Welcome to the Be Good podcast,
where we explore the application of behavioral economics for good in order to nudge better business and better lives.
Hi,
and welcome to this episode of Be Good,
brought to you by BVNH Consulting,
a global consultancy specializing in the application of behavioral science for successful behavior change.
Every month,
we get to speak with a leader in the field of behavioral science,
psychology,
and neuroscience in order to get to know more about them,
their work,
and its application to emerging issues.
My name is Eric Singler,
founder and CEO of BVA Nudge Consulting,
and with me is my colleague,
my dear colleague,
Ted Uthoff,
CEO of BVA Nudge Consulting UK and Global Chief
Growth Officer.
Hi,
Ted.
Hi,
Eric.
Happy to be back on the podcast with you for this episode.
It's been a while.
So
I'm delighted to be introducing our guest for this episode,
Professor Thomas Curran.
Thomas is the Associate Professor in the Department of Psychological and Behavioral Science at the London School of Economics.
And he's a world-leading expert on perfectionism and author of the best-selling book,
The Perfection Trap,
the science of why we never feel enough,
which will be the focus of our conversation today.
Thomas's TED Talk on Perfectionism received over 3 million views at last count,
and Professor Curran has written for major international publications such as Time magazine and the Harvard Business Review.
And his work has been featured on the BBC,
on CNN,
and in The New Scientist,
New York Times,
and the Wall Street Journal.
Thomas,
welcome to Be Good podcast for the first time.
Oh,
it's a pleasure to be here.
I can't wait for our chat.
Thank you for the kind introduction.
Thomas,
thank you again so much for being with us today.
Before talking about the perfection chart,
we would like to know a little more about you and your career.
So
I would like to ask you some questions.
First,
I think you earned a Master of Science by research from the University of
Bedfordshire and a PhD in Psychology.
from the University of Leeds.
Could you tell us about how you came to be interested in psychology first and maybe also in burial science?
Gosh,
well,
my background is not the traditional one.
So just to,
yeah,
spoiler alert before we go into it,
but
I don't have a typical,
I wanted to be,
I was an athlete when I was younger,
so I played football and
professional football for Aston Villa so I was on their academy until I was 14 and unfortunately I got cut really brutally which is what happens sometimes you know you don't quite make the grade and they say bye-bye we're not keeping you on and that was a very devastating formative experience for me because I thought so you will be not the new Neymar no exactly no but I thought I was that's that's the tragedy and
I thought I was going to be the next David Beckham or
Ryan Giggs whatever and uh
Didn't quite happen,
but it was,
I mean,
obviously that was a blessing in disguise because that made me want to go to university and study a bit further.
And if maybe I hadn't been cut,
I wouldn't have done that.
And so I would have had a completely different life trajectory.
So it was a bit of a blessing in disguise.
Even in the moment,
it was really devastating.
So I wanted to go and do sport,
something to do with sport,
because it's really interesting that I did a undergraduate degree in sport and exercise science.
I learned a lot about the human body by
biomechanics of human action but also interestingly i learned a lot about the psychology of human behavior particularly um what it means to perform under pressure uh how you could stay resilient under adversity um and also what motivates people to keep going when things get tough and that was something that really i don't know captured my imagination i suppose so
that's why my master's i focused on psychology because i wanted to know more about that area i wanted to know what's going on inside the athlete's mind.
So I studied a lot of...
um youth sports participants and we're interested in things like burnout and engagement and motivation and what makes them tick and all the rest of it uh and i carried that on for my phd and towards the end of the phd this concept of perfectionism kept coming back because in the athlete world right high performers elite performers perfection highest
and you know excessive standards are really the kind of norm so but you see a lot of perfectionism in this context and combined with a perfectionistic...
views seeing the world in myself you know I put myself under a lot of pressure and
I blamed myself and things went wrong and then I went right back to those forms of experiences being cut by the academy now devastating the wars and how I blame myself
And I saw a lot of perfectionism myself,
I saw a lot of perfectionism in people I was studying.
So that was where it started.
And then post PhD,
I started to do a lot of work in perfectionism,
how it impacts young people in particular and says the mental health.
And then
I did the first study to look at how perfectionism was changing among young people,
because that was something that interested me.
I wanted to know whether there's a growing phenomenon.
We found it was.
And then that's when I got invited to do the TED talk.
And then that's where I got invited to do the book.
And then here we are today.
With you guys talking about perfectionism.
So I'd like to think that in my own little way,
I've managed to put perfectionism on the map and I'm quite proud of that team.
Thanks a lot.
Could you now share with us if you have any mentors that had a particularly strong influence on you,
any researchers,
other people who have played an influential role in your professional career?
Yeah,
my...
PhD supervisor,
Dr.
or Professor Andrew Hills.
I was kind of lucky to have Andrew in my life because Andrew was a young academic when I was coming through to do my PhD at Leeds.
He had a lot of energy to give me and he's a very good thinker,
a very sharp thinker,
particularly in the conceptual area of perfectionism.
He's made some profound insights on perfectionism as a multidimensional characteristic rather than the sort of the unidimensional characteristic.
Maybe we can go into that.
And he's also...
done a lot of work looking at how you analyze perfections from a multi-dimensional perspective as well because it's not as easy as it sounds but once you've got multiple pieces that's a difficult thing to statistically aggregate and I don't know so he's done a lot of work there very influential to me and then the two big titans I suppose in the field of Gordon Flett and Paul
Hewitt have done a lot of the heavy lifting over the years developing and model of perfectionism and then developing questionnaires and testing it both in the field and also in the clinic so those are the two I would say
big inspirational figures in my life.
Thanks,
Thomas.
And you mentioned them quite early on in the book about some conversations you had in Toronto and really kind of thinking about perfectionism in a new way.
Before we hop there,
you mentioned,
you know,
playing football and kind of having a moment of letdown and change of your plans.
You describe yourself as a perfectionist.
Can you tell a little bit more about how that's manifested in your life and how that kind of led you on the trajectory of?
of your study and your scholarship um oh there's so many layers to it but growing up where i came where i did in the working class community um football was your big escape really one of the biggest gateways the other one is education but you've got to be really good because you don't have like the support networks or the additional tutoring and all the rest of it that maybe other kids do so you so the easier one a
little bit that way and also the really fun one
is to throw yourself into something like sports right so that was kind of that was that was the way that i saw myself succeeding and of course that comes crashing down in an instant right and and then you have to re-evaluate yourself and re-evaluate your place in the world and what you're going to do and how you'll get how what's the alternative like what's the alternative route now but this one's been closed off uh so
that's where as i mentioned that's where education and pushing myself in that sphere came.
But I've always been quite an anxious person,
always been a bit of an anxious kid.
And so I don't do things by halves.
And of course,
you know,
once I throw myself into something,
I really want to do it to the maximum.
And that,
I think,
comes from a lot of insecurities about not feeling good enough or not feeling like,
you know,
this is an area or a space that I belong in.
And so in order to compensate or overcompensate for those feelings,
I tend to work really hard.
I tend to try to put on my best face.
I try to make sure that everyone sees I'm working and,
and.
doing a good job and all the rest of it and those neuroses these anxieties um as you go higher and higher you'd think they would ameliorate right but they don't they just get harder and harder and harder to deal with they become more powerful and they become actually uh um
like you know they can become quite negative as an influence on your life you know you can really worry now once you go higher that you're going to get found out that people are going to see oh you know this guy
is actually really stupid and he doesn't belong here and he doesn't know what he's talking about he's not across the statistics he's not across the details so you overcompensate even more to try to prove that you have the abilities to no one else but yourself really like every time you do something well you're relieved because you didn't screw up right so you're just proving to yourself that you can do these things and and
you know the higher you go the worse it gets and that was kind of my experience through my phd through my postdoc and
into my early academic career,
I was just pushing,
pushing,
proving,
proving.
And ultimately it culminated in some difficult mental health circumstances,
a lot of burnout.
And that was...
The moment where I realized this thing I was studying was also the thing that was having a negative impact on my life.
And for you,
Thomas,
it was football and then academics.
I'm American,
as you can tell.
And I think about kids when I was a kid and kids who I knew in the U.S.
now.
And I lived in Singapore for 11 years.
There's a lot of pressure on quite young kids.
If it's not football,
it's basketball.
If it's not basketball,
it's dance.
If it's not dance,
it's violin.
If it's not violin,
it's whatever,
right?
It's kind of a two-pronged question.
Are we doing a disservice by our kids to push for this kind of excellence and focus when they're just kids?
And I guess the other part of my question is,
you call perfectionism a trap.
I mean,
it's literally in the title of the book.
What makes it a trap and how do we think about it that way instead of how it's held kind of on high?
Well,
the story of excellence is…
is a very good thing you know there's nothing wrong we wanted to do well and having ambitions and high goals um i think the the issue becomes where where it's fed from and why you were doing it that's the key um and perfectionism comes from a place of insecurities it's a sense of i need to do more because to prove to myself i'm good enough or to prove to other people that i'm good enough and if
if kids if we if we create environments for kids where they have to prove themselves via metrics and
exam scores or test results or through performances and in their athletics and sports endeavors then we inadvertently i think teach them that they're only really worth something when they've done well in a certain activity or domain and that they're worth less if they haven't succeeded right and that changes the meaning of that success very subtly but importantly from a place of purpose meaning ambition wanting to do well to a place of having to almost justify ourselves we
always feel like we're
We're in the court of appeal for ourselves all the time,
trying to exonerate ourselves of our sins or of our inadequacies,
right?
And that's like existing in quicksand,
right?
Because you can never ever stay above the surface.
There's always going to be moments where you're going to find challenge and things are going to get on top of us.
And that's where the mental health difficulties start to come in.
So I don't think strife or excellence is a bad thing,
but it's just about why and how,
why we're doing it that could be problematic.
Early on in the book,
you talk about perfectionism is not just this kind of blanket term or thing.
In fact,
you look at kind of three types of perfectionism.
You talk about other-oriented,
self-oriented and socially prescribed.
I know that's complex,
but quite quickly for our listeners,
can you draw a bit of white space between the three?
Yeah,
perfectionism is not a unidimensional trait as most people conceive of it.
They think,
oh,
it's just high standards.
as you know extreme conscientious actually perfection is way more than those things it's uh it is high standards and we do have a term for for excessive standards called self-oriented perfectionism which comes from within but when you study perfectionism and you talk to a perfectionist you see time and time again they'll tell you perfectionism doesn't just come from inside but it also affects felt from the outside too so they
They feel that other people expect them to be perfect.
So not only do they expect themselves to be perfect,
but if I expect myself to be perfect,
then other people expect me to be perfect too,
right?
So this is called socially prescribed perfectionism.
And then there's a third type of perfectionism you see in the clinic and in the field,
and that's other kinds of perfectionism,
which is perfectionist standards turned outward onto other people.
So if I expect myself to be perfect and I'm pulling myself over hot coals to achieve excessive standards,
well,
it's only fair that you do that as well,
right?
Like that just seems justified,
right?
So there's this...
projection of perfection outwards onto other people that occurs at the same time as high standards,
at the same time as high social perceptions.
So these three elements,
self,
social,
and other,
are what we understand to be a multi-dimensional perspective of perfectionism.
And you can have different levels of each one.
Some people can hire themselves,
some people can hire social,
and all the rest of it.
But nevertheless,
that's how we measure it.
And you argue that perfectionism is not just a personality trait.
as you were mentioning,
but it's really a societal issue that we need to face.
Can you elaborate a little bit on that distinction and then why that's so important for us to actually face this and discuss it?
Yeah,
I'd describe perfectionism as a characteristic.
So we have temperaments and dispositions that are more or less hardwired and about
50% of our personality traits are inherited.
So a lot of how we turn out is genetic.
And perfectionism is
Not too dissimilar,
about 30-40%
of perfectionism is inherited,
but the rest is socially acquired.
And when we're talking about socially acquired,
what we're really talking about is an adaptation to the world around us.
How we calibrate our behaviours,
the way we speak to other people,
the way we present ourselves online and in person,
to conform to certain societal expectations and standards in a world that...
is expecting high standards that wants you to present your best put your best foot forward in a world where social media has so many glowing glittering images of perfection and where schools college and and all the rest that you're expected to continually excel well i think perfectionism is really the cultural adaptation to those
excessive standards and i think what we're seeing in those rising levels that i talked about earlier is a
as a direct result of young people in particular responding to excessive pressure with more perfectionistic tendencies.
I think,
Thomas,
we have now a clear idea about your global perspective,
but we would like to go and to dive deeper into the details of your book.
First,
I think your research shows that perfectionism has increased significantly
in recent decades?
What are,
according to you,
the main societal forces driving this trend?
Well,
I think,
first and foremost,
one of the things I focused on in the book is socially prescribed perfectionism because that's what's increasing most deeply.
But if I may,
I will start with self-oriented because self-oriented perfection isn't rising as quickly,
but when you look at the average...
ratings that young people give to measures of self-oriented perfectionism remember self-oriented perfection is high and excessive standards for oneself they start really high like around about five and a one to seven scale that's a really high place to start and it's been like that for many many decades so
i think in the in the west in particular um we have had a lot of self-oriented perfectionism um already and that's not necessarily a bad thing right if you have self-oriented perfectionism without socially prescribed perfectionism
And then there's the reasonably healthy,
well I would be hesitant to say healthy because there are issues that are going to perfection,
but nevertheless that can carry you quite far and if you live in a society that is accommodative of those high standards,
i.e.
that you get rewarded for the effort that you put in,
as was the case decades ago,
still is sort of the case today,
there's been a bit of a stagnation in terms of social mobility.
but nevertheless if you combine a
an accommodative society and economy with high levels of self-awareness and perfectionism,
there's an argument that that's a very good mix.
But what we're seeing more recently is high levels of self-awareness and perfectionism combined with high and rising levels of socially prescribed perfectionism.
And that's a real problem because what you have there is high self-standards in combination with a lot of concern.
Concern about how we're looking,
concern about how we're appearing,
a lot of worry and anxiety and fears of failure.
a lot of indecisiveness about whether we're doing things correctly and and as a consequence a lot of allied mental health difficulties anxiety depression ruminative thought patterns compulsive tendencies and all the rest of it which are linked to those perfectionistic concerns and
i think we're seeing those rising expectations because simply put uh young people now come into a growing up into a completely different world social media is almost certainly
a contributor to those high and raising social expectations i don't think there's any doubt about that but social media is an advertising platform in its essence and we've had these pressures in our lives um you know for many many decades i think what's different about social media is it's put us put it there 24 7 we can't escape it and it's we're the content creators right so we're the we're the people that create that aura of discontent into which those targeted advertisers thrive so it's kind of a perfect advertising concoction if you could ever think one
very very powerful tool and so i do think social media is the role but you know look you know schools have become more competitive we know that college admission has become much more competitive we know that i mean think
14 of applicants uh it's ivy league a decade ago now it's under seven percent so that's a huge drop in the um admission to elite college which obviously young people see and their parents see and they pass on that expectation and pressure to do one in school and college through.
high levels of expectation,
more surveillance,
monitoring,
and all the rest of it.
So there are many different factors,
many different reasons that I think we're seeing high levels of pressure and a lot more perceptions of social pressure in particular rising.
And we're worried about that because it's that mix of high self-oriented and high socially prescribed,
which has really problematic consequences in terms of the mental health of young people.
How do neoliberal values self-
optimization,
meritocracy,
personal responsibility,
fuel perfectionism.
The values of optimization and...
And maximization is very important to the neoliberal world,
particularly when it comes to efficiency.
If you could think about the most efficient way for people in society to grow economies in the fastest possible way and shortest possible time,
it would be for them themselves to do the pushing.
it would be for them themselves to be almost the um
uh cracking the whip on themselves right they wouldn't need an organization or a firm to do it for them like perhaps was the case in the past that actually they they embody that almost neurotic sense of striving to do more to consume more to uh to work more right and i
kind of we can leave them alone to do that because they've taken on and adopted that that value system and i think what we're seeing young people who in the past
who were tyrannized by what karen horny called the tyranny of should like you should behave in a certain way you should look a certain way you should work you should work in a certain way you should parent in a certain way we have today a different tyranny and maybe a tyranny of could right that you could be um
an influencer you could be a billionaire you you could own or be the ceo of the company like these are things that are possible because the options and opportunities are limitless and whilst that freedom and that um
And that sense of possibility,
on the one hand,
is a very positive thing because we are free to strive.
On the other hand,
it can be extremely,
extremely crushing too,
because there is no end point.
There is no point at which we feel like we can ever be content because that continual wheel of growth keeps us in a place of scarcity,
in a place of lack,
in a place of deficit.
and
And the more we run,
work and strive,
the more exhausted we become,
the more burned out we become,
the more anxious we become.
And even if we make progress,
it's not enough because there's always something more.
It's like trying to chase the horizon.
The closer you get,
the further it moves from our reach.
So I think imbuing these values of neoliberalism,
on the one hand,
as I say,
probably spurs a lot of economic growth,
which I suppose is good for society.
But on the other hand,
at an individual level,
at a personal level,
it creates a lot of perfectionism and with it mental health difficulties.
Thomas,
we have already spoken about the effect of social media.
I would like to ask you about the education system,
which plays a key role in shaping young people's attitude towards success and failure.
Could you explain this role and talk about it?
education system and perfectionism.
Yeah,
the education system as it's currently constructed is really a sorting or a clearinghouse,
right?
Like you're sifting,
you're ranking,
you're sorting kids into ranked classes so that you can prepare them for the ultimate goal,
which is to reach college education,
right?
And particularly in the US,
you know,
that's done...
That shift in sorting ranking is done through standardized testing.
It's also the case in the UK.
And,
you know,
kids are exposed to excessive amounts of standardized testing from a very young age to make sure that they're allocated in the correct classes so that they're charred through to the,
you know,
to the correct teachers and all the rest of it so that they're entered into the right exams and so they can maximize their chance of getting to a good college.
And this is fine.
It's efficient.
with bah
We were talking about E-Levels,
it's a very efficient way to do things.
If you can measure and rank,
you've got the most efficient system to get kids in,
to allocate kids into the correct colleges.
But it does have a cost,
right,
as an individual cost.
An individual cost is that young people come to define themselves based on how they're performing and where they're ranking relative to other kids.
And so exam results become a massive part of their self-esteem.
They learn very quickly that when they've done well,
that they're worth something in the world,
that people give them attention and appreciation and validation.
But when they haven't done so well,
those things are withheld or suddenly deferred.
And that teaches them that they need to keep excelling,
that they need to keep working as hard as they possibly can.
And even an objectively high achievement isn't enough because they have to keep going.
They have to keep.
for the next exam and the next exam and the next exam and so this inculcates in in young people i think anyway a sense of dependency on their achievement and how do we guarantee that we achieve well we work them to the maximum and we try to be perfect that's just a natural response and adaptation to the very pressurizing mind
Thomas,
I'd like to talk a little bit about the consequences of that perfectionism.
You've touched on this a bit,
but you highlight a strong link in the book between perfectionism and mental health issues,
specifically anxiety,
depression,
even suicidal ideation.
Can you explain this link a little bit?
Yeah,
so perfectionism is what's called a trans-diagnostic risk factor for a lot of mental health difficulties.
And the reason it's a trans-diagnostic risk factor is because it has a couple of built-in vulnerabilities.
They make it very distinctive as a personality characteristic.
The first building vulnerability is vulnerability to stress.
So if your whole self-esteem is dependent on how you look and the perfect facade that you're trying to project into the world,
then anything that shatters that has a shattering impact,
not just on what you've done,
but also who you are as a person.
You've revealed the impervious self that you're trying to hide and you are excessively self-critical.
and extremely find and ruminate and brood over those mistakes,
failures and setbacks intensely.
And we see that time and time again in love,
by the way.
We put perfectionists in stressful situations,
particularly when they fail publicly.
The emotional responses are very pronounced,
so very high levels of shame,
high levels of guilt,
high levels of embarrassment.
Their self-esteem plummets,
as does their pride.
and
And so that stress vulnerability,
that stress reactivity is one of the reasons why,
you know,
over time you see a lot of mental health problems aren't just linked to anxiety or obsessive tendencies,
but low mood,
depression and,
you know,
and worse in some cases.
But there's also another reason why perfectionism is linked to mental health difficulties and why it's linked to a whole host of them rather than just one or two.
And that's because perfectionists move themselves away from other people.
We don't talk about this.
part of perfectionism enough,
I don't think,
and I didn't touch on it enough in the book.
I wish I had.
But one of the things that you see a lot in the literature is that perfectionists find it incredibly difficult to connect with other people because there's an inauthenticity about their interactions.
So they're constantly putting on a facade.
They're calibrating what they say and how they behave in the presence of others.
And that is in no way conducive to warm and reciprocal social relations.
And so the more that they find themselves rejected by other people because they are unable to be vulnerable
the more they move themselves away.
They feel that people don't understand them.
They isolate themselves and they feel a lot of loneliness.
And that loneliness and alienation is also linked to a lot of very difficult mental health consequences.
And so that's one of the reasons why I wanted to write the book,
to really sort of raise the alarm that this isn't something that we can just try and,
you know,
manage around the edges and sand away the hard edges.
That actually,
you know,
there's a really...
there's really problematic mental health consequences that come from living life under the influence of tagging.
You spoke about this a little bit at the beginning,
Thomas,
but there's probably a kind of common belief and maybe even a celebrated belief that perfectionism drives excellence.
But your research suggests it can actually lead to procrastination,
burnout and worse.
Why does that happen?
And can both things be true?
Well,
it happens for two reasons.
And one's linked to the stress reactivity that I talked about just a moment ago.
But perfectionists,
you know,
they do work really hard.
Of course they do.
But the moment they hit challenge is when you start to find out a lot about them.
Because if they find those motives difficult,
they've experienced a lot of guilt,
embarrassment and shame,
then they're going to be reluctant to put themselves in a position where they're going to feel those things again because those emotions are so intense.
So when we...
Another thing we do in the lab is when we put people under stressful and challenging situations,
maybe we tell them that they failed at a task.
Often we use sport,
which goes back to my school background,
because it's a really good microcosm of the competitive world.
If we give people a task and say,
you've got to cover a certain amount of distance in a certain amount of time on a bike,
for instance,
and you should be able to do that based on your fitness comfortably,
and away you go.
We'll do something a little bit naughty,
like we'll tell them they didn't meet the goal.
And then
we'll give another opportunity to try again.
And one of the things we're interested in is,
is not just their emotional responses that are valid,
but also the behavioral response.
Like what do they do on our second attempt?
And what you see.
across many laboratory experiments,
some in our labs,
some in other labs,
is that when you tell a perfectionist they've failed and ask them to try again,
their effort on the second attempt drops off a cliff.
Like they just stop trying because they put everything of themselves at that first effort.
They didn't achieve it.
They feel a lot of embarrassment and shame.
And so in order to avoid those motions the second time round,
they just pull themselves away,
right?
And so that that avoidance of difficult situations is characteristic of perfectionism
You also see it in procrastinating behaviors as well.
When you've got a big task coming up,
the anxiety about completing it is so fierce that you just move yourself away.
You don't feel those feelings,
so you do other things,
go on Netflix,
have a social media scroll or whatever,
just to get out of that difficult headspace.
And of course,
yes,
it soothes the anxiety in the moment,
but you're just damaged by the passage of time.
And so avoidance,
withdrawal,
procrastination,
that's one of the reasons why perfection is.
find it difficult to perform and by the way meta analysis studies show this there is no relationship to perfectionism performance in the workplace none whatsoever zilch we can't find it it doesn't exist that's one of the reasons the other reason of course is the burnout you know confections work really really hard but they work too hard and they they're inefficient in their strobe right they put all their efforts towards things they can control like you know mundane stuff like emails or you you know,
just writing up a report or...
uh stuff that you know really doesn't require it high level diligence but they'll put it in anyway because they know they can control the outcomes and over time that intense effort into controllable stuff ends up into bad because they don't feel like they're making any progress rather than they feel that they're achieving much because they're not putting their effort into the stuff where the high value rewards are right the innovative stuff the risk-taking stuff like the other people are and so they're seeing themselves move away for the same amount of effort and you can imagine how demoralizing that is so that's why they burn out so
Yeah,
there's a paradoxical relation to perfectionism and performance that on the one hand,
people think it's this thing that carries us forward.
But when you really dive into it,
you see a canal at the back.
We've talked a lot about perfectionism and performance,
but you also talk about perfectionism and how it can affect relationships.
Can you explain a little bit how it creates tension in both personal and professional interactions when there might be a perfectionist or two perfectionists facing off?
Well,
that's the nightmare scenario.
I like you know we've all had the demanding boss in our lives we could and certainly you know I'm no different you recognize another range of perfectionists when you meet on the demands are excessive they're too high and they simply can't they can't be met and there's a lot of criticism of worry and rumination and fear of failure that kind of starts to build in organizations where you have leaders who are perfectionistic and
by the way that's bad for the organisation.
Because once you start to build that fear of failure within an organization,
people stop taking risks,
they stop communicating with each other,
they stop opening up to mistakes.
And once that starts to happen,
then,
you know,
you could be two,
three,
four phases down the line of a product development before you realize something catastrophic or something serious,
right?
So it's really,
you know,
it's a really problematic thing for an organization.
But yeah,
you see this all the time.
It creates,
overall interpretation creates a lot of interpersonal hostility,
a lot of conflict.
um so in the working environment it's not a good thing in your personal life as well it's also not a good thing you know as i mentioned it can move us away from our people because there's inauthenticity and if we're too demanding on our partner that can lead lead to a lot of resentment over time and you know as much as you love someone there's
only so much you can take when it when you're being expected over and over and over again to to to be this perfect person they hold up in their mind's eye which you know nobody is because nobody's perfect so it
is a lot of evidence also in the relational sphere in the personal relationship that it can create a lot of difficulty in in personal relationships too so yeah look creates a lot of mental health difficulties doesn't make us before any better and can be really difficult in an interpersonal sphere so i'm i'm running out of stuff here like i don't know there's much positive like seven we'll get there we'll get there thomas
a lot of our listeners are business leaders so i would like to give a dive in the topic.
topic of work environment,
I think many business leaders view perfectionism as a positive trait that drives high performance.
What does the research actually say about the relationship between perfectionism and workplace productivity?
No,
no relationship at all.
No relationship at all.
And I think it is a big insight.
It's a huge insight.
There's a meta-analysis
by den hararian colleagues which we've done a few years ago found no relationship we just updated that study by adding a few more um investigations and also broadening the uh conceptualization of perfectionism and again we find minimal trivial relationship to perfectionism and performance when you think about how much effort these people put in
right it's just not a productive use of time to to to strive in a perfectionistic way there's a lot of redundancy there and and uh and a lot of inefficiency right because perfectionists they are able to keep up but if you think about how much indecisiveness there is in how much procrastination there is how much avoidance there is like it's a superhuman effort that they're able the remarkable thing is that they are able to keep up given all of that self-handicapping in that they engage in.
And so,
you know,
a business leader,
you know,
whenever I talk to business leaders or do speeches on perfectionism,
one of the things that I really,
it pains to emphasize is that,
you know,
it might sound great to have these high and aspirational,
really excessive goals.
And,
you know,
we do perfection,
we'll hit excellence,
that kind of thing.
Right.
But the evidence is clear that it's just not a formula for success.
You have highlighted that workplaces often reinforce...
socially prescribed perfectionism.
So in what ways does a perfectionist work culture contribute to burnout,
reduce creativity,
and even,
you mentioned,
I think,
lower overall performance?
There's loads of ways.
And it starts with onboarding.
You don't have to work to organizations and firms.
And it's understandable.
We want to sing about our achievements and our productivity.
and what we expect of colleagues and all the rest of it,
particularly in those elite professions.
I do understand that actually there is a necessity to have a high level of diligence in many,
many elite professions.
But that's very different from setting the bar of expectation,
which particularly for new employees can feel very intimidating.
Even though you don't mean it to be intimidating,
even though you want to show young people that they're entering.
you know an established and high performing environment what it can look like to young people is oh my goodness i'm already sinking and i haven't even started so so you know you have to be really careful almost from the onboarding moment of onboarding that you are
that you're emphasizing the values and core beliefs of an organization in such a way that meets new colleagues where they are in the process of their journey and learning development and that
And then that goes all the way through the onboarding and training and meeting the team.
And I think organizations have a responsibility for young people to give them a safe space,
particularly when they're new,
because they are going to make mistakes.
They are going to be learning the ropes.
So letting them know that's okay,
that's expected,
that's normal.
Normalizing setbacks,
normalizing your own mistakes within teams,
I think is a really good practice.
if you've made a mistake on a particular day i think it's important to talk about that explain it diagnose it why did it happen how do we make sure you know this growth is a good the growth mindset is a it's something that you know i do have some misgivings about but when we're at the beginning of our journeys i think it's so important that we do emphasize that we're you know this is a culture of growth and that failure is permissible and mistakes are permissible and we're open and we talk about them um because all these things you know they sound like they're they're
they're letting people off with mediocrity right that they sound like you know oh we're just going to settle for good enough right but but um actually no they they they provide the space for people to think a bit laterally they provide the space for people to think a bit differently and take a few risks here and there and that's where the innovation is right that's where the breakthroughs are and so paradoxically safe
environments allow for a little bit of latitude in terms of performance and mistakes.
can actually be much more high-performing environments for people than those stifling perfectionistic virus where you can't put a foot wrong.
Ed,
now we would like to talk about advice,
recommendations,
solutions.
Yeah,
enough of the origins and the bad news,
Thomas.
Now we are going to put the pressure on you about some solutions.
And I think where Eric and I probably,
when we were reading the book,
what made us particularly excited is that you call out
A similar thing that we have to say to our clients when it comes to applying behavioral science.
Yes,
there is an opportunity for individual solutions and intervention.
But if you want to get serious about tackling perfectionism,
you also have to look at some systemic structural solutions.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Ultimately,
I would consider myself to be a humanist.
I'm also a materialist.
I think if we focus too much on the individual,
we lose sight of the broader context.
that has created the adaptations which have resulted in perfectionism.
And one of the frustrations I have with self-help,
you know,
I didn't write a self-help,
you know,
this book isn't a fluffy blanket that people can get cozy in,
right?
And it was a book that I wanted to challenge people themselves,
but I also wanted to challenge the way that they see society as well.
I know that that was a challenge with the publisher because they didn't want me to go down that route.
But I think for my intellectual integrity,
it is important that
If I'm finding trends here that are operating at a societal level,
that's to say that the mean levels of perfectionism are changing for everyone,
then that doesn't point to an individual problem or a failure or some kind of solution that's required within the self,
but something that actually is much broader.
And what,
for me anyway,
the heart or the root of this problem is a culture in a society that has become obsessed with
Um...
in efficiency,
growth,
productivity,
and has lost sight of the human needs with regards to security,
with regards to a sense of purpose and meaning in the work that we do beyond the kind of transactional or the instrumental outcomes like pay and status
and prestige and all the rest of it.
And so one of those...
You know,
one of the things I write in the book is that I think at some level we have to become a little bit more agnostic about growth because we're at a stage in our economic development where growth is not being met with higher living standards.
In fact,
it's quite the opposite.
Actually,
we're seeing the American economy power forward at this moment in time whilst life expectancy falls,
education attainment falls,
mental health outcomes are deteriorating and there's become a disconnect really between.
how fast an economy is growing and the living standards and and felt experiences of its people and and i'm not saying i'm against economic growth not at all i think it's an extremely important vehicle for societal progress but if it's not serving the needs of people then it's just empty growth it's hollow growth and actually it's creating more stress more anxiety as we try to push ourselves even harder um
whilst uh finding the you know the reality is uh is is uh communities Peace.
but they're getting poorer right it's where i grew up in a poor community you know we've had a lot of economic growth in the uk but my community has become poorer year on year so um so the lived experience uh is also something i think we need to uh bear in mind not just like the big picture economics and so that's why i say in the book if we become a bit more agnostic about growth focus more on human well-being um
that a lot of the anxiety and pressures that surround perfectionism would be ameliorated along the way i think basic income is probably the
biggest one um and that's and that's going to be important i think in an age of ai when a lot of jobs are displaced and there's a transitional period that we're going to experience particularly as ai becomes more sophisticated i think i think things like basic income are going to become a necessity really um
in order to manage that transition but i don't think that's a bad thing i think that's a good thing because um in an age of abundance um if we continue to hold people in the quicksand of scarcity.
and make them work for their existence,
then they're going to feel perfectionistic.
They're going to feel like they must strive to do more.
You know,
that tyranny of could and should that I talked about.
Whereas if we give people security to explore their passions and hone their skills in ways that are,
you know,
concordant with their skills and abilities,
then that's,
I think,
going to free people to be a lot more innovative and take more risks,
which ultimately is very good for economic growth.
In fact,
basic income is one of the key things that actually...
unites left the right a lot of libertarians are very keen on basic income just as there are people who would describe themselves as socialists so i think i think basic income is a big one um i mean i describe all sorts of things that could be done in the book um and
i don't want people to misunderstand that chapter this that was a utopia that i think will happen but more of the full experiment about what could happen in terms of perfectionism if
society was organized in a slightly different way and will we need perfectionism to get by would we need perfectionism to survive in in in our jobs and so forth um and uh and so yeah that's that's why i wanted to finish on that on a more big picture because i think perfectionism is really a societal problem rather than in due joy i
can concur this is not a cozy uh blanket of a read in fact as my partner saw me reading it as we prepared for the podcast he said about time
That's what I'm saying when I'm reading this book.
But you've kind of been talking on this topic,
Thomas,
about,
you know,
the importance of redefining success then.
So what could or should a healthier definition of success look like?
at the individual level or at the organizational or societal level?
I mean,
look,
success is ultimately about progress,
but progress doesn't have to be measured in units of GDP.
Progress can be measured in all sorts of other units.
It could be measured in how healthy a population is,
you know,
our life expectancy.
It could be measured in levels of happiness or satisfaction or well-being.
It could be measured...
in all sorts of,
you know,
community markers around,
you know,
how robust and resilient our community is.
There's all sorts of,
you know,
measures that we could take in progress that have got nothing to do with material outcomes or how fast or how well we're growing or developing.
They've got everything to do with what's important to us humans.
And,
you know,
as I said,
I'm a humanist,
so I believe that,
you know,
we are intrinsically wired to love each other,
to build social community and connection,
to find purpose.
and meaning and modern society is almost,
it's extremely alienating of those needs or can be extremely alienating of those needs if all we're worried about is the transactional value of ourselves,
how we project ourselves over other people,
how much money we make,
what our status is and all the rest of it.
And so,
you know,
an individual level,
I think we perform better when we do have a sense of meaning and purpose.
That's a nuts
And that's why I would encourage people to pursue their passions and do subjects and the areas of work that they have a lot of intrinsic motivation for.
That's the same with organisations,
you know,
giving people purpose and meaning in the work as well as,
you know,
those material benefits are really important.
Giving them the autonomy,
showing that you trust them to,
you know,
perform their duties competently.
You know,
all these things are really important for.
for a sense of happiness and well-being and then at a societal level as well as i said you know focusing more on human development indicators as opposed to economic development indicators i think is important and i believe that if you could do that you also get the economic benefits too because a healthier happier society is also more predictable so
i agree with you thomas but some real high performers some of whom are really famous at the top of their industry you know titans of industry top of their game they're gonna fear or they're going to...
combat you by saying letting go of some perfectionism is going to make them or their organization less successful or their team less winning what would you say to them well i would i mean i would say i would say to them uh well there's many ways you could tackle this like you can look at the data and you could say that perfectionism doesn't it isn't linked to success so what you're seeing in your own world is survivor bias right you're you're seeing the very top and the people at the very top of
have gone through some selection process tell you they're perfectionistic that they have these excessively high goals or they work you know
13 hours a day 14 hours a day and therefore that must be what made them successful when there are so many other factors right luck circumstance uh yeah the family background you know if you're a sports person genetics right so many factors that are important to success beyond that you know that those perfectionistic behaviors but that's the first work,
you might tackle it.
But whether that would hold any water for these individuals,
I don't know.
But that's probably one of the ways I'll tackle it.
Another way I'll tackle it is that,
why does it have to be that way?
Like,
if you go to the continent,
right,
and you look at the growth rates in Europe,
they're way lower than the US.
And people say,
well,
you know,
there's something wrong with Europe,
what they're doing,
you know,
they're lazy,
yada,
yada.
But maybe they just don't want to work themselves 30 hours a day.
Maybe they don't.
Maybe they value other things other than productivity.
Maybe they value time in their communities.
Maybe they value time with their families.
Maybe they value giving their productive energies to things that are important for the broader society rather than just their employer.
And my question is,
what's wrong with that?
Why is that a problem?
Why is the European philosophy that perhaps sacrifices economic growth and productivity for more harmony in their broader lives?
Why is that a bad thing?
Why are we,
because,
and the reason why is because we see it in very,
you know,
simplistic terms around,
you know,
it's only about the economics.
But actually,
you know,
being a human is much broader than just that.
So I'd probably tackle it in those two ways.
But whether that holds any water with them,
I don't know,
because I haven't interacted with these individuals and I'm not really sure.
I'm not really sure
I'll win the argument.
They're not ready for you.
They're not ready for you,
Thomas.
Thomas,
unfortunately,
and sadly,
we are at the end of this conversation,
but
I would like to ask you three final questions.
First,
one piece of advice to someone struggling with perfectionism.
How to help him?
Wow.
One piece of advice.
I think I would say,
there's a lot of specific advice behind this big piece of advice,
but the main thing is to try as much as you can to let things go.
The thing that's most inhibiting about perfectionism is it just doesn't let us move forward paradoxically for the reasons we talked about.
And sometimes you just have to,
you just have to recognize that it's never going to be perfect,
that you cannot possibly make,
you know,
think your work perfect.
You cannot make yourself perfect.
Just an impossibility.
And so black things go,
like put your work out into the world,
right?
Do your presentation,
go to your boss and ask for your promotion,
put the report out there,
write the book and publish it.
Okay.
At some levels,
you just got to let yourself,
give yourself the permission to.
put something out there and know that it's going to be received badly or well or whatever or indifferently but just knowing that the mere act of moving forward the mere act of producing something that you think is going to help other people is the most important thing um and so that's probably the biggest piece of advice let
it just get it out there you know don't be afraid feel the fear and do it anyway i think it's probably the best philosophy for perfection okay
Thanks a lot.
Second,
last question,
I would say.
Do you see the perfectionist culture identifying,
or do you think we are reaching a tipping point where change is possible?
Give us some hope,
please.
I think there are some good signs.
Young people in particular seem to have,
I don't think we give them enough credit for...
being aware of their environment and how society actually,
you know,
particularly when it comes to social media at this moment,
there's a massive moral panic around social media.
But I think when you speak to young people,
they know all this stuff that older people are fretting about.
They realize it's not the healthiest place for them to be.
And they do have safeguards that they themselves impose on their engagement with social media to make sure that it doesn't run away with them.
And by the way,
There's a broader context to the anxiety crisis beyond just social media,
but that's for another discussion.
And so
I think in young people,
I see green shoes of hope because I think that they do get this deep down.
And I think that they have a slightly different way of living or a slightly different expectation of the way of living that can look like laziness,
that can look a little bit like they're a bit more aloof or whatever.
But actually,
I think maybe they're just taking back control of their lives and they're prioritizing areas that bring them fulfillment and joy.
And I think if there's any green shoots of hope,
it's probably in young people's attitudes towards work and consumption,
which I think is slightly different to their parents.
Last,
Thomas,
what's next for you?
Are you working on any new research or project related to this topic or other topic?
Yeah,
so we've got a big study coming out that takes a broader look at perfectionism.
And one of the things I was really interested in was what's happening to perfectionistic kinds of thinking,
cognition among young people.
And we're seeing a lot of concern over mistakes increase,
just like social subscription.
We're seeing a lot of indecisiveness and fear of failure increase among young people.
doubts about their actions we're also seeing that increase so we've done a lot big you know 20 year cohort we're looking at these perfectionistic four places which are also on the rise among young people so we're building out a broader picture of uh the way in which young people think and feel and how it's changing over the years uh
so that's the next big study that's coming through hopefully that'll be published soon i hope to write something uh in a few years time on this idea this concept of tyranny of could because i think that's a them.
a very uh um uh fruitful area of uh psychological exploration in terms of you know uh young people's uh the way that they view the world and optimization and maximization and all that sort of stuff so probably
do something there or maybe think about doing something there so but at this moment in time you know i'm i'm uh i've also got a young family so i'm trying to palette stuff as well um but that's that's for them up to the next period right and i so agree Ruthie Thomas,
this idea of kind of
The world tells you you could and be limitless,
and of course we are limited animals.
So thanks so much for joining us,
Thomas,
for being here on the Be Good podcast.
Is there anything you'd like to leave our listeners with?
A last piece of advice or where they can find out more about your work and where to find you and follow you?
Last piece of advice.
Always don't need to just play yourself to anyone.
You are enough as you are.
And that's a universal human truth.
Where can you find stuff about me?
I've got a website,
thomascurran.com.
begood.co.uk.
So everything that I'm doing is on there.
And if you want to reach out or contact,
or if you do read the book,
I'd love to hear from readers.
So do reach out.
I really like to find out how people receive the book.
So don't be shy.
Perfect.
So that is it for this episode of Be Good.
There is never enough time,
but let us know what you thought about this episode.
Find us on X at BDNUG Consulting.
Until the next time,
remember to be good and
Be good to yourself.
Thanks,
Thomas.
Be Good,
a podcast by the BVA Nudge Unit.