start prototyping and that kind of thing. Get those out at the earliest opportunity. [00:38:00] What about you Dani, maybe what kind of what practical things do you do to on a day to day basis maybe to help your perfectionist? Yeah.

[00:38:10] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: perfectionist. Another practice that I come to embrace is this idea of sharing your failure stories.

[00:38:20] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Oh nice, yeah, okay. 

[00:38:21] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: Getting, I've always had a journaling practice. So one thing that I do is every day I ask myself, how did I fail?

[00:38:27] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Okay.

[00:38:28] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: And some days. Some things I write down, I don't think I failed today.

[00:38:33] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: And then I write back to myself. That's not good enough

[00:38:36] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah, we haven't tried enough.

[00:38:39] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: to try harder.

[00:38:40] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah.

[00:38:41] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: The second one is, and I encourage, I really encourage organizations to do this. So if you want to create an environment for, for, innovation, for change, for creativity. I encourage organizations to share their failure stories and it needs to start from leadership [00:39:00] when leaders talk about their failures and not in a self deprecating way talk about failures in a very, this is what I did, this is what happened.

[00:39:12] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: And here's what I've learned. So it's very, it's a very scripted way of doing it, but the idea isn't to go, Oh my God, what an idiot am I? It's actually to go, I was brave because I thought this was a good idea. I did this thing and it didn't work. And this is how I've learned. This is what I've learned.

[00:39:30] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: And this is what I'm doing differently. And the more that we can have those kinds of conversations, the more that this idea of actually, everything doesn't have to be perfect all the time becomes Reality. And the reason that I promote sharing failure stories is because what we do, and this goes back to your point, we showcase the success stories.

[00:39:54] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: So what we don't see is how did they actually get, and the thing is when we have a success, [00:40:00] we forget, we forget the hard work that went into, the sacrifice, the tears, the blood, the sweat, the late nights, the early mornings. We forget all of those things. So really pushing that. And making those things visible helps, dial down the perfectionism.

[00:40:18] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: And the more that we see, Hey, other people fail too. And this is why I really encourage leaders to do it because if people in the organization are seeing, actually, the CEO has had a lot of failures and, she's the CEO. Maybe I can take some risks and do some things and be okay.

[00:40:36] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah, totally agree with that. Great, er, great lesson. Great suggestion. Okay. For me I think, er, that we could go back further and then to more but essentially what I think what we're saying, Dani, is that design thinking is a way that we as individuals and organizations can and help soothe our inner perfectionist 

[00:40:56] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: it's like turning it into. Something to be accepted, but, [00:41:00] and then, something that's going to help rather than this idea of overcoming perfectionism if it's built into us then maybe that's not possible. Anyway, design thinking, perfectionism, it's this is something 

[00:41:13] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: I struggle with that. Sometimes I talk about it in terms of breaking up with perfectionism. Sometimes I talk about it as in recovering from perfectionism because it's an ongoing, maybe it's, and I might be going off on one of your tangents, but maybe 

[00:41:28] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: it's like one of those relationships where you break up, you get back together, you 

[00:41:33] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: break up, you get back together, so maybe it's one of those relationships,

[00:41:38] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Okay.

[00:41:40] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: should we talk a little bit about, usually talk about design thinker capabilities and we started 

[00:41:44] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: touching on that, some interesting things that came up when I was doing the, design thinker profile research around the capabilities. And 

[00:41:54] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: particularly around perfectionism that I think might be worthwhile mentioning.

[00:41:59] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah, [00:42:00] tell us.

[00:42:00] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: So the first one, situation optimizing,

[00:42:04] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: People that could understand all the constraints and go, this is all of the things that are wrong and really understand it and accept it and go, I'm going to create a good solution. In an imperfect environment or for an imperfect environment did better the people that so with situation optimizing, if you go either way you can end up going down the spiral of this is wrong.

[00:42:29] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: That's wrong. That's wrong. And people that were really hung up. On this idea of creating the perfect thing never tended to get themselves out of this downward spiral, but people that could go right, everything is imperfect, but I have to create a solution that works with the imperfection

[00:42:50] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: could move forward and could progress.

[00:42:51] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: And I think that's how they were checking their perfectionism, if you will.

[00:42:56] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: yeah. Yeah, I've always noticed that It's not something, [00:43:00] it's not called situation perfecting.

[00:43:01] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah.

[00:43:04] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: It's situation optimizing. It's a big, it's a big difference.

[00:43:07] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: And situation optimizing requires you to acknowledge that. It's not perfect. The environment you're creating for is not perfect. The conditions that you're working for or in or with are not perfect.

[00:43:20] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: the other ones, you mentioned this and we talked about this empathy and particularly an empathetic exploration.

[00:43:27] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: Giving yourself permission to fail and almost embracing yourself and tell, pep talking yourself when things 

[00:43:34] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: don't go well. And really feeling that empathy for yourself is really helpful.

[00:43:40] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: it's one of the key things that I saw in people that, Perfectionist tendencies, but we're really using design thinker capabilities to move beyond that.

[00:43:50] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: and the other one again, what you mentioned is when we are feeling trapped in that need for perfectionist, I have to come up with a perfect solution, actually getting out and talking to other people, because [00:44:00] what you start and what this is some of the research participants, what they said is, actually, I thought we needed a perfect solution.

[00:44:06] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: But when I went out and talked to the people that were Yeah. Yeah. Experiencing the problem, they just wanted a solution that would get them from pain point 10 to like pain point nine and a half, and that for them was a win. But I was trying to get from 10 to zero. 

[00:44:21] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: yeah, love it. 

[00:44:23] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: And again, all of these apply. But the last one I'll hit on is curious experimentation.

[00:44:28] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah.

[00:44:28] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: So that if you are out there and you're struggling with perfectionism, I think this is the one to start with because it'll get you into action quickly, just giving yourself permission to go, this is probably going to fail.

[00:44:43] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: It's a good idea. It's probably going to fail. It may not work, but I'm going to go and try it and see what I can learn.

[00:44:49] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:44:50] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: And, 

[00:44:51] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: there was examples in the research about this. And again, it was a way that people talked about the way that I get over this [00:45:00] perfect solution thing is to just go do some things

 Love it.

[00:45:06] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Awesome. Thank you. I don't know about you, but my hunch that it would be like therapy has played out. It's been great to talk at loads have this conversation, Dani especially the last few points. 

[00:45:16] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: Yeah, and start distancing ourselves from the negative, the maladaptive perfectionism.

[00:45:25] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: There we go, a nice ring. It's the maladaptive perfectionism.

[00:45:29] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Like it. Nice ring. Have a particular takeaway from this episode?

[00:45:36] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: Do, but the takeaway that I have is I think we need to do an episode on lessons from design school that apply to the corporate world.

[00:45:45] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Oh yeah, Okay. 

[00:45:46] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: So stay tuned. 

[00:45:48] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Stay tuned. That might be a Peter Interviews Dani episode. I look forward to that. Cool. My takeaway is actually I love that the idea of end of day reflection, even [00:46:00] if it's not actual journaling, but asking myself the question, how did I fail today? Because, yeah, if I didn't fail in something, then I'm not trying hard enough, and, yeah, I'll be open to answering that myself with either a failure of So I failed to do something or a failure of commission, I've done something and it it didn't work.

[00:46:20] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: So I learned something. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that.

[00:46:23] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: Nice, good chat, Peter.

[00:46:28] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: Great chat, Dani.

[00:46:31] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: Hopefully our listeners got something out of it.

[00:46:33] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: yeah,

[00:46:34] dani_2_09-13-2024_101744: all right, I think that does it for us for this episode. We'll see you next time.

[00:46:39] peter-allan_2_09-13-2024_101744: All right. Thanks, Dani. See you next time, everyone. Bye.

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