Episode 74: Flawed: Why Perfectionism Is A Challenge In The Workplace With Dr. Greg Chasson
Dr. Greg Chasson
Gregory S. Chasson, PhD, ABPP, is the award-winning author of the new book Flawed: Perfectionism is a Challenge for Management. He is an esteemed psychologist, board-certified cognitive-behavioral therapist, researcher, educator, and international keynote speaker. He’s an Associate Professor at the University of Chicago where he specializes in the nature and treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and related conditions (including perfectionism), high-functioning autism spectrum conditions, and anxiety disorders. He has provided cognitive-behavioral therapy for clinically severe perfectionism for nearly 20 years. As an active scholar, Dr. Chasson has authored or co-authored more than 70 scientific publications and one academic book prior to publishing his new book Flawed.
Struggling to meet impossible standards at work? Dr. Greg Chasson, a renowned psychologist, and author of the acclaimed book, Flawed: Why Perfectionism is a Challenge for Management, can help. With nearly two decades of experience treating perfectionism, Dr. Chasson offers practical strategies to overcome these challenges. This session dives into the root causes of perfectionism and explores its impact on the workplace. You'll learn to identify perfectionistic behaviors, manage them effectively, and cultivate a healthier, more productive work environment. Don't miss this chance to learn from an expert and transform your professional experience.
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Flawed: Why Perfectionism Is A Challenge In The Workplace With Dr. Greg Chasson
Most people fall somewhere on here, and the book is really about the cases where it's getting in the way at work. It doesn't even include the extreme cases. Those are the ones I see in my clinic. They have a hard time even keeping a job, let alone disrupting a workplace. The book is meant for that lane where you have this perfectionism that's getting in the way, but not so extreme that it's debilitating where you can't even work. We're not talking about the people that are on the half that are, they almost don't seem to care about, they just get things done and they don't seem to really care about the quality.
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Greg Chasson, Ph.D., ABPP, is the award-winning author of the new book, Flawed: Why Perfectionism is a Challenge for Management. He is an esteemed psychologist, board-certified cognitive behavioral therapist, researcher, educator, and international keynote speaker. He is an associate professor at the University of Chicago where he specializes in the nature and treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder and related conditions, including perfectionism, high-functioning autism spectrum conditions, and anxiety orders.
He has provided cognitive behavioral therapy for clinically severe perfectionism for nearly 20 years, which we're going to talk about today. As an active scholar, Dr. Chasson has authored and co-authored more than 70 scientific publications and one academic book in addition to his new book Flawed. Dr. Chasson, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me. You made me sound awesome.
Yeah, I know. I was like, man, I'm reading some smart-sounding words.
Well, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
I'm really excited to talk to you. I read your book and it's funny because I'm looking forward to getting into our conversation because there definitely were some themes that I thought perfectionism was and I was definitely wrong. Then it was just really fascinating. I'm excited to get into it. Before we do, can you give a little of your background outside of the bio that I mentioned, but also why you're focusing on perfectionism or how you found this subject matter?
Yeah, absolutely. Perfectionism is a part of the obsessive-compulsive spectrum in a lot of ways. It's not just related to OCD, you see it in other things as well. In my world where I do a lot of work in OCD and related conditions, perfectionism is a very common presentation. I've been dealing with this for many years, and I now am the director of the OCD program at the University of Chicago. You're probably not going to be surprised to learn that a lot of people who self-select to come to the University of Chicago, faculty, staff, and students.
They tend to be a little bit on the perfectionistic side and they end up coming to see me because they get overwhelmed. I just kept saying the same thing over and over to them and providing the same treatment and the same intervention. I just thought one at a time, this is just not getting where it needs to go. Let's see if we could spread this message to more than just people in this community at the University of Chicago.
That's a fast origin story. The Flawed book has the ability to really help scale and reach more people experiencing perfectionism, but also, I thought what was really interesting is your lens of perfectionism is on the workplace. If you're a leader of people, if you're working for someone who maybe has these tendencies, I think that was the biggest takeaway I had is you gave a lot of tools in the workplace application.
Yeah. That's what I was hoping to do. I appreciate you acknowledging that. I think, about 60% of the book offers solutions and strategies that you can apply in an everyday way from the top down in the culture way to the culture of the workplace. From the bottom up, helping individual employees with perfectionism as a manager. I really did kind of focus on leadership and management because there are some self-help books on perfectionism. There are books out there that just give a general overview of what perfectionism is. They all do a fabulous job, but I feel like you walk away without any tools or skills. None of them, in my opinion, really narrow in on the management leadership business where I think a lot of the downfalls of perfectionism really play out.
In the workplace, yeah.
In the workplace, yeah.
Perfectionism Defined
Where we make our money and spend most of our time. Let's orient the audience, can you give us a definition of perfectionism?
Yeah, sure. It'll be imperfect, but I'll give you a perfect one.
Okay. We're allowed to be imperfect on this show.
Perfectionism really is a disposition, a personality feature, so to speak. I think there are two main characteristics. The first is cognitive rigidity. The idea is that people have a hard time shifting mindsets, pivoting to new strategies and tactics, and getting sort of a one-track mind, despite data and evidence being right before them that suggests the opposite. It really is sort of the Titanic unable to shift before it hits the iceberg. That's sort of a cognitive rigidity component that I think is crucial for understanding perfectionism. The other is just excessive expectations.
The idea is that the goals and the standards that they've put forth for themselves or other people are beyond what is standard, typical, or truly expected at a normative level. It's really the combination of those two things. The rigidity plus the excessive expectations that I think create a toxic combination. Where you have people who are pursuing things that are infeasible and then they're doing so in a way where they're unwilling to deviate from that.
Rigidity plus excessive expectations create a toxic combination.
Okay. Then can you share a couple of examples of maybe how that shows up in a workplace environment?
Perfectionism In The Workplace
Yeah, absolutely. I think it shows up in a lot of places, but some of the common examples might be if someone is working on a project and they feel like they can't get it just right, which is something I talked about in Flawed, this is just the right feeling. We call it NJRFs or NJREs. I think we all get this to some degree, but it's really a matter of how much it gets in the way and causes impairment and distress. If somebody's working on an email over and over and over again, and trying to get the sound just right or they have people check it over and over and over again, or they're seeking a ton of reassurance.
Those kinds of behaviors can get in the way of not just the interpersonal dynamics of the team, but it could slow you down, or productivity grinds to a halt. Here's where the irony comes in. Sometimes it actually undermines the quality of the product because you're so focused on the details that you miss the entire purpose and principle of it in the first place. I think the productivity angle is probably the biggest area where it causes difficulty. I also think that the interpersonal dynamics of the workplace also get dramatically impacted by this as well.
If you have a coworker who cannot send a simple email because they need you to look it over, or can I read this email to you before I send it? That's okay sometimes, but that would drive me crazy. That would drive me nuts.
It does. The person that's experiencing it, they're feeling extremely anxious and they understand that it's a burden on other people, but they almost feel like they can't help it.
People experiencing perfectionism understand that it's a burden on others, but they almost feel like they can't help it.
Even my language, just they're saying that would drive me crazy. I apologize for that. I know that I'm trying to be more aware of my words, but I feel like one of the things that I could definitely see throughout the book is that it's almost like there's this big irony. Like they want it so hard to be perfect that the work doesn't even happen. It's like your project deadline because you didn't get the work done because you're waiting for it to be perfect, but then obviously it's not perfect if it doesn't get done. I talk a little bit about that kind of fulfilling prophecy cycle that you mentioned in the book.
The Perfectionism Scale
Yeah, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is a type of situational irony. I call OCD itself the irony disease because almost every form of OCD, it's really ironic though. Somebody that comes in and is obsessed about contamination and getting sick to wash their hands so much that it creates these cracks and wounds where they're more likely to actually get infected, right? This is situational irony. Well, perfectionism is very similar to that. Somebody will sit there and get stuck in process paralysis where they'll try to find the optimal strategy or steps and they'll write lists and lists and more lists.
My favorites are lists about lists, right? Just like tons of lists. By doing so, they might not actually get to the things on the list. The example I use in the book to include some spoilers is that somebody might create a grocery list and be so obsessed about it and become so perfectionistic that they don't even get to the grocery store on time. That is irony, right? You're trying to create the perfect shopping list to do a perfect shopping and you don't even shop.
Well, I think one of the things, like you had a lot of really good examples. Actually, there's two kind of really funny parts in the book that I'm not going to spoil for the audience, but I feel like you probably know what they are. One was about you misspelled a word. Now I'm spoiling it, but like you misspelled a word. Then you're like, you didn't even notice I misspelled this because your brain filled this in.
That was kind of like an “aha.” Like I had a lot of quite a few “ahas.” One thing I was thinking about asking you, and you already talked about this reassurance seeking, that part of the book, I did kind of see a little bit in myself. Maybe more along the lines and I don't know if this is just like me being narcissistic or something, but sometimes I'll write a really good email and then I'll go back and just reread it like six times. Is that weird?
No, that's not weird. I think that shows a little bit of strength of self-esteem. You feel like you did a nice job and it feels good to go back and look at something you've done well. Now, perfectionists probably won't ever get to that feeling, right?
Okay. I also see compliments quite a bit too, Greg. I don't know if that's reassurance seeking or just like fishing for compliments, but those are kind of the areas where I kind of saw myself in the book. You talked a little bit about a perfectionism scale. How can people start to kind of see outside of the two things, cognitive rigidity and excessive expectations? Like, what are some other clues from a tangible application that people can start to see in the workplace, whether it's from themselves, their teams, or their colleagues?
Yeah. We all fall somewhere on this scale. It's like height or income or age. Everyone's got it, right? Everyone's got a height. Everyone's got an age. I think everyone falls somewhere on this scale. Some people are extremely high on it. Their cognitive rigidity. They're excessive expectations. All the behaviors that come with perfectionism really are strong characteristics for those individuals. Then you've got people who are in the middle, the Goldilocks zone, that's where a lot of us fall.
Then there are people who are on the other extreme and I don't talk much about them in the book and I think they're a lot less researched but I imagine that sometimes that extreme can be equally problematic. Someone who's so flexible that they can't even land on a single plan and they're sort of waffling between things constantly. I think that's a lot less discussed and there's a lot less research on it. Most people fall somewhere on here and the book is really about the cases where it's getting in the way at work. It doesn't even include the extreme, extreme cases.
Those are the ones I see in my clinic. They have a hard time even keeping a job, let alone disrupting a workplace. The book is meant for that lane where you have this perfectionism that's getting in the way but not so extreme that it's debilitating where you can't even work. We're not talking about the people that are on the half that they almost don't seem to care about, they just get things done and they don't seem to care about the quality.
Perfectionism can get in the way to the point where you can't even work.
Then if you are like a leader of people and you're starting to see some of these tendencies. One of the things I was really surprised to read about was perfectionism and hoarding. I mean, that was like pretty eye-opening connection to me. Can you give like a little bit more clarity and examples as to why those two correlate?
Perfectionism And Hoarding
It's one of those things I love to tell people because it really is counterintuitive. People with hoarding tend to be very perfectionistic and that perfectionism often is a result of or drives a lot of the hoarding behavior. What happens is that people with hoarding tend to accumulate things because they're trying to create the perfect vision of what they want their space to look like. They want perfect systems and organizational schemes. They have perfect projects and visions of things they want to do, crafts, and things like that.
What happens is that they end up not being able to meet those expectations or they never get around to doing it because they end up procrastinating, which is a common component of perfectionism. Then things just start to pile up. They have this house or office full of partially or non-started projects and a whole well of visions and hopes for what they would want this to look like. You see this in the workplace. If somebody has an office full of clutter and just stuff everywhere and stacks of paper everywhere in books, they're the kind of person that might even say, "I know exactly where everything is. I could just reach into that pile and grab it right now."
This is the kind of thing where you might see some overlap between perfectionism and hoarding in the workplace. I mean, I think that was one of the many examples of elements of surprise because I think my perception of what perfectionism was kind of like in high school, the student who always raised their hand and they always had the answer and they were valedictorian. Like, I always thought perfectionism was kind of like the control freak land more and the need to do everything perfect. What I learned from the book is that it shows up in a lot of different ways.
Perfectionism shows up in a lot of different ways, and it can be quite debilitating.
It seemed to be quite debilitating. If you were a manager of someone who has a teammate who's slowing the team down because they have to get a bunch of eyeballs on their emails, what are some tactics that leaders can do if they have an employee experiencing perfectionism? I think it starts at two levels. I like to stop the problem before it even starts so some prevention. The way to do it is to create a work culture that promotes anti-perfectionism or anti-perfectionism where this is creating an environment where the expectations are reasonable, creating a principle-based approach rather than a rule-based approach, which is something we could talk about.
Creating a situation where you're not broadcasting and using reward as a public shaming technique, which can be very difficult for people. It can be incentivizing for some and then it can be completely paralyzing and demoralizing for others. I think if you're going to use that kind of system, you just need to go in with eyes wide open knowing that there's a cost to it as well. Creating systems that are anti-perfectionistic is a great idea. It starts with also just the language and the culture that you've created from the outset of the job hiring process.
The employee handbook, employee evaluation forms, training, orientation, all of these things can really hammer home an anti-perfectionistic message. I bet if I were to look at a lot of these materials for companies, a lot of it would be promoting perfectionism rather than the opposite or at least being neutral. I think it starts with the prevention techniques. That's not going to stop at all from happening, but you could mitigate some of it just by doing that. Then if people come into the workplace and they have this level of perfectionism that gets in the way, that’s where the book comes in and gives different strategies for providing help to that individual, whether it be helping them with their task prioritization using exposure therapy techniques.
You're not a therapist, for most of us are not therapists. I mean, I am, but most people are not therapists in the workplace, but you can still adopt some of the principles and use them in the workplace. I give some tips on that. I give some tips on how to catch when you're conflating rules and principles and learning the difference between those and how that can get in the way. I provide strategies for dealing with some cognitive flexibility. A lot of it is behaviorally based and cognitive-based. I think it's tailored to each individual. I can't give you a broad, “Here do this.” I think it really needs to be configured to the individual.
Rules, Principles, And Values
Well, and I like the idea of creating a culture and a workplace where the anti-perfectionism. I must feel like that could be something that is said in an interview or a first-day orientation, like that language even. Let's talk a little bit about it because this was something that was a pretty big light bulb for me in your book, was the difference between rules, principles, and values. What you just said is creating principle-based versus rule-based. Can you give definitions to those three and examples, please?
Yeah, I’d be delighted. Rules are very concrete, and measurable. You know whether they've been met or unmet. Principles are underlying those rules and they are more abstract. You can't really tell if they've been met or unmet. It's almost always in question. You're always sort of questioning whether it's been met or not. You really can just show degrees of fidelity towards them. How faithful are you to the principles rather than those principles have been met, these principles have been not been met. That doesn't work that way.
Rules are very concrete and measurable, whether they've been met or unmet. Principles are the underlying foundation of these rules and are more abstract.
The underlying principles are values, which are even more abstract, more like single sort of compass directions that provide you with a very broad framework for how to approach life. You can see that they're built off of each other. I show a pure figure in the book. Rules are at the very tippy top. In the middle, you have principles and underneath that, you have a foundation, which is values. I give an example in the book, and it's funny.
I was just talking to a client about this who got sent home for being one minute late to his shift, one minute, but different watches and clocks have like slightly one minute. You get these people who are so rule-driven and so rule-bound that they miss the underlying principles and the underlying values that are driving those. The rule in that case would be to get to work at 7:00 PM or 7:00 AM. The underlying principle underneath that is you should probably be to places on time. Then the value underlying all that is punctuality.
Right. Someone experiencing perfectionism would see the work starts at 7:00 AM, if it's 7:01 AM, you broke the rule game over versus okay the principle is this person is generally on time they're just like this one day by one minute, let's have some gray area or some wiggle room.
Right or let's say that it's actually the decision to over-enforce the rule that undermines the principle. Another example would be a rule is don't run in the pool area when it's wet I mean makes sense, but what's the underlying principle? Well, the principle is pools are dangerous, so be safe around pools, right? The value is just safety. Now if a kid is drowning in the pool and the lifeguard's yelling at the mom for running to save her kid, because she's violating the rule of not running, it doesn't make any sense because the entire point of that rule is for safety and the kid's drowning. It's a really stupid example, but it illustrates the difference between these.
No, I was going to say that's fascinating because I think that because it's such a simplified example, it helps give a little bit more clarity and maybe empathy to the people experiencing perfectionism too, because I think that seems so obvious, the example that you just said. I feel like what's interesting about it is that it's not necessarily obvious to the person experiencing perfectionism. I think maybe that's another “aha” that I had is it feels like perfectionism is a mental health issue versus just a quirk or this person likes to be in control. That's not really what perfectionism is and I think that was one of the big “ahas” that I had reading the book.
Yeah, I don't think everyone with perfectionism has a mental health condition per se. I think we all fall somewhere on there but I do think it can absolutely get in the way like a mental health condition. When it's really extreme it is a mental health condition, right, like we all can get sad but if it becomes really extreme with a couple of other things, it's probably depression, right? I think in a lot of ways, it doesn't need to be a mental health condition, but I definitely think it needs to be on people's radar.
When extreme, perfectionism is a mental health condition.
Right, especially as a leader of people, because I think that's where if you don't have any exposure to this I had never really learned about it until I read your book. If you're a leader of people, you have no exposure to this, you may be mislabeling what's going on with your teammate. I think this gives a lot more resources and tools and empathy on how to really help this individual who's going through this.
Yeah. I mean, people who've read the book who have been in business for a long time, they said, "I wish I would have had this book 20 years ago," because they're like, "This reminds me of Joe back in the 1980s when I was working at this so and so." This person was like, "This totally explains Tim." I'm just, I got so many of those comments and thinking, “I see this everywhere and I bet you read this book, it'll resonate with you, so you should go buy it.”
Yeah. Buy the book. I mean, you gave me a couple of tools too because there is one area where you're talking about, I feel like I'm an assertive person when I need to be, but that's more in business settings. Then when it came to colleagues and co-workers and clients, it can be a little bit more difficult for me to be assertive, but then the other options are really aggressive, passive aggressive, or passive. It's like, all of them are great, but I think you gave some clarity on if you can set clear boundaries, and communicate in these certain ways. You help these individuals by X, Y, Z, like that.
Dealing With A Perfectionist Boss
I think was a like there's a lot of tactical tangible takeaways from it that I thought were very helpful. I would love to ask you because your example of this reminds me of Tim, this reminds me of Bill, whoever. I was reading this book and I had one former supervisor who nail on the head perfectionist and I never put it together until I was reading the book and I was like, “That's why I had to go through this. That's why our team struggled here.” If you have a perfectionist boss and you're not in a leadership position, what are some tools that listeners can start to deploy that would help them in that type of environment?
Those are one of those situations where I think you have a limited amount of control for the most part. There are some things you can do, but in the end, you have to acknowledge how much control you actually have in that situation. One is, I do think that practicing assertiveness is probably your best strategy. Learning how to communicate in an effective way that doesn't cost you too much social capital as you're doing it. Most bosses don't like being caught off guard in a public setting. Most don't like being called out incessantly. Most prefer a more gentle and more infrequent approach.
I tell people, please do this in private when you talk to a boss who might be perfectionistic and is causing problems. The assertiveness component is really about trying to zoom out and make comments that are not necessarily going to put them on the defensive and it's more about how it's making you feel or making you struggle. You might say something like, “I'm really concerned about the timeline that's been put forth for this project. I don't know that it's going to be able to be done by that timeline,” instead of, “Your deadlines are really unrealistic.”
Or, “I have too much on my plate, how am I supposed to manage these 19 tasks you just gave me?” Which one's the most important?
Right. I think anything where you're you is going to put people on the defensive. I think anything that is more about you, I is going to be more palatable for the person listening. That being said, you can't guarantee how they're going to respond and some people don't respond well to assertiveness, especially if you've been non-assertive in the past. If all of a sudden you turn on a switch and you're assertive, they might see you as being particularly aggressive, which technically is probably not true.
Some people don't respond well to assertiveness, especially if you've been non-assertive in the past.
It's the contrast that's so difficult. I would practice start small. I do it with the waiting staff at the restaurant. Start with just practice your assertiveness. You'll see that it is a way of preserving social relationships to the best that the best that you can, but also maximizing that you can get what you want without destroying those relationships. Also some self-respect and preserving some of that, which is very difficult.
I like to kind of the concept of how you communicate and like setting boundaries because I feel like what you put throughout the book was really around helping with some guardrails for lack of a better word. If you're a person who's working for a perfectionist or if you have a team member who's experiencing perfectionism, here's different communication ways, boundaries, and things you can do to help them work through that while not reducing productivity.
Yeah, I think that's key because I don't want people to feel like working on this is going to sacrifice the quality of the work. I always maintain that high expectations are perfectly reasonable and can lead to some glorious things, but when the perfectionism elements of cognitive rigidity and excessive expectations get into the mix, cause all sorts of chaos and problems. Shooting for high expectations is not the same thing as perfectionism. By addressing perfectionism, it isn't going to undermine the quality. If anything, it's going to increase it, but it's also most definitely going to increase the efficiency of productivity.
Shooting for high expectations is not the same thing as perfectionism. Addressing perfectionism won't undermine quality. If anything, it will increase it, and will definitely increase efficiency and productivity.
Okay, I like that a lot because I think that also it's like, you can still be in the driver's seat. You can still have control, but the control doesn't have to be so rigid because that's where people are getting stuck. Is that an accurate situation?
Letting Go Of Control
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of the book is about control at its core and at its heart. I really think that perfectionism is this tendency to overestimate control. The idea that there's more that they can control than they really can, which is funny because I think that's a form of anxiety. I think all anxiety is a misperception of having too much control when you really don't. You can't control these things that you think you can.
Whereas I think depression is the opposite. I think people have more control than they really think they do, right? Finding that middle ground, that Goldilocks zone is really critical, but I think that it is about control. I often tell people, it's often about using that control to give up that control and that sometimes the best thing to do is to not let control take you rather than you taking control.
Using that control to give up control. That is some meta stuff we're getting into.
Super meta. I feel like I need to stop eating gummies before coming on.
I don't live in California anymore. I'm in Utah now.
They don't sell gummies, do they?
No, but I think one of the things that, I appreciate you saying that, because I think that's where I could see a lot of different things stemming from in a lot of different areas is this feeling of control and the fact that it's a balancing act and I think that's really where starting a business has been a good vehicle for me to really stretch myself because there's so many things that I wasn't ready for that have gone wrong and you just have to learn how to kind of go with the flow more.
That has been something I'm still learning and I've had to learn. It's almost like using different opportunities as a vehicle for growth. If you're listening to these, listeners, and you're starting to feel like maybe there is some perfectionism in me, Greg’s book is a great resource for you. I also like the idea of kind of one of action is let go of control in some ways and be okay with the anti-perfectionism life that we're living here.
Yeah. If you could lead into the uncertainty and the unpredictability and sit with the discomfort of not having total control and understanding that any sense of control is often a fantasy, those ingredients and the willingness to sit with that discomfort, that's the recipe for success. You look at most people that own a company like you or CEOs, they tend not to be very perfectionistic. It's very hard to be perfectionistic and make your way to that level because to get to that level, you've got to be comfortable sitting with a lot of risk, and a lot of discomfort.
You've got to be very decisive and sit with the consequences of your decision. Things that are in a lot of ways, the complete opposite of people with perfectionism who are constantly trying not to be in those positions. I tend to find a lot of perfectionism as more at the CFO, CTO kind of level, and the middle management, but I don't really see a ton of it at the CEO level. I do see it, but I just get the sense it's less frequent because you talk to a lot of CEOs in a lot of ways they just can't even understand people that are perfectionistic.
That's kind of what I was like reading I was like, that would be so bogged down. Sometimes I feel like maybe I might be too far on the spectrum like you mentioned. I don't do research before. I'll just pick a plane seat like just get it done and move on. Then sometimes like, “Okay, I wish I had researched this hotel before I'm staying in this sketchy neighborhood.” There's some pros and cons to both.
That just happened to me in Los Angeles. I said I probably could have been a little bit more perfectionistic about it. I was in a hotel that I didn't have a bathroom in the hotel room, and it was in a sketchy part of Inglewood. I'm like, “Probably should have researched just a little bit more.”
We would have people come to stay and the travel team is not based in Los Angeles. They'd pick a hotel in a neighborhood where like, “A body was just found in the lake from the holiday.” I was like, “They cannot stay there,” but we don't know, you don't know. Let's maybe end on more of a positive note. What are some of the positive qualities of perfectionists that they bring to the workplace?
Positive Perfectionist Qualities
So many. I'm glad you asked that question. I always feel that I need to make sure that we comment on this because I always worry that people with perfectionism are going to think that they're, I don't want them to walk away thinking that not only are they a pain, but they're hoped that there's no hope. They bring a ton to the table. This is not a witch hunt. I don't want people with perfectionism to not get hired, to get let go. People with perfectionism are often your strongest employees. They're honest a lot of the time, extremely loyal, sometimes to a fault, and conscientious, if there's a single characteristic I would choose in an employee, I think that would be the one is conscientious.
People with perfectionism are often your strongest employees. They're honest a lot of the time, extremely loyal, sometimes to a fault, and conscientious.
They tend to be very detail-oriented, which for a lot of jobs is super critical, right? To counterbalance people that don't have that, they can be absolutely critical. There are a lot of really good components of perfectionism. I think the point of the book is really to reduce some of the damage that perfectionism can cause while allowing you to preserve or even amplify some of the positive qualities that come with it.
I think that was a beautiful way to wrap up, reduce the damage that it can cause if you get too far down the runway, and then also amplify all of the positive qualities because some of the teammates that I can think of that have had perfectionism, you're exactly right like they're doing the jobs that I couldn't do because my brain doesn't think that way either. I think that it's like in any organization you have different strengths that you have to pull from to make a cohesive team.
I appreciate you sharing that. I am so happy that I got to talk to the perfectionist guru. You're the man. I feel like I learned so much from the book and I will link everything in the show notes so people can buy it Where can people find if they want to learn more about you and your message in your book and your platform?
Yeah, thank you. To see more about the book, you can go to FlawedBook.com, which is a bit of an unfortunate URL, but FlawedBook.com. Hopefully, you'll remember it. Then if you want to learn more about me and other things that are going on and also learn more about the book, you can go to GregChasson.com, and learn more there. You feel free to reach out to me. I'm happy to answer questions. I have some log stuff going on. You can read some articles, things like that.
Yeah, Greg is a plethora of information. I'm so happy that we were able to have him on the show. Thank you so much for joining the show.
Thank you for having me.
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Thank you so much for listening to the Prospecting on Purpose podcast. If you'd loved what you heard today, subscribe to the podcast and please rate and leave a review. For more info on me or if you'd like to work together, feel free to go to my website SaraMurray.com. On social media, I'm usually hanging out at Sara Murray sales. Thanks again for joining me and I'll see you next time.
