Perfection Vs Excellence

VC Hammer
VC Hammer
Jul 22, 2017 · 8 min read

One of my biggest faults, which harks back to my childhood, is that ironically, I am petrified of people finding out my faults. I am the text book case of a perfectionist. As a child, I would never ask a question in class, lest I appear stupid, and then just work like a Trojan in the background to find out the answer. As a teen, I spent hours hiding or wrestling into submission my perceived faults, attempting to control them, which was partly to blame for the subsequent eating disorders. As an adult, I’m obsessed with achieving whatever I set out to, and whatever I choose, once achieved, is never enough. If someone thinks ill of me for any reason, well, it literally makes me ill with despair. Perfectionism for me, has been both a blessing and a curse — a blessing because its driven me to get shit done, but it’s been a curse because of the fear, debilitating anxiety and sense of self loathing that tends to come along with it. It also has held me back considerably.

Evidently the fear of people finding out I am not perfect stems back to my childhood and the fear that I will be denied parental love if I fail to live up to perfect standards (or so my old psychologist said). So, clearly the root of the terror that still exists as an adult, is abandonment, rejection. One of the ways I have attempted to manage this over the years is pre-emption. Not until my late 20s when I saw my first psychologist, did I learn the trick of removing the terror that people might find out I am not perfect, by simply pre-emptively admitting to them I am not. And to my astonishment, people didn’t leave. In fact, they endeared more, because I was more relatable, more human. A few decades on, I’ve gotten rather good at identifying and confessing my faults, and I’ve found extraordinary solace in the greater connectedness this has fostered. Particularly through writing.

Some of you have commented on how much you have enjoyed my writing because of the honesty, vulnerability, and the preparedness to be upfront about my faults and challenges. This has been exceptionally soul bolstering for the perfectionist in me, that I might be accepted for me, warts and all. Or better than accepted, possibly even benefited from revealing the real me, because this transparency has cultivated trust. I personally believe this works in business too, not just in one’s personal life. The more open, honest and transparent a business and its people are about both positives and negatives, the more their customers and partners trust them and are prepared to do business with them. And given almost all of you who provide this positive feedback are within our industry sector, I am inclined to believe this confirms that view.

I’ll admit, one of the things I have not yet mastered, is how to react appropriately (in my own head, not externally), when someone else identifies a fault in me. Criticism. I still strongly emotionally react to this, much to my personal disappointment and frustration. Even if it’s delivered delicately. Especially If I think it’s undeserved. I hate that I can’t be more measured about this. And so continues the cycle of the perfectionist….its fucking exhausting.

Over the past few months I have been criticised by my for my writing. Not in its totality, but because it’s been judged that I’ve made errors in judgement in what information has been revealed in my writing. Nothing confidential of course, but the concern that has been communicated to me is two fold:

· there are things I have written about that are derived from discussions others feel are not for public consumption under any circumstance. Kind of like how someone shouldn’t post a picture of you on social media without your permission. My working view has been that so long as the anecdotes or examples are de-identified, doesn’t implicate any one individual or company, and the anecdotes actually are being used to exemplify or illustrate an important point that’s educational (ie not sensational), it’s fine to write about. Kind of like posting a picture of someone on social media but with their identity blacked out.

· That what I write about could be viewed as negative and put companies at risk. I feel particularly strongly about writing about things I or one of our businesses, or our industry have not gotten right yet — our faults. Because, pretending we are perfect, when we are not, is disingenuous, and how else will we achieve a better outcome if we don’t talk openly (not just internally) about these things? Also, I think we get credit for truthfully admitting we don’t have all the answer and identify areas where we don’t get it right, and for pre-emptively acknowledging them. I think this allows the people we work with to emotionally and culturally connect with us which has been a core pillar of how we have built our business, because this breeds trust.

Clearly, others disagree with me — they just see risk or alternatively, have a view that the risk outweighs the reward, or they think it can be done in a way that reveals some faults, challenges and things we haven’t gotten right yet, but just not all of them. I must admit, I find determining the line between these things quite tricky. They also understandably feel slighted if I am writing about them and it’s not favourable. I get that too. It’s just hard to write about the stuff we all struggle with, without real examples.

I have also been previously asked to remove posts that relate to me, and my health, lest this impacts public confidence in me and/or our business. As above, I think talking about the things I personally struggle with as something that fosters trust and allows people we work with to connect with me and therefore us, rather than judge me/us. This has overwhelmingly been the feedback I’ve received — although perhaps people don’t bother to give you feedback if their view is negative. I do know that this has not turned away investors who have backed me, and it has been a core reason why some of our founders have chosen to work with me.

In my opinion, writing allows me to communicate the essence of our company, culture and industry, the positives and our challenges, which I think is emboldened by a vulnerable, strategically uncensored approach, in a way that’s more scalable. Writing provides a platform that provides more influence that anything else I do day to day, and for a great take on this you need only read Ryan Holiday’s post who can capture this and the professional benefits better than I ever could. For me writing about all of these things is a path to excellence, which is the healthy version of perfectionism. And while I’ve never been asked to stop writing in totality, I do feel it is barely tolerated rather than encouraged, and have been asked to do it in a way where I don’t put our companies at such risk.

The thing I’ve been thinking about a lot over the last few days though, is why this has bothered me so much. Why am I so upset at being told off for this? Am I just hyper sensitive to criticism? Do I just fundamentally think it’s unfair? Do I think they are wrong? Have I been disrespectful? Do I have a particular sensitivity to being told to censor myself? Are they actually right and my reaction is a defensive mechanism? Well, I’ve been ruminating about all of these things, and I have a view on each of them. But actually, I think there are two things at the root of why this bothers me so much:

· I feel like their judgement that I am putting business at risk by sharing our faults is a rejection of me. I belong to this company — I’m part of its fabric, its DNA, I own this company in part along with many others. This company is, in many ways an extension of me and vice versa. We are inextricably linked. Notwithstanding their entirely fair view that sharing personal albeit de-identified conversations without their permission is against their wishes, when I am told to stop talking about it’s, theirs or my faults because it’s too risky, it’s like being told I am embarrassing, or shameful or unlovable if these were to be exposed. And there I am back to being the perfectionist, the mortal childhood terror that I am not good enough, as vivid as it ever was.

· I feel like this a passive aggressive silencing/controlling of me because they don’t like what they read about themselves and their company, disguised as an effort to prevent erosion of shareholder value. There was never an objection to any of the positive things I wrote that were derived from the same type of conversations that they now object to in my writing. I could be wrong, and I don’t know if this has something to do with my gender or me having a platform that is not controlled by anyone but me, I hope it doesn’t.

I get why they feel that way, I used to too. But, I think businesses can suffer from perfectionism too, where the devil is in the dose. Too little and they achieve nothing, too much and it’s limits their potential and it underestimates their customers and partners who actually are desperate to see the real them/us/me. Afterall, people invest in people. Not the shiny happy version of those people, not necessarily the ones who display confidence and perfection, but the ones who perform and who they trust. This is why when we were based in the suburbs and wearing jeans and not a champagne city address with suits, people still backed us. It’s also why I can feel myself physically recoiling at the super suave, 3 piece suited Sydney based investment banker who is uber confident but hasn’t yet earned my trust. I wrote in a previous post why I believe sharing faults is a path to excellence and as a business we should be aiming for excellence not perfection.

The other alternative of course, is that I’m just a sooky la-la who doesn’t like to be told she got something wrong and now has a bruised ego. This is, of course, equally possible, even likely.

The irony of this post is that it should never get published (I have two followers on this site, I feel this is the same as not publishing), because to do so would be to disclose the content of their personal conversations with me which goes against their wishes. Thus demonstrating the difficulty of continuing to blog about the challenges we face in our work and personal life while striking a balance of being transparent but not truly transparent and not writing about real people when our role is almost entirely based on people. I’ve been encouraged to find a way to do this, I just don’t have any answers yet.

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