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True Grit, a Successful Life, and Great Accomplishments

clip_image002True grit!  Charles Portis introduced us to it in his classic novel, and John Wayne brought it to life in the film by the same name: an aging, hard-drinking U.S. Marshal is hired by a young girl to bring her father’s killer to justice because that marshal has “true grit.” How does she know? He’s tenacious and undaunted by obstacles, has a longstanding passion for his work, and persists until the job is done. The pursuit of the killer is complex and dangerous, as these things often are – and, yes, the marshal gets his man!

True grit makes for a great story and blockbuster movie. Turns out, it also makes for top performance and a very successful life.

clip_image004Psychologist, researcher, and MacArthur “genius” grant winner, Angela Duckworth, has done ground-breaking work on what leads to high achievement.  Her book, Grit, offers a refreshing look at the issues, and her findings should encourage us all!

The secret to world-class achievement, according to Duckworth, is not talent, genetic make-up, or high IQ. Focused, passionate, and purposeful persistence makes the difference – and that’s a strategy open to anyone.

Our culture is obsessed with genius and natural talents, but you can’t be distracted by that. You need to look behind great work and see its true origin. Hard work!  Effort, according to Duckworth’s research, is twice as valuable as talent or genetics in explaining extraordinary outcomes.

clip_image006Even Einstein attributed his success to it: “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

Elizabeth Gilbert tackles it in her liberating treatise, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, and calls it her “stubborn gladness” – get up, get going, keep working, keep learning, and do it all with unending curiosity and joy. Focusing on the journey is way more important than the destination!

To be clear, having talent is an asset! Natural talents can start you on a road to discover your deep passions and get you far. Talent also offers a clue to how quickly you will learn and master the basics of a new skill or interest.

But talent alone won’t get you to the top of your game. For that, you need grit.

Duckworth has isolated three important components of grit: passion, persistence, and purpose. Let’s look into all three. Each has subtle features beyond the everyday meaning of the words. You’ll want to understand those and add them to your bag of life and career tricks.

Passion: Passion at the heart of high achievement is multi-dimensional. It is part personal interest – we are always willing to work at things that we enjoy and feel good about. It is also sustained attention, rooted in our experiences, and deepened and developed over time through intentional effort and connections.

This kind of passion is life-orienting. It takes time to find and nurture – and it will ebb and flow. No one feels passionately inspired or clear in direction every day. The trick is to identify an interest that you are willing to invest your amazing energies in – maybe something you keep returning to again and again in your dreams or choices – and get working. And work hard!

clip_image008You may have found your daemon – your life’s calling. If that’s true, strengthen and put it to good use. Maybe you haven’t. That’s OK, too. At least you’ll have learned something new about yourself, the world, and how to build a sound work ethic – all of which will serve you well in your continuing search.

Benjamin Bloom’s edited collection, Developing Talent in Young People, illustrates three stages of skill development and suggests how you can find and nurture your own passion over a lifetime. Each stage outlines different activities and supports needed to progress. Bloom labels the stages as early, middle, and later years.

Duckworth sees each stage informing one of her three vital components of grit: early years focus largely on discovering one’s passion, the middle years on persistence and how to learn, and later years are a time to broaden one’s personal interests with larger social meaning and purpose.

So, let’s begin at the beginning. How are lifelong interests found? How do they transform into life-guiding passions?

Early stage skill development is a playful taste of life and its possibilities – a time to discover and test possible interests and to develop some basic mastery. This developmental work is helped along by supportive others, exposure to new and multiple experiences, and opportunities for autonomous experimentation and fun happenings. At its core, the early stage is a relaxed discovery of self and of areas you might want to more deeply embrace. Individuals progress with the help of encouraging teachers, mentors, and coaches. The activities are enjoyable and individually rewarding. And you’ll get enough experience under your belt to make an informed decision about whether to commit or move on to something else.

A good way to understand this stage is to think about sampling a variety of sports or musical instruments so you can decide which you’d like to spend more time playing.

Persistence: Middle stage is the time for “deliberate practice,” not just more of the same approach used earlier for basic mastery. This is the real deal in skills development – and a stage I wish I had understood more clearly years ago!

There is an old Japanese saying that roughly translates as fall seven, rise eight. “Deliberate practice” embodies that ethic.

You will need tenacity, perseverance, and willpower to sustain your skill improvement in the face of frustration, obstacles, fears, tedium, and setbacks. In fact, if things are going too smoothly, you may not be challenging yourself or practicing deliberately enough. You can expect basic satisfaction and pleasure from improving your skill – even moments of ecstasy and “flow”[1] when something comes together suddenly or in new ways. Those, however, can be few and far between.

“Deliberate practice” is not glamorous: it is roll-up-your-sleeves determination and toughing-it-out through plenty of monotonous repetition for the sake of learning and improvement. Think about the talented Chicago Bulls player Michael Jordan spending hours and hours alone in the gym shooting foul shots!

“Deliberate practice” has a very specific set of rules, and they go something like this:

1. Isolate a skill area that is a current challenge for you.  Pick a small part of the larger whole and make it something foundational for success or progress.  An aspiring concert pianist, for example, might choose a passage in a piece that requires unusual left hand agility and speed; a basketball player, shooting three pointers from the left corner line; a writer, a strong query letter; and so on.

2. Set and clearly define a stretch goal. Perhaps you want to play the piano passage without mistake daily on a first try for a week, or shoot 60% during every basketball practice for a month. 

3. Give the chosen goal your full concentration and work, work, work on it.

4. Figure out where you are falling short and fix that.  Be pleased with what you are doing well; however, more importantly, be proactive and seek feedback from experts about what you are doing wrong. If not, you’ll solidify bad habits and hardwire your brain for current weaknesses.

5. Continue the cycle of repetition with reflection, feedback, and refinement.  Work as long as you need on your one, chosen skill.

6. Identify when you have reached your stretch goal, set another, and begin the “deliberate practice” cycle again on your new chosen flat spot.  

Neuroscience explains why “deliberate practice” works. Humans are born with a vast potential to develop in response to environmental challenges. To over-simplify, it all has to do with the myelin sheaths that insulate your nervous system and allow any part of the body – brain, abs, biceps, etc. – to develop in response to intensive use, deliberate experiences, and repetitive practice. Mother was right: practice makes perfect!

Purpose: Personal interests take on new meaning and purpose when they contribute to the well-being of others and the world in Bloom’s later stage of development. We are hardwired as social beings, and human survival has always depended on the work of many. All of Duckworth’s “gritty” high achievers saw their personal passions mature into something useful to the world which fueled their efforts further.

Music, for example, fosters global understanding and peace to superstar cellist YoYo Ma. Anthropologist Margaret Meade studied South Pacific island culture, yet her autobiography describes her work as bringing new understandings of human behavior and gender to the world. Sister Helen Prejean’s ministry to the poor included becoming a pen pal with a convicted killer, sentenced to die in the electric chair. Her learning from that relationship led to a book, Dead Man Walking, that took her humble death row ministry to the world stage.

And I could go on, but you get the point. There is exhilaration, increased motivation, and sheer beauty in finding the sweet spot where one’s life passion contributes to a larger good!

clip_image009Got grit? You don’t need to be a household name – or even aspire to fame – to do great things that matter to the world or those around you. You just need to know what you really want to do and get on with it – and work with focus, determination, persistence, and passion!

You have everything you need to succeed within you. Don’t let fear or false beliefs about genes or talent or anything else hold you back.

The world is your oyster when you apply your true grit. 

I have no doubt that you have greatness within – and the true grit needed to set it free. Do you? So, what will your contribution be?

[1] M. Csikszentmihalyi (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: HarperCollins.

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Creating a Truly Great Workplace

Tony Schwartz posted a piece on the Harvard Business Review Blog Network worth the read: The Twelve Attributes of a Truly Great Place to Work.

It’s important, Tony tells us, because more than 100 research studies have found that the most engaged employees are significantly more productive, drive higher customer satisfaction, and outperform the less engaged. The kicker: only 20 per cent of employees around the world say they’re fully engaged at work.

Tony’s meta-advice: employers need to shift their focus from trying to get more out of people to investing more in them. They do that by addressing four core human needs — physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. His twelve suggestions for creating truly great workplaces are offered below.

My two cents: the first six are structural interventions that take special funding, policies, and time to get in place. The last six are things we can implement right now. They make a huge difference and enable people to bring their best to work.

I don’t know about you, but respect, appreciation, autonomy, clarity, meaningful contribution, and capacity to learn and grow go a long way for me. Which on the list speak most powerfully to you?  

  1. 1.  Pay everyone a living wage. We know the gap between CEO compensation and pay to those at the bottom of the organizational heap. No more need be said.
  1. 2.  Give employees a stake in the company’s success. Profit sharing plans, stock options, or bonuses tied to performance let everyone share the fruits of their labor. 
  1. 3.  Design safe, comfortable and appealing work environments with space for privacy, for collaboration, and for community building.
  1. 4.  Provide healthy, high-quality food, at the lowest possible prices – even in the vending machines.
  1. 5.  Create places for rest and renew during the day and encourage breaks. Naps can fuel higher productivity.
  1. 6.  Offer a gym, encourage employees to stay fit, and provide incentives to use the facilities during the work day for renewal.
  1. 7.  Define clear expectations for success, and give employees autonomy to do their jobs.
  1. 8.  Introduce “two-way performance reviews” where employees receive feedback and provide it to their supervisors without fear of retribution.
  1. 9.  Hold managers accountable for treating all employees with respect and care and for acknowledging their positive contributions.
  1. 10.  Enable employees to focus without interruption on their most important priorities and to think more strategically and creatively,
  2. ideally on projects that fuel their passions.
  1. 11.  Provide ongoing opportunities and incentives to learn and grow in job-specific skills and in softer interpersonal, leadership, and life skills.
  1. 12. Stand for something beyond profits: products and services that add value in the world and enable people to feel good about their companies.

 

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The Arts Can Teach Us to Lead, Part 1: Embracing Diversity Brings Innovation — The Compelling Case of Sissoko and Segal

I am a firm believer that we can learn much about how to lead from engaging with and in the arts. This post begins a series on the topic.

It’s a set of ideas I’ve been thinking and writing about for a long time. Quite simply, the arts “traffic in understanding,” in the words of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard – and understanding one’s internal and external worlds is at the heart of leadership effectiveness. 

The major challenges in leading – understanding and working with those who are different from us, forging shared interests and common goals, motivating, influencing while remaining open to new learning, understanding the roots of competing interests and conflicts, finding lasting solutions to complex problems – echo life’s larger challenges.

The arts lay out these grand dilemmas in accessible form and invite us to reflect on and learn from them. I’ve been reminded of this by some recent events.

The first was a Ford Foundation conference held May 4, 2011 called "Fresh Angle on the Arts: Reimagining Culture in a Time of Transformation" – a day of discussions and performances exploring the role of art and artistic expression in times of social transformation and revolutionary global change.

Different cultures, ethnicities, and social traditions can separate us. But understanding our own history and heritage and then broadening our perspectives on other cultures through education and collaboration can take us to rich, new heights and toward common ground despite our differences.

Listen to excerpts from the CD called “Chamber Music” as performed by Ballaké Sissoko (an African musician playing a traditional lute-harp from Mali called the kora) and Vincent Segal (a French musician playing the classical cello) at the Ford Foundation conference.

Through the music of Sissoko and Segal, you’ll hear and experience quite simply and enjoyably exactly what I’m talking about – and chances are you’ll understand the importance of leading through and with diversity in today’s global world faster and deeper than you might from a lecture, essay, or class on the topic. 

“Chamber Music” has been reviewed as “one of Europe’s most buzzed-about world music recording.” It is also a clear and powerful illustration of fusion without loss, synergy without dominance, differences as the springboard to innovation, shared leadership through true collaboration, and globalization without fear. 

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Surviving and Thriving in Post-earthquake Japan: In Praise of Self-Organizing Teams and Leadership from the Foot of the Table

News from post-earthquake, post-tsunami Japan has not been uplifting, but a recent story is a major exception. For students of leadership and organizations, it’s also a powerful illustration of the impact of leading from the foot of the table and of organizing and empowering others to take charge of their lives.

It’s well worth digging up the New York Times article for a full read. Here’s why.

When the tsunami hit, the tiny fishing village of Hadenya was cut off from the rest of the world: bridges, roads, phone lines, and cell phone services were gone. It was bitter cold. Homes, buildings, and vehicles had been destroyed. Food and fuel were thin. Those who ran to a hillside community center and escaped the crushing waves had no idea of the extent of the devastation – or whether others knew of their survival.

What did the stunned and frightened villagers do? They organized, and informal leadership created a communal spirit, division of labor, and focus on survival that enabled the isolated villagers to carry on unassisted for 12 days, to care for the young and weak, and to sustain hope and health.

With sophistication and a clear view of the amazing devastation, the group responded to the informal leadership of Osamu Abe, 43, who was known to others because of his job as head of a local nature center. Mr. Abe went into action. He mobilized school children to erect tents so residents could rest outside during the aftershocks. Groups were formed to gather water from the marshes and firewood from the debris to boil it. He asked a nurse to set up a makeshift clinic for those in need. Daily lists of tasks were formed, and jobs were assigned.

Some scavenged for food and found a truck washed up by the waves that contained edible products. Others drained gasoline from smashed cars or kerosene from destroyed fishing boats for cooking and heating fuel.

Some boiled water, cooked, cleaned, and created tidy order in the shared community center space. (The photo of stacked supplies in the gymnasium is the epitome of neatness.)

A surveillance party set off over the hill to alert the nearest and larger local town of the villagers’ survival.

There was much to be done, and everyone was needed. For the few who initially refused to participate, Mr. Abe offered them “positions of responsibility” which he was happy to report indeed motivated them.

The story of Hadenya was not an isolated incident. Japanese authorities note that the spontaneous self-organizing and informal leadership seen there characterized other small towns and shelters, and the relationships and structures formed will serve villagers well when relocated into new housing miles away.

So what do you take from the Hadenya story to inform your leadership? Your willingness to face seemingly insurmountable challenges? Your ability to rise to the unanticipated?

The moral of the story for me: never under-estimate the power of the human spirit, the ability of individuals to mobilize and channel it, and the capacity of groups with shared interest to make a difference.