Lead On with Greg & Mark (LOwGaM)
We invite you to join us as we talk about the world of leadership during times of complexity.
Lead On with Greg & Mark (LOwGaM)
S6: E4 Progress. Not Perfection.
How can leaders overcome their perfectionism?
Join us to chat about:
- Leadership traps that tie personal worth to appearances,
- Leaders who won’t delegate, and
- Teams smothered by micromanagement.
If you’re trying to move a team forward, launch a service, or just hit send on that email (you know the one!) without falling into a spiral, this episode gives you some food for thought.
Subscribe, share this with a colleague who over-edits, and leave a review with one habit you’re changing this week...
Remember: The price of perfection is never worth the cost!
Check out all episodes of Lead On with Greg & Mark on your favorite podcast platform!
Alright, listeners. Hey Mark. What's funny is that Mark and I are gazing into each other's eyes.
SPEAKER_04:In the lights are out.
SPEAKER_05:In the lights are out. We need all we need is a candle.
SPEAKER_04:We're just dipping coffee and staring at each other. What you can do.
SPEAKER_05:We just need some physical cheese.
SPEAKER_04:I'm not like a huge country guy. I like all country. Yeah. But I think but I can appreciate like singing and yeah. It would be so much fun to be a bass player in a band like this. Because we just it's it's it's easy. It's not crazy. Yeah. It requires talent and skill. But it's the bass that's driving this.
SPEAKER_05:You know, when you're not, I can hear it in the chorus, it's driving.
SPEAKER_04:Those chord progressions are so great. Alright, so we want to know. You've heard uh Bruno Mars, you've heard Marcy Playground. Yeah. What's this one in the style of? Did you give it an artist?
SPEAKER_05:I didn't even give it an artist.
SPEAKER_04:This is like new country. You just said country.
SPEAKER_05:This is a new country.
SPEAKER_04:New country's poppy. This is like uh 90s Alan Jackson, 90s country.
SPEAKER_05:Alan Jackson-ish.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, Chris Stapleton sort of bringing this style back.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, I agree.
SPEAKER_04:I agree. Right? Yeah. I mean a lot of people too. I don't know enough enough country to start name-dropping. I don't know much about country.
SPEAKER_05:I like the Zach Brown band. You like Chris Stapleton too? Stapleton, really like him, yeah. Good stuff. Yeah, do you think this sounds like Zach Brown? No. Maybe. Maybe a little on one of his mellower tunes. Is this like colder weather? It's a little bit like colder weather. All right. Well done. I hear you. Okay, I'm gonna throwback to Koi Balls, baby.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, Koi Balls. Is it like season two or three?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it was.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that was you being a hustler, entrepreneur, or reaching out and getting people, big time celebrities on our podcast.
SPEAKER_05:He literally stepped right off the stage from doing a keynote and I said, I have a podcast. Can you can you join us?
SPEAKER_04:But you know, he wasn't there to promote himself. He really wasn't. Right. If we didn't bring up what he was what he was providing, he would never have brought it up. Yeah, he was very humble. Great dude. Really good. Normal. In a world of abnormal people, he was a normal dude.
SPEAKER_05:And what was cool is you were talking to him about um uh punk and your first guitars and all that stuff, which was really great.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, we both had ibenezes as our first instruments, which are great instruments. Great. What are we talking about today? I have a couple questions for you. Okay. Maybe our listeners can play along.
SPEAKER_05:All right, let's go.
SPEAKER_04:What band's breakup felt the most personal to you?
SPEAKER_05:Ooh. Smith's. Oh, that's a good one. Smith's. I they were only out for a matter of a couple years, I think it was three years.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, prolific.
SPEAKER_05:Stevie and I were diehard fans. I mean, like the family, my my family was worried about me because they thought I was depressed. Yeah. Because I listened to so much, so like on record, I had to have collect everything.
SPEAKER_04:What's your favorite Smith song?
SPEAKER_05:Uh Headmaster's Ritual.
SPEAKER_04:Uh, it's a good one.
SPEAKER_05:Uh, there's a bunch that I like. I mean, how soon is now is obviously the most popular.
SPEAKER_04:Uh Johnny Mars guitar line and that is just insane.
SPEAKER_05:His guitar playing, uh his book is great. Johnny Marr's book is amazing.
SPEAKER_04:I saw um Modest Mouse, I don't know, 15 years ago. Yeah. He hopped in with him. And he was playing with him. Yep. And Eddie Vetter sang one of their songs. No kidding. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. It was weird. He just happened to be at the show. And I guess when you're a celebrity, do whatever you want. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:How about you for that one?
SPEAKER_04:Uh bands break up, Fugazi. Oh, Fugazi. When Fugazi was playing shows together. I was like, what? I never because I never got to see him.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:All right, here's one. We've had vinyl, cassette, CD, MP3, and now streaming. What's an album that you've owned on all or most of those platforms?
SPEAKER_05:Counting Crows, August, and Everything After. That's a good one. I have. I had I think I have it on everything. Yeah. Minus 8-track.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I don't have A-Track. I forgot to mention that.
SPEAKER_05:It wouldn't apply. I mean, that was a good thing. It was fading when we were kids. I mean, it stopped early 70s, I want to say.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. We had an A-Track player in a console stereo that we had, but I don't remember having any tapes.
SPEAKER_05:How about Pop Pop Pop Coons had one in his Chevy? I believe that. Could you imagine?
SPEAKER_04:No. Carrying around Atari games to play music. For me, it's the wall. I've owned the wall. And the Doors Greatest Hits. Yep. I've owned those. All right. What's a show as a kid or a teenager that you secretly watched but pretended you hated?
SPEAKER_05:As a teenager.
SPEAKER_04:Or kid.
SPEAKER_05:Or a kid. You didn't want to admit it, but you watched it. There was a cartoon called The Littles, and it was about they would they had these little creatures who lived underneath the floorboards of the house. I remember it. We are the Littles. That's again. I just I liked it. I've got to tell all the listeners are going to think less of me now. But it's not true.
SPEAKER_04:For me it was 90210. I never admitted that I watched that show, but I secretly watched it.
SPEAKER_05:See, you're confident right now.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I don't care. Sega or Nintendo?
SPEAKER_05:Nintendo. All right. I I think I'd pick Sega. My brother was a Sega. Super Mario Brothers. I I it's a really great memory, actually. Yeah. Right when it came out, it was sold out. Like the cabbage patch dolls were sold out. Yeah. And my uncle Walt lived in New Jersey, Bluesbury, New Jersey. He was able to get a console for us, brought it in for Christmas. And I have that memory of hooking up Mario Brothers and just playing that through the Christmas break.
SPEAKER_04:We had everything, but my brother was old Nintendo. Had Sega Genesis. He had Sega, Sega Genesis, and Sega CD and all these other things. Yeah. And so because he was my older brother, I remember thinking that Sega was cooler because it's what he liked. All right. Last one. Okay. These are good questions, by the way. Baggy pants or tight rolled cuffs?
SPEAKER_05:Baggy pants. And I love, I did. Did you ever tight roll? I'm gonna admit, no, uh no, I I don't know what tight rolling is. I know what it is. I know what it is, but I I did not. I was more of a jams guy. Jams, yeah, yeah. Remember jams, and skids? And skids. I actually wore skids to a semi-formal uh like plaid baggy pajamas. It was back uh again, mighty many boss tone era kind of thing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I had a lot of Jenkos. Did you have Jenkos? No. Baggy jeans? No, I didn't. Like super, super wide bottom. Not bell bottoms because the whole pant was wide. Yeah. It was like what like you would wear if you were in like corn or something like that. You know what I mean? Or like if you saw Jenkos, you would know like the bottoms of the jeans would get all frayed. Yeah, exactly. I had a chain wallet.
SPEAKER_05:We had a Did you ever have a chain wallet? I never had a chain wallet. That wasn't my thing. Did you ever wear a jacket with a band name on the back?
SPEAKER_04:Of course. I had the jacket with patches all over it. I could picture that. Bad religion, face-to-face. Okay. I know. Might anybody boston to mention them for the 15th year. I might have had a members-only jacket. Members only. That would actually you would be a Brooklyn hipster if you had a members-only jacket now. I know. Hey, last episode we talked about one of my pop's uh rules. It was um bad news doesn't get better with age. Right. Okay. I want to talk about another one. Let's hear it. The price of perfection is never worth the cost. The price of perfection is never worth the cost of the cost. I'm digesting that first. No, no, no, of course. The price of perfection is never worth the cost. How does that hit you? I have some thoughts. Of course, there's an article. But how does that hit you?
SPEAKER_05:So this makes me think of my son. Because he's a perfectionist. Uh very, very smart. Uh he's now 23. Yeah. But going back through school, through the K-12 education, he it either had to be his assignments, his homework, his tests, either had to be perfect or nothing. So teachers didn't always get him. They didn't understand where he was coming from. And he would honestly either get a hundred or a zero. Yeah, I understand.
SPEAKER_04:That that he'd rather not turn it in.
SPEAKER_05:And that's the first thing I think about because when you say perfection, I think about this. And it frustrates me so much because I want to be like, do the best you can and just hand it in. But his best is perfection. Okay, can we can we push this to um thinking about our team? Okay. So our leadership teams, and we're sitting down with a project. We want that project to be the best it can.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Is how does perfect fit in here? Because as a leader, as a top-level leader, Mark, you want it to be high quality. Yeah. But there's a difference between absolutely perfect. Like, how do you measure that?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So let's let me put my tech director hat back on. I was a tech director at one point. And there's a concept in technology, like development, right? You talk to your data designers, your program developers, your app developers, your project managers. And it doesn't have to be a technology project, but technology people think this way, but it applies to everything. Anybody that has something do. And if you have a job, you usually have something due. And the concept is when you're working on something agile development or waterfall development. Have you heard of those two? I have not. Okay. That's that's new. So if Greg Coons is working on a project and he has a waterfall mindset, he waits until it's done and pushes the whole thing over the finish line or over the waterfall and sees how it falls. Okay. Without testing or anything. Well, he might be testing on the back end, but you don't release it to users, let's say. I see. Until it's done. I see.
SPEAKER_05:I see where you're.
SPEAKER_04:Agile development is I'm going to release pieces of it piecemeal and get feedback from those users as I build it, or I'm going to release it piecemeal or patchwork, knowing that it's not fully developed and with the full disclosure to everyone that it's not complete. But I'd rather get it out there to get people using it to get some feedback and to also get some traction and credibility and make adjustments along the way. That's called agile development.
SPEAKER_05:Let me ask you a question though. Can you use both? Of course. Like so if you start with the waterfall method and then you use the other to test it out along the way and its implementation stages. Because I'm thinking about one of the companies we worked with is writing IEPs. And I know they would have stakeholder meetings where you'd sit down and like, what if you had a snapshot? I remember asking the person having, could there be a snapshot that shows the student at a glance, kind of a thing? And that's what it became.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you know, it could also, it doesn't have to be a tech project. Like imagine you're writing a report for your boss, you're doing a PowerPoint presentation. A simpler analogy could be I just put an hour of work into these slides. I'm going to send them to my boss and have them take a quick look to see if I'm on the right track. Agile development. Waterfall, I'm going to spend all weekend and send my boss something on Monday with the hope that it's right. And if it's not, I the whole thing went over the waterfall and I got to pull it back up.
SPEAKER_05:And that could be messier. Correct. Much messier.
SPEAKER_04:And it doesn't, I don't know that agile is always better. I think when you make the comparison like this, you'd say, well, why wouldn't you do agile? Right. There are plenty of reasons why you wouldn't do agile all the time. In some cases, you're the expert, and the people that you're working with don't want feedback. They just want you to make executive decisions or they don't have the expertise. True. So they're counting on you to deliver the project.
SPEAKER_05:Something I like about the agile piece is that if you're there with a team, they all have different perspectives, different insights, insight on what on that project. And I think that goes a long way. Especially if you're wordsmithing. If you're talking about like you said, use the example of presentations. That would be I I like that strategy there.
SPEAKER_04:I'd rather know that my boss doesn't like the fonts, the colors, the format, or the storytelling before I spend all weekend.
SPEAKER_05:Agreed.
SPEAKER_04:Right? I'd rather start over than have to invest all that time and energy, right? Anyway, so as you think about this, the price of perfection, why why do I bring that up? Agile would be the price of perfection. Like keep moving. Let me see what you got. Don't wait for perfection. Don't wait for the waterfall moment for people to see what you've got. Better to get something out field tested and out there in the hands of your users and your customers. Unless it's a catastrophe. A consequence of Agile is that you release something that's so bad that you lose trust and credibility. People might say, This is so bad. I I don't ever want the next time this person sends me a PowerPoint, I'm not going to open it. And the next time this company releases an app, I'm not going to buy it. So you have to be careful.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, you absolutely do. And I was thinking about some projects. I I know I I was just thinking about a project that we failed on in uh it was a couple leadership positions ago. And it was it was tough to admit that it wasn't quality. And that the in our case, listeners, we provide we put services together for our districts to benefit our districts and ultimately for the students in the programs. Uh in this case, we were putting together like a curriculum, yeah, an alternate curriculum for special education. And it wasn't good. It was not good. And we brought stakeholders in. We brought we brought from all of the districts.
SPEAKER_04:So you did do agile?
SPEAKER_05:We we we brought it in along the way, but it was a waterfall when it was done. And the waterfall was not good.
SPEAKER_04:It was a dud. You rolled it out to your customers and they said it wasn't what we asked for. Yep. I find that if you take too long developing a project here or in this industry. Yes. So if you say to your districts, let's say, you say to your customers, what is it that you want, and they give you an example. Greg, we want you to build this curriculum, and then it takes you a year and a half to do it. By the time you roll it out, they've already found something else and they have a set of different problems. You understand what I'm saying? I do.
SPEAKER_05:There's a whole time there's a time timing to this as well.
SPEAKER_04:And so if instead of waiting a year and a half to get it out, knowing that they needed it a year and a half ago and they've moved on, nobody can wait a year and a half to solve a problem.
SPEAKER_05:No.
SPEAKER_04:It's better maybe to say, all right, well, what if we get you this in three months and then we get you another thing in six months and then another thing in nine months, right? Like it's another approach. Yes. Greg, uh, an article that um listeners can Google is called The Hidden Cost of Perfectionism and Perfectionism in Leadership. It's from the mind solution, full attribution to them. Not for this concept, but just for some of the things we're gonna steal from here. Um their position, I'm gonna read a couple lines here. It says perfectionism is about trying, excuse me, it's about tying yourself worth to how perfect you appear to others. So it's not that you're actually worried about it being perfect, you're worried about whether other people see it as perfect. It's public perception. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, of course, there's some things in here about the hidden cost to perfectionism. They have something that says, How perfectionism shows up in leadership, and there's a couple of bullets struggling to delegate because you think no one will do it as well as you. You're so perfect, how could anybody else do it? So I'm just gonna keep it on my plate. See this a lot.
SPEAKER_05:We see this a lot with top-level leaders, too, like at the cabinet level.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you gotta delegate, baby. Delegating also creates capacity and builds capacity and leadership abilities and others. Um taking on too much and saying yes when you should say no, right? Because if I say no, I won't be perfect. Over preparing for meetings and presentations, even when you know your stuff. Constantly second guessing your decisions, fearing you'll get it wrong, afraid that you have to keep that perfect streak alive. Feeling like you have to prove yourself every single day, even though you've already earned a seat at the table. I don't know, that one I feel like maybe there's a for me, that one that resonates a little bit with me. I but to the contrary, like I mean, at some point you gotta have a healthy dose of defensiveness and fear. Not in a catastrophic way, but like you know, like if you get too complacent, someone's coming for you.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, definitely. Definitely. You need you need to bring some quality to the table.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So it I like what they put here right at the end, Mark. It says, but here's the good news perfectionism isn't who you are, it's a pattern. One you've learned over time, and like any pattern, it can be unlearned.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, let's go back to the last episode about people telling you the truth. So if you're a perfectionist and your colleagues don't tell you that this perfectionism of yours is causing you harm, they're not doing you a um not doing you a favor. No, they're not helping you at all. No. Have you uh and I don't mean this like in a flip moment, I'm serious. Have you ever been have you ever been caught in a perfectionist cycle?
SPEAKER_05:Oh, definitely.
SPEAKER_04:For me, it's emails. If I'm I don't like to send emails, I'm not an email guy. And so when I email everybody, all users, or email the superintendents or the board, I get anxiety if I have typos and things in my communications. Even though nobody cares. It's for me, it it it is a it's not about perfection, it's about professionalism. And so I'm I can easily admit that I overobsess on writing that will be seen by lots of people.
SPEAKER_05:We had a board uh member uh in one of my previous jobs. He was great before any um board meeting. He'd go through the whole agenda with me. Yeah. And if he saw something that wasn't grammatically correct or misleading looking at that, he would he would say to me, He said, He said, Greg, we're an educational institution. We need to practice what we preach.
SPEAKER_04:So he was holding you to a perfectionist standard to some degree or to a my word now, professional standard.
SPEAKER_05:That's a professional standard. I that's the way I saw it. Yeah. I'm the same way with emails, and it depends on who I'm sending it to. It also I just in general, I don't like to have any typos. That that drives me crazy. Yeah. I mean, if you're gonna send it to a thousand employees. That's the thing. With at work, you know, a thousand employees, like uh even if it's a Christmas message, like a holiday message or a thank you message. Two words, you forgot a comma, there's an extra and I usually have one or two other people read it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, right. Before I send it out. That's where I see perfectionism with me. Though I think I have a very high tolerance for failure for myself and for others, and that might be to a fault as well. Like if something doesn't work out, um Do you beat yourself up over it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:You don't lose sleep over.
SPEAKER_04:No, I do. I internalize it though. Like I don't I don't externalize my frustrations. I internalize them, and I say to myself, if I were a better leader, that person wouldn't have failed.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, but that's yeah, there's no can that that's out of your control. There's some way to do it. No, but the feeling influence. Yeah. But the feeling is you take that to heart. I personalize it. You personalize it.
SPEAKER_04:I I I hear you. I apply my frustrations or not with people, but with outcomes on myself.
SPEAKER_05:That's a good reflection right there.
SPEAKER_04:And they give you some thought exercises. Imagine walking into a meeting without second guessing yourself. But I can imagine that a lot of people do second guess themselves, particularly if they work in an environment where they're criticized, or where there's a lack of trust, or where it's hostile, or where they're dismissed, or where there's some ism, sex ism, race ism, age ism. I would be second guessing myself if every if everything I said was looked at with suspicion or animosity or frustration, or if it was dismissed.
SPEAKER_05:So you're kind of saying it it depends on an environment you create as a leader. Or the environment that's that you live in. Is it a safe environment?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, because like imagine if you're not the big boss, right? And your boss is a jerk. Oh, and you're not gonna be able to do it. Um imagine trusting your teams to deliver without micromanaging every detail.
SPEAKER_05:I feel I do I feel I do that now.
SPEAKER_04:Wait, but you're blessed, right? I'm blessed. We have these amazing people that work in our organization that they don't need to be micromanaged.
SPEAKER_05:And when I do feel, if I ever do feel that, I let them know.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Have you ever been micromanaged in a previous role?
SPEAKER_05:Yes.
SPEAKER_04:Awful, right? The worst. How does that make you feel, right? You feel like you can't be trusted, that you're not a professional, right?
SPEAKER_05:It it makes me feel all those kind of things. And the best thing I can equate it to is a math problem. Because the way you know we talk about whether you're talking about new math or whatever they're teaching the kids these days. Um if you get to the right outcome, it it doesn't matter how you got to it. Like and that's what I like, the creativity of how you can get to the same solution in a different way. Yeah, and then you might have a boss who feels no, it's it needs to be the way I want you to do it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and that's their own insecurities coming out in their interactions with their it's it's all projections, by the way.
SPEAKER_05:Yes.
SPEAKER_04:Imagine ending your work day feeling proud of what you've accomplished instead of being drained and doubting yourself. I don't know. I uh whether you're a perfectionist or not, I feel like I have days where I leave energized and days where I feel defeated.
SPEAKER_05:It just depends on the day.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I don't think that that one has anything to do with perfectionism, quite frankly. Some days you're the windshield, some days you're the bug. Yeah, amen to that.
SPEAKER_05:Right? Yeah. And yeah, it it just depends. I mean, we and we talk about if we talk to this in in in the perspective of students, there are some students who, you know, they they don't hear any good things all day. You know, kind of a thing. So they're they're dwelling on those net those negatives. Teachers, yeah, they might teach have six of their the classes that went really well and one that didn't go well. Yeah. And they're thinking about the one that didn't go well. I mean, that that's that's just human nature, I would say.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and it's like a it's a des a desire to get better and to improve is not necessarily a perfectionist. Or that's not necessarily perfectionism, right? Right. I think perfectionism is when it prohibits or inhibits you from moving forward. And it might be seen as obstinence or procrastination or defiance, right? Maybe not to speak, but to go back to your example, your son, a teacher who's not getting an assignment from your son might assume he's lazy, he's disorganized, correct, he's insubordinate, he's defiant, he's careless, all the things that you know are not true. All of these but you know they're not true, as his father, but because he I'm not again, I don't know anything about your son's situation, but like if I were to extrapolate what you're saying, the impression that could be given for someone who's paralyzed by perfectionism could be those things in the eyes of someone who doesn't take time to get to know the person. Right. And coach them and give them a way to turn it in. Well, why don't you just turn in page one? Well, why don't you just turn in page one and two now?
SPEAKER_05:And that's where my wife and I c come in and thank God you're educators though.
SPEAKER_04:And the thing exactly.
SPEAKER_05:If you weren't educators, would you know that? No. No You would say turn your homework in. So there's this whole communication piece to it. So I'm thinking of teams too. Like, so in this kind of case, if you set up a project and you're perfect it's you're perfectionist, you need some kind of a mechanism, whether it be a check-in or something with that team to get that to the to the end end lone end line, you know?
SPEAKER_04:My wife always says something, and I'm not sure where she got it. Maybe she made it up, but I I assume other people say this too, uh, because it's just so universally true, right? When we're talking about our kids, you know, and the trials and tribulations of being a parent. She always says to me, progress, not perfection.
SPEAKER_05:That's a that's good it's a great old saying. That I mean she always says it to me.
SPEAKER_04:Like when we're thinking about like and and you know when we say it? We don't say it when the kids fail. We say it when the kids succeed. And we say, look at that, they're making progress.
unknown:Right?
SPEAKER_04:Like let's let's I think her point is let's celebrate those small wins that happen every day instead of waiting for the perf the perfect win. Right? That's how I interpret it.
SPEAKER_05:Celebrating the small wins kind of a thing.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, celebrate the progress as your kids become more mature as they turn into adults, as they so anyway, the shout out to my wife there. I that's something that I think of regularly. And it's it's so true. So true. Gregory.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, Mark?
SPEAKER_04:I think that is season six, episode four in the books. Wow.
SPEAKER_05:We are moving along here.
SPEAKER_04:I can't wait to see what artificial music you have in store for episode five. Always a pleasure, brother. Yes, always a pleasure. So say we wrap this up.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, here we go.
SPEAKER_04:It was a different one. There's a party foul.
