每天一篇经济学人 | The perils of perfectioins...

It is the world’s most tired interview question: what is your greatest weakness? And Rishi Sunak, one of the two remaining candidates in the race to become Britain’s prime minister, gave the world’s most tired answer—perfectionism—when he was asked it at an online hustings earlier this month. 

你最大的缺点是什么? 这是世界上最令人厌烦的面试问题。竞选英国首相的最后两名候选人之一里希·苏纳克在本月早些时候的一次网上演讲集会中被问到这个问题时，给出了世界上最令人厌烦的答案——完美主义。

No interviewee would answer this question with an unambiguous negative (“stupidity”, say, or “body odour”). Like all those who have reached for it before, Mr Sunak will have intended his reply to signal that his flaws are virtues, especially compared with the shambolic style of Boris Johnson’s outgoing government. 

没有受访者会用明确的否定词来回答这个问题(比如“愚蠢”或“体味”)。就像之前所有的人一样，苏纳克先生打算在他的回复中表明，他的缺点也是优点，尤其是与鲍里斯•约翰逊即将离任的混乱风格相比。

But this classic response is riskier than it once was. In Mr Sunak’s case that is because the job of prime minister is largely to triage problems and make decisions at a relentless pace; even his supporters worry that his deliberative style would be a problem. More generally, perfectionism is increasingly out of step with the ways that products are developed, employees are treated and workforces are organised. 

但这种经典的应对方式比以往更具风险。在苏纳克先生的例子中，这是因为首相的工作很大程度上是对问题进行分类，并以迅速做出决定；就连他的支持者也担心他审慎的风格会成为一个问题。更普遍地说，完美主义与产品开发、员工待遇和员工组织的方式越来越不合拍。

Start with product development. Lots of digital types embrace the concept of the minimum viable product (mvp), in which companies ship prototypes that can be refined, or indeed scrapped, on the basis of feedback from early adopters. The essence of the mvp approach is anti-perfectionism: don’t procrastinate, don’t spend time sweating the tiniest details, get your product into users’ hands and see how it does. Fussing about font sizes and nice-to-have features is a waste of time; the market will hone things for you, dispensing its judgments cumulatively and dispassionately. 

先从产品开发开始说起。许多数字产品都信奉“最小化可行产品”的概念，在这个概念中，公司可以根据早期采用者的反馈改进原型，甚至废弃原型。mvp方法的本质是反完美主义:不要拖延，不要花时间在最微小的细节上，把你的产品交给用户，看看效果如何。纠结于字体大小和漂亮的功能是在浪费时间；市场会为你打磨一切，并不断地冷静地做出判断。

A growing emphasis on employees’ well-being is another reason why perfectionism is out of favour. The trait is on the rise: a study published in 2017 found that it had been steadily increasing among American, British and Canadian college students between 1989 and 2016 (before you blame Instagram, one big reason is rising parental expectations). The tyranny of excessively high expectations is not good for you: a big literature review in 2016 concluded that perfectionism is associated with a string of mental-health disorders, from depression and burnout to stress and self-harm. 

越来越重视员工的心理健康是完美主义不受欢迎的另一个原因。这一特征正在上升：2017年发表的一项研究发现，1989年至2016年间，美国、英国和加拿大的大学生中，这一特征一直在稳步上升(在你责怪Instagram之前，一个重要原因是父母的期望不断提高)。过高的期望对你不利：2016年的一篇大型文献综述得出结论，完美主义与一系列心理健康障碍有关，从抑郁、倦怠到压力和自残。

It matters what kind of perfectionist someone is. Psychologists distinguish between a “self-oriented” version, in which people put pressure on themselves to perform flawlessly; an “other-oriented” type, in which people hold their colleagues to the highest of standards; and a “socially prescribed” version, in which employees think that they will only get on if they meet the impossible expectations of those around them. People in the last camp seem to be especially prone to stress. A recent Italian study found that, whereas having extremely high standards for your own performance was not a predictor of burnout, being afraid of making mistakes was.

重要的是一个人是什么样的完美主义者。心理学家区分了“自我导向”型，即人们给自己施加压力，要求自己表现得完美无缺；还有“以他人为导向”型，这种类型的人会以最高标准要求自己的同事；还有一种“社会规定”型，员工认为只有满足了周围人不可能达到的期望，他们才能继续工作。最后一种类型的人似乎特别容易受到压力。意大利最近的一项研究发现，尽管对自己的表现有极高的要求并不能预示你的倦怠，但是害怕犯错却能预示你的倦怠。

Perfectionists may also hurt team cohesiveness. In a study conducted in 2020, Emily Kleszewski and Kathleen Otto of Philipps-University of Marburg asked people to rate potential co-workers based on descriptions of their levels and categories of perfectionism. Perfectionists were regarded as being less socially skilled and less likeable than non-perfectionists. You don’t have to like your colleagues for them to be effective: in that same study, perfectionists were rated as more competent than non-perfectionists. But when more and more work is organised around small groups working together, it can help not to loathe each other. 

完美主义者也可能会损害团队凝聚力。在2020年进行的一项研究中，马尔堡-菲利普大学的艾米丽·克莱舍夫斯基和凯瑟琳·奥托让人们根据完美主义的程度和类别对潜在同事进行评价。完美主义者被认为比非完美主义者社交能力更差，更不讨人喜欢。你不一定要喜欢你的同事才能让他们有效率：在同一项研究中，完美主义者被认为比非完美主义者更有能力。但是，当越来越多的工作围绕着小团体一起工作时，它可以帮助人们不讨厌彼此。

By now your inner curmudgeon may well be frothing at the mouth. Nit-picking micro-managers are deeply annoying but they are nowhere near as bad as people who don’t have any standards. Demanding bosses can be the difference between good products and superb ones: “that’ll do” was not the mantra that made Steve Jobs successful. Some jobs actively require perfectionism—copy editors, say, or medicines regulators. And since when did being exacting become a health risk? 

【1】froth at the mouth 口吐白沫；

【2】A micromanager is a boss or manager who gives excessive supervision to employees.

【3】Nit-picking 吹毛求疵的

到现在为止，你内心的坏脾气可能已经气死了。吹毛求疵的微观管理者非常令人讨厌，但他们远不如那些没有任何标准的人糟糕。苛刻的老板可能是好产品和一流产品的区别：“那就行了”并不是让史蒂夫•乔布斯成功的咒语。有些工作要求完美主义，比如文案编辑或药品监管人员。什么时候“严格要求”成为一种健康风险了?

Fortunately, discouraging perfectionism does not mean sacrificing high standards. In a paper published last year, three academics at the University of Ottawa found that people who strove for excellence did better on tests of creative thinking than people who sought perfection. Managers can explicitly define what counts as high-quality work. Deadlines can prevent endless procrastination. Mr Sunak’s call not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good came as he sat in front of a poster that misspelled the word “campaign”. That took things too far.

幸运的是，阻止完美主义并不意味着牺牲高标准。在去年发表的一篇论文中，渥太华大学的三位学者发现，追求卓越的人在创造性思维测试中比追求完美的人表现得更好。管理者可以明确定义什么是高质量的工作。最后期限可以防止无休止的拖延。当苏纳克坐在一张拼错了“campaign”(竞选)一词的海报前时，他呼吁不要让完美成为很好的敌人。这太过分了。