Excellence not Perfection

I was lucky enough to be in Rome last weekend. My first ever visit. What a city. Whilst I’d love to claim that I was reconnecting with my Latin A Level memories, that would definitely be stretching it. We were blessed with amazing weather, meaning that walking was the obvious option for our sight-seeing. Not that my husband was that impressed when walking meant 17 miles…

It did mean, however, that we got to take in so many wonderful sights and buildings. Not just the biggies like the Vatican and the Colisseum, but also the amazing statues, columns, buildings, and domes that just seemed to be there every time you looked up.

Of course so many of these architectural wonders are now less than perfect. And yet that really does not take away from the fact that they are spectacular, awesome, and extraordinary in equal measure.

Which brings me on to the point of this blog…one of the chapters in my book, Staying the Distance, that has garnered the most interest is Chapter Two: How To Leave Behind Fear. This is largely due to the section on perfectionism. Many of you will be familiar with the phrase ‘Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good’. With these commonplace phrases (and this one has been attributed to lots of different people) I always find myself reflecting on what actually sits behind them. Why are they compelling? What is the narrative behind them?

One of the pieces of sports research that I refer to in Staying the Distance is the Great British Medallists Study: A Summary. This paper, written and distributed within performance sport during the Rio Olympic Games cycle, summarised key findings from a research project carried out between 2010 and 2014 involving a collaboration between UK Sport, Bangor University, Exeter University and Cardiff Metropolitan University[1]. Its aim was to comprehensively compare and identify differences and commonalities in the developmental biographies of high achieving British athletes, pairing 32 athletes, with each pair (16) containing one ‘super-elite’ athlete, and one ‘elite’ athlete.

Whilst results showed that both super-elite and elite athletes demonstrated a high level of conscientiousness (defined in this Paper as a tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for high levels of achievement (Costa &McCrae, 1991)) - and so this was classed as a commonality between the groups - there was a distinction when they looked at levels of perfectionism. 14 out of the 16 super-elite athletes reported perfectionist tendencies (defined in this research as ‘characterized by a person holding extremely elevated standards or expectations of him/herself (Adderholdt & Goldberg, 1999)) whilst only 5 of the elite athletes did so.

However, the Paper went on to say that ‘in its adaptive form, perfectionism can motivate individuals toward goal-striving (Adderholdt & Goldberg, 1999). Adaptive perfectionists will likely maintain a better perspective on their performances whilst still striving to achieve exceptional standards.’ Whilst then balancing this with the dangers of its maladaptive form, the Paper concluded that the super-elite athletes in the study displayed an adaptive form of perfectionism.

What does this tell us?

As ever, as in sport, so in other areas of life.  And my experience as a corporate lawyer certainly taught me that there were a fair few perfectionists in that field as well!

I know from my experience of coaching so many capable and successful people that perfectionism is often seen as a ‘problem’, something that people want to try and mitigate. I also know that in its maladaptive form, it really can be debilitating. Constant re-reading of documents and an inability to press the ‘send’ button. The same with emails. Prevarication. Real difficulty with saying that something is ‘complete’.

However, there is hope. As I discuss in Staying the Distance, perfectionism is viewed by many contemporary perfectionist theorists as a multi-dimensional personality characteristic comprised of two higher-order dimensions that are often labelled perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns. Some interesting research in the world of sport, whilst still in its early days, contains findings of real interest to the world of leadership.

Perfectionist strivings are considered to be at the healthy end of perfectionism: characterised by having a self-oriented striving for excellence, high personal standards, positive reinforcement, the pursuit of realistic goals and an awareness of personal and situational limits. Healthy perfectionists are able to focus on self-improvement and positive self-evaluation; and faced with challenges, they generally maintain a positive attitude, attempt to establish the reason for a failure and self-reflect in order to be able to adjust their performance in the future to avoid making similar mistakes.

Perfectionist concerns on the other hand are more of a problem. They are characterised by negative reactions to and fear of failure, concern over mistakes, doubts about actions, exaggerated responses to setbacks and a chronic dissatisfaction or uncertainty about performance. It hinders rather than assists sporting performance.

Linking this back with the quality of conscientiousness (and also striving) from the Great British Medallists Study, we can see that, turned to the right direction, and demonstrated as perfectionist strivings, these qualities can help us achieve.

The Key Insight

And all of this reinforces a key insight: the importance of having something positive to aim for, rather than something negative to avoid (not being perfect). Of aligning those perfectionist tendencies towards improvement and excellence, rather than towards something that is ultimately unachievable. Of striving, in a sustainable way. Don’t aim for perfection - it’s not possible. Instead aim for excellence and high standards. And remember (picking up on the theme of my last blog) we are all human, and won’t always meet those high standards. And that’s ok - it’s all about how well and how quickly you can recover. 

For more on this or any aspect of leadership, with a healthy dose of mindset, sport, and I hope usefulness thrown in, do feel free to browse through all the articles in the Huddle, or get in touch with me directly on catherine@sportandbeyond.co.uk. For more detail on the area this blog covers, as well as many others, please do order a copy of my book - Staying the Distance: The Lessons From Sport That Business Leaders Have Been Missing. Links to buy the book can be found here I have also put together a collection of the podcasts, interviews and sessions on and in which I have recently been sharing my thoughts, stories and insight, which can be found here https://www.sportandbeyond.co.uk/blog/2023/10/30/staying-the-distance-podcasts

[1] Tim Rees, T., Hardy, L., Abernethy, B., Güllich, A., Côté, J., Woodman, T., Montgomery, H., Laing, S., & Warr, C. (2015). What underpins the performance of serial gold-medal winners? A review of current knowledge into the development of the world’s best talent, in preparation.

Hardy, L., Laing, S., Barlow, M., Kuncheva, L., Evans, L., Rees, T., Woodman, T., Abernethy, B., Güllich, A., Côté, J., Warr, C., Jackson, A., Wraith, L, & Kavanagh, J. (2013). Great British Medallists: A Comparison of the Biographies of GB Super-Elite and Elite Athletes. End of project report submitted to UK Sport (345 pages).

Barlow, M., Hardy, L., Evans, L., Rees, T., & Woodman, T. (2015). Great British Medallists: A comparison of the psychosocial biographies of GB super-elite and elite athletes, in preparation.