I read a very interesting article in yesterday’s Boston Sunday Globe entitled The Truth About Grit, by Jonah Lehrer. The sailent point of Lerher’s article is “grit” is an essential, and often overlooked, component of success, say researchers. In fact, a strong sense of “grit,” aka “gumption,” is an even more important (actually, much more) determinant of success than high intelligence. Intelligence is important, but having a high IQ is not nearly enough for success.
Angela Duckworth, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, helped pioneer the study of grit. Her explanation of what grit is and how she came to research it is of value not only for individual career success, but the success of any business enterprise:
I first got interested in grit after watching how my friends fared after college. Those who were less successful were often just as smart and talented, but they were constantly changing plans and trying something new. They never stuck with anything long enough to get really good at it…
I’d bet that there isn’t a single highly successful person who hasn’t depended on grit. Nobody is talented enough to not have to work hard, and that’s what grit allows you to do…
Grit is very much about the big picture. [It's not about short term goals;] it’s about picking a specific goal off in the distant future and not swerving from it (emphasis added).
Lehrer also mentions compelling research by Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, which found that a group of randomly selected New York City fifth graders praised for their effort and hard work improved their performance on a difficult test by 30 percent, while another random group who had been praised for their intelligence saw their scores actually drop by 20 percent. In other words, children praised for hard work soldiered on while kids put on a pedestal for their intelligence were much more likely to become discouraged by setbacks.
This same research is quoted by Malcolm Gladwell in his classic 2002 New Yorker piece, The Talent Myth, laying bare the ruinous and reckless assumption of Enron, and their enabling McKinsey consultants, that very high intelligence alone is the deteminant of success. Gladwell’s article is a must read to also understand how raw intelligence is overrated in the workplace (to a beyond the pale extreme in Enron), while grit often remains overlooked:
People [at Enron] deemed “talented” [and by definition, highly intelligent] were constantly being pushed into new jobs and given new challenges. Annual turnover from promotions was close to twenty per cent. Lynda Clemmons, the so-called “weather babe” who started Enron’s weather derivatives business, jumped, in seven quick years, from trader to associate to manager to director and, finally, to head of her own business unit. How do you evaluate someone’s performance in a system where no one is in a job long enough to allow such evaluation?…
The broader failing of McKinsey and its acolytes at Enron is their assumption that an organization’s intelligence is simply a function of the intelligence of its employees…The talent myth assumes that people make organizations smart. More often than not, it’s the other way around. There is ample evidence of this principle among America’s most successful companies…Southwest Airlines hires very few MBAs [Enron hired scores of first-tier MBAs], pays its managers modestly [Enron paid their MBAs even more than they thought they were worth], and gives raises according to seniority, not “rank and yank” [like Enron did]. Yet it is by far the most successful of all United States airlines, because it has created a vastly more efficient organization than its competitors have…
(W)hat if Enron failed not in spite of its talent mind-set but because of it? What if smart people are overrated? (emphasis added).
The grit versus pure intelligence debate (game, set, match goes to grit, by the way) led me to thinking about “business intelligence” technology: The true value of BI software, and more precisely, data warehousing and analytics, increases exponentially when used to help monitor and manage actions intended to achieve critical long term goals instead of short term goals like “hitting the numbers.”
I work for iStrategy Solutions, a developer of data warehousing and analytics technology for higher education. Colleges and universities utilize the company’s student analytics solution to help achieve laudable long term goals like improving student outcomes: graduation rates of at-risk students, for just one example. For-profit long term goals need not be any less laudable; see my recent post how using BI to “measure (and then do) the right things right” begins with an authentic, wise mission statement.
Business already has gaggles of buzz terms, buzz phrases and three letter acronyms, but perhaps we can make room for one more business term of potential good use I just coined – you read it here first!:
Grit Goal n. A long-term business goal, the achievement of which will benefit the company, its stakeholders, and indirectly benefit society at large; requiring perseverance and hard work over an extended period of time.
I will have more posts that put together business intelligence technology with my recent blog post themes of grit goals, cultivating mench leadership, the critical need for authentic, wise mission statements. In the meantime, give some thought to what grit goals you are working on, and grit goals your executive management has genuinely and publicly committed to.
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[...] What concerns me is how one defines an “unattainable” goal. Is the goal in question really unreachable, or is it unreachable without a long period of new learning and practice? Is it a really a ridiculously futile goal, or is it what I called in a recent post a “Grit Goal”? [...]