I have a question that I asked myself.
What if no one has flaws at all?
A simple question, It popped into my head one day and it has been stewing their ever since.
After all, what are flaws? They are things that we do or qualities we have that are bad right? Things that are just known to be negative like greed, arrogance, impatience or stubbornness.
That’s what I thought too, but then I thought of my flaws, I’m impatient, stubborn, a perfectionist and I am extremely private.
And yes, to some people my impatience, perfectionism and my privacy is infuriating, like anyone working in the service industry when I have to queue for more than 10 seconds and they have to deal with my “authentic” face.
noun. a feature that mars the perfection of something; defect; fault: beauty without flaw; the flaws in our plan. a defect impairing legal soundness or validity. a crack, break, breach, or rent.
But to some people, my impatience means I get stuff done, my perfectionism means it’s done well and my privacy means I don’t stop for an idle chat about my life while I do it.
So I ask the question, are they flaws at all? Or are they just different characteristics that are incompatible with certain people?
What is the definition of a flaw?
noun. a feature that mars the perfection of something; defect; fault: beauty without flaw; the flaws in our plan. a defect impairing legal soundness or validity. a crack, break, breach, or rent.
A flaw is feature that stops a person being perfect. Now that in itself is the problem, the idea that a perfect person exists and that is the standard of which we are all being held accountable too. An invisible unspoken standard that we can’t meet.
Now I would like to take an intermission to say that mental health issues and diseases do not count as flaws, they are medical disorders. The flaws I want to talk about are the ones in our personalities. Our quick to anger, absent minded, a little bonkers, fickle, basic. The qualities that are known as bad.
Now that we know we are dealing with those qualities that we are ashamed of or have been told they are bad, like our greed or infidelity. Are they fundamental flaws that we all have to remind us that we aren’t good enough? Or are they just incompatibilities?
Flaws are just qualities that we all have that positively or negatively affect another person causing them to create a positive or negative judgement. Which means, it is completely subjective to the person who is making the judgement.
Something we need to establish is that a “Flaw” refers to a quality, not an action. Fostering the thoughtlessness and selfishness that comes with infidelity is the quality, the action is actually committing the act. Just like never admitting fault is the action that is caused by the quality of stubborness.
And I hear you, how are you going to talk about infidelity as not a flaw in a person? Well, if a flaw is just a quality that is judged positively or negatively by a person and it’s completely subjective, that means that you have to look at more than one person’s version of events. The wife is sad that her husband cheated, but the new girlfriend is pretty happy, so to the girlfriend, is it a flaw? Or is it a benefit? And considering throughout most of history, it has been perfectly acceptable for men to be unfaithful, how is that a flaw in one's personal qualities when it benefits another?
If flaws are subjective, that means they can’t be perceived as negative if someone else perceives them as a positive. They become neutral which means, they are just qualities that we have, like having brown hair. We have them, we could change them, but we choose not to because platinum blondes because it’s easier.
Now, there can be qualities that are socially known as bad, like laziness. But that is only true in some societies. We are all human, we aren’t all one society. A bad quality in American culture might be a prominent quality is another culture.
Let’s take a classic example of flaws, the Seven Sins. These are flaws defined by society when the bible was written.
Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride.
But if you take a look at these sins, they are actually just survival instincts that when surrounded with abundance, bloom into something out of control.
Lust, a desire to reproduce. Throughout most of history, this was encouraged for males.
Gluttony, a desire to store food and resources for the future, like hamsters. Food is just easier to come by these days.
Sloth, energy preservation and with technology making things easier, we get lazier.
Anger and envy, these are base emotions we all have, I don’t know what to tell you, we all feel envy and anger and banning ourselves from feeling them has caused more problems.
Greed, we want better for ourselves and we like the dopamine hit.
Pride. I don’t know about you but I am constantly hearing how pride is a good thing, only in excess does it becomes arrogance. Even then, arrogance is considered an attractive quality because it exudes confidence.
All of these qualities are actually survival instincts and we all have them. If not to do any of these at all is not to be human, it is only in excess do they become a problem but again, are they a bad thing? As modern society develops, lust, pride, anger and envy are becoming more accepted, while society dictates that gluttony and sloth are negatives.
But the thing about the Seven Sins is we have a time issue, throughout history the idea of a flaw and perfection is fluid, it changes depending on the culture, time period and geography. What was considered to be a flaw in Greece in the 400BC is very different to what is considered a flaw now. Gluttony was an attractive quality a few hundred years ago. So who is to say that what we are accepting of now won't change in 5 years and it will become acceptable, if not desired to be gluttonous?
Flaws are fluid and they are decided by the current culture people live in. Even in modern day, we have a quality that is admired in some cultures that is considered unsavory in others.
Someone or something has decided that a quality we have is bad but who decided that and why?
Who? The media? Our parents and the previous generations? Our social, political and economical leaders? But since these are all fluid ideals that are always changing, that means we cannot be certain what classes as a flaw and therefore, there is no measurement of perfection because there are no set guidelines.
If flaws are the defacing of something perfect, aka the perfect person, but flaws are fluid and there is no set ideal for what a person should be. Which leads us to since we can’t measure flaws as no one could possibly agree on what would make a perfect person, that no person can therefore be flawed.
Okay but if no person can be flawed, then what are the things that really annoys us about other people that we consider flaws?
I present Incompatibilities.
You are just incompatible with the person you are communicating with, it’s nothing personal, your core values and beliefs don’t align with them so you disagree and qualities they have annoy or please you dependent on the action and who you are. The judgement of “flaws” or incompatibilities is deeply personal, as mentioned earlier, my impatience is considered by society as a bad quality, but it is appreciated by others so it is not a flaw, I am just incompatible with society's standard of a perfect person and people who can’t deal with impatient people.
But if flaws don’t exist and they are just incompatibilities with other people, what is the point of re branding it as something else. What is the purpose of this at all? People still have qualities that negatively affect us which we perceive as flaws, so why bother changing the title of it? It’s still the same things right?
The word flaw carries the connotation that someone is unworthy based on a quality that they are. They are perceived negatively by society and its people.
But if we all understand that actually, a person's incompatibilities are a reflection on the person casting the negative judgment and not the person themselves, then there is an opportunity for growth.
Change from shaming only leads to negativity, self hate and damaged relationships. Change that comes from supportive behavior and free will, creates love, growth and abundance.
If someone had a negative quality, lets say, Stubbornness. If someone was really stubborn and it was affecting not only their health but others around them as well. If you shame someone by saying, you are flawed because you are stubborn, they will either double down and become more stubborn, or they will resent, mistrust and negatively judge the individual back.
If the person was to say, your stubbornness is a quality you have and I am sure it is an asset to you but it’s starting to hinder our relationship, is there anything we can do to improve our relationship? There is much less resentment and the opportunity for growth and change. Because the person realizes that:
They have no control over another person's action, only how they can respond to it
The issues isn’t the other person's fault, its their internalization that Stubbornness is inherently bad based on an experience they have had in life; for example, a really stubborn father who lost all his savings by refusing to admit he was wrong.
Shaming them will only create more negativity, by taking responsibility for their own feelings and inner judgments, they can better empathize with the person.
We all have qualities that are incompatible with other people, there is no such thing as a perfect person or ultimate compatibility because human beings are simply too diverse. The best we can do is find people who share our core values and they will be “our kind of people” and use a new method of reducing our negative judgments and using that mental capacity to problem solve.
Relationships
Let us take a look at emotional and romantic relationships for a moment.
The first thing we need to do is remove the idea of perfection. There is no such thing about perfect compatibility, it doesn’t exist. Personally, I have a solid 30% compatibility with my partner and I would call that a win. Our core values aren’t even in alignment but we make it work because we do one of 2 things.
We accept each others incompatible qualities. He accepts my perfectionism like I accept his need to steamroll. These are both great qualities for other people and we could find other people who would be compatible with these qualities we have but if we did split, find people who are more compatible. We would have the same problem except with my compulsion to keep the kitchen clean and his inability to pick up socks.
We adjust our qualities to accommodate the other. If he’s around, I tone down the qualities that I know bother him. This doesn’t mean I am living in authentically and he doesn’t appreciate me for who I am. He does. But he shouldn’t have to love all 100% of me when it annoys him, 30% is more than enough for me because I can fill up the other 70% with a love for myself. It’s a give and take. We offer feedback and we respond so we can make the other person feel more comfortable. We are all different, we all have different ideas of what we want in a relationship and we accommodate because if you have a good one, they are worth it.
A relationship based on equity is a more successful relationship then one based on pure equality.
So if there is no perfect person, no set rules about flaws, how can you be certain you are flawed?
You can’t, you are just incompatible with the person who once judged you negatively for a quality you possessed.
Take a moment to think about the flaws of your nearest person, co worker, friend. What really annoys you about them? Not their actions but their qualities that lead to action. Like the way they talk really loudly on the phone. The action drives you bananas but they may just be speaking clearly to the person can hear them and it bothers you because you value privacy and don’t appreciate being interrupted by Brenda's lunchtime call to the doctors office to talk about her husbands sciatica.
Okay so we have covered that people aren’t flawed, we are all just different, incompatible with each other and how changing our mindset from “it’s their fault they are flawed” to “How can I use this quality they have to better improve our relationships”.
How can this affect our working life?
How can this be transferred to a work environment and be beneficial to leaders running teams?
Let’s start with the obvious, we all have co workers that drive us bonkers. They have weird habits and do things, not the way we would like them.
Not everyone is going to be compatible, especially not in a work environment. You hire people who will be good at a job as much as you hire them for their compatibility. At best you are going to get a 40% compatibility with your team which means when it comes to improving communications, efficiency and quality of work, we look to the things they are doing wrong to fix so we can create a better and more productive work environment.
If someone has a quality that you perceive as a flaw (for example, they aren’t great at communicating where they are at in a project). We have decided that this is their flaw and they have to change in order to improve at work. But it may be they are great at communicating, but they don’t communicate in the same way you do, so you perceive it as a negative. Understanding this gives you the opportunity to both work on a form of communication that you are both comfortable with.
If we eliminate the idea of flaws and focus on the qualities that people have, good and bad, it makes giving critical feedback easier because there is no negative judgement.
If you were to go up to your co worker or assistant and say, you are bad at communicating, you need to work on that, here is some feedback on how I would work. That will only lead to negativity and resentment.
But instead of implying a person is flawed in the way that they do things, you can tell them that the characteristics that they exhibit are affecting the productivity of the team and is incompatible with the micro culture you are trying to create within your team.
Following it up with, you can both work on creating a perfectly flowing team by encouraging them. By making them feel like they are accepted for who they are but changing how they behave and how you and your team respond would make life easier for everyone. You have to include yourself in this, even as a leader there is a level of give and take. If they are going to change to adjust to suit your needs and the needs of the team, you need to know you too will have incompatible habits. So if you sit down with the coworker or assistant and work on a way that is the best way for you both to communicate where you are at in your projects, you can both have a blossoming relationship.
A good leader leads by example. But it doesn’t always mean putting in extra hours. It means growing as a person, getting better leadership skills, being open to the idea of change. If you treat your co workers with respect and appreciation, they will work harder for you than anyone.
By re imaging and understanding that people aren’t perfect, we all have qualities and yes, we aren’t always going to like them. We can hack all of our relationships by understanding that we have no control over any other persons behavior, only our reactions to them. Once we understand that and take complete responsibility for our reactions and inner judgement, we can use our understanding to foster positive changes, offering a level of understanding and a give and take attitude that will benefit both parties and increase productivity and happiness levels.
Thank you all for reading! If you want to discuss it further, please leave comments below!