Dan Erwin

Carol Dweck and Greg Walton on Willpower

Is willpower about your biology or your brain? Are we constrained by the narrow limits of our biology?

After nearly a two-week hiatus from blogging--and Thanksgiving week in glorious Boston with my kids, spending some of that time going over my grandson’s list of potential colleges, I’m back home again. So I chuckled to see Carol Dweck and her associate, Greg Walton, reporting still more of their ground-breaking practical research in Sunday’s NYTimes. 

The Stanford profs have studied another important issue of human capital: willpower. And they’ve found that we can actually manage our willpower. 

The authors begin by posing two important illustrations of the problem, both depicting the popular belief that willpower is about biology not mindset. In one, they quote a recent nutrition book, arguing that because of how the brain’s hypothalamus works, it is a “myth” that anyone can will himself to lose weight. A second illustration from a just published book concludes that willpower is “limited and depends on a continuous supply” of glucose. Dweck and Walton’s assessment is spot on: these theories attribute our failures of willpower to our fixed biology—and wrong. 

The theories, as Dweck and Walton point out, have an obvious appeal: attributing failures of willpower to our fixed biological limits justifies our procrastination as well as our growing waistlines. Not only that, we also get to consume more sugar. 

In stark contrast, their research has found that what’s limiting our willpower is our mindset. And when people believe that willpower is self-renewing and work hard, they’re energized to work more. 

Recognizing that many people are skeptical about renewing willpower, their research found the following: 

When the initial task was easy and willpower wasn’t required, people did well on the tricky cognitive task, making few mistakes. But when the initial task was hard and involved self-control, people who believed that willpower was limited made almost twice as many mistakes on the tricky cognitive task as did the group that performed the initial easy task. This finding replicates many studies by Dr. Baumeister and others that have been interpreted as evidence that willpower is limited and easily depleted. But, strikingly, we found that people who believed that willpower was not limited continued to perform well on the second task, making few mistakes, even after facing the difficult initial task. They were not “depleted” and kept on doing well.

This study and others put the lie to our common notions about the limitations of willpower. They also reinforce the well-known research that shows that the more we learn, the better and the faster that we can learn.

You may contend that these results show only that some people just happen to have more willpower — and know that they do. But on the contrary, we found that anyone can be prompted to think that willpower is not so limited. When we had people read statements that reminded them of the power of willpower like, “Sometimes, working on a strenuous mental task can make you feel energized for further challenging activities,” they kept on working and performing well with no sign of depletion. They made half as many mistakes on a difficult cognitive task as people who read statements about limited willpower. In another study, they scored 15 percent better on I.Q. problems.

When faced with skepticism about this kind of research I remember that old dogma dies hard. Once concepts are deeply embedded, a superstructure of assumptions and ideas grows around it. Rejecting a dogma means that many ideas are now questionable, and . . . as a result a close read of a book or thoughtful analysis of a new and complex idea is impossible. As an acquaintance of mine said about these ideas: "I don't believe it. I can't believe it. Everything I've ever learned about intelligence and achievement would go out the window." He tuned out. It was a losing battle I chose not to fight.

This research reminds parents of some very important truths for their children—and themselves as adults, businesspersons and professionals.

At stake in this debate is not just a question about the nature of willpower. It’s also a question of what kind of people we want to be. Do we want to be a people who dismiss our weaknesses as unchangeable? When a student struggles in math, should we tell that student, “Don’t worry, you’re just not a math person”? Do we want him to give up in the name of biology? Or do we want him to work harder in the spirit of what he wants to become?

So Strivers, Talent Really Matters Too?

A Sunday NYTimes article by two psychologists under the eye-catching title, Sorry, Strivers: Talent Matters, once more raises the issue of the role of academic intelligence, personal development and expertise. The authors would have you believe that people who score high on IQ inevitably do better in business than those who don’t score as high. But if you read the thirty page research report you’ll realize that they’re pushing the envelope on the interpretation of their results. They also argue, with more success, that working memory capacity, a major component of intelligence, predicts success in a wide variety of complex activities. But more about that later. 

For the uninitiated, this is another shot across the bow in the complex battle between inherent intelligence and learned intelligence. Once more, it’s a strong push for IQ intelligence (academic or analytical intelligence) as the be-all, end-all. Not so fast. 

The authors take aim at several popular writers, but two paragraphs stick out as a summary of the evils of deliberate practice: 

Malcolm Gladwell observes that practice isn’t “the thing you do once you’re good” but “the thing you do that makes you good.” He adds that intellectual ability — the trait that an I.Q. score reflects — turns out not to be that important. “Once someone has reached an I.Q. of somewhere around 120,” he writes, “having additional I.Q. points doesn’t seem to translate into any measureable real-world advantage.” 

David Brooks, the New York Times columnist, restates this idea in his book “The Social Animal,” while Geoff Colvin, in his book “Talent Is Overrated,” adds that “I.Q. is a decent predictor of performance on an unfamiliar task, but once a person has been at a job for a few years, I.Q. predicts little or nothing about performance. 

Thus, the writers argue, science tells quite a different story—that intellectual ability matters for success in many fields. 

Well. . . before you buy their argument wholesale, think about the following: 

Nowhere do the practitioners of deliberate practice argue that practice alone makes for expertise. Indeed, the gains you’ll get in practicing depend heavily on your training environment, your coach, and the quality of your feedback. I address this issue in my blogs, Are top salespeople born or made?, and Success is not just about practice, practice, practice. What I remind readers is that that feedback and expert coaching are also part of the deliberate practice model and key to the development of personal expertise. 

Furthermore, leading cognitive psychologists, including Robert Sternberg, point out that there is no way that the maximum capabilities of any person can be measured or predicted. 

The researchers in deliberate practice have also found that memory—that core measure of intelligence--can be improved.

Intelligence theorists don’t agree about much other than the ability to adapt flexibly to the environment. But most theorists, especially Robert J. Sternberg, believe that intelligence has at least three forms:

•  Analytical intelligence (IQ intelligence)--the ability to analyze and evaluate ideas, solve problems and make decisions. Hambrick and Meinz are stretching this kind of intelligence to make it into practical intelligence.  That’s too big a stretch.
• Creative intelligence—the ability to go beyond what is given to generate novel and interesting ideas.
• Practical intelligence--the ability that individuals use to find the best fit between themselves and the demands of the environment.

Although the three forms of intelligence overlap, people who succeed in business are specialists in practical intelligence. Furthermore, a significant study in which correlations between a test of practical intelligence and tests of academic or analytical intelligence reveal that the correlations between the two are significantly negative.

Let’s be candid. Intelligence testing is widespread. Many questions remain, however, as to what conventional intelligence tests actually measure. There’s also some question as to what the companies that produce most of the tests really want to find out. Tests are used in numerous settings, including schools, the military, corporations and for a variety of purposes including placement and selection. The testing business is worth billions of dollars every year. That’s right. . .  billions of dollars. If Brooks, Gladwell, Colvin and Sternberg are right, you can see plenty of intelligence shops in deep trouble.

Let’s be even more candid. I give tests and I’m trained and qualified to do so. Though they are merely snapshots or pointers to what’s going on at a given point in time with a client, an overarching reason that I give them is that clients expect them. So, well. . . ka-ching, ka-ching. But I sure as hell educate the client on the validity, usefulness, and long-term lack of predictability for most of them.

To put it bluntly, really smart people don’t necessarily make for good business people. That’s why being a member of MENSA certainly doesn’t guarantee success in business. If you’ve been around the business barn a few times, you know, like Brooks, Gladwell and Colvin, that inherent talent is really, really overrated.

Are Top Salespeople Born or Made?

My blog title is from an HBR blog on critical sales skills, written by Steve W. Martin. Martin argues that over 70% of top salespeople are born with “natural instincts” that play a critical role in determining their sales success. His conclusion, he writes, is drawn from his “research.” So, Martin believes, top salespeople are born, not made. Duhhhh! We got rid of that same notion regarding top leaders about ten years ago. Now we have to go through the same song and dance about top salespeople. Aaaargh!

But are sales skills actually a matter of natural instinct?

Take, for example, what Martin regards as the first and most differentiating factor of sales success--language specialization. Very few, he writes, are language mavens who can conduct intelligent conversations about the details of daily business operations. . . . Successful self-made salespeople possess domain-area expertise and speak the corresponding business operations language, or have deep knowledge of the industry's technical language. These languages are the yardstick by which customers measure a salesperson's true value and greatly influence their purchase decisions. Lesser-performing self-made salespeople are not as fluent in these languages, so they tend to focus on likability and friendliness with prospective customers.

This reminds me of my favorite movie line by Jason Bateman in the opening scene of “The Switch” in which he talks about his inability to relate: For most of us it’s about not being able to say what you need to say when you need to say it. Martin would say that Bateman’s problem is biology. Less than 30% of the top conversationalists are self-made. They are born with natural conversational instincts. So it’s our inheritance--the luck of the draw.

That’s utter nonsense. Martin hasn’t done the right research. It’s one thing to say that top salespeople grew up in families where good fiction that develops one’s experience was read, and critical thinking and interactional conversation were modeled and emphasized—and most don’t have that luxurious background. It’s another to say that some have natural instincts that play a critical role in determining sales success. I wrote asking for his research. Thus far, a month later, no response.

True. There is such a thing as language instinct, but only at the most basic level. Unless there’s a physical impediment such as Down or Joubert Syndromes, where a portion of the brain is underdeveloped, evolution starts us all out with basic language grammar. If you pay attention to toddlers you can recognize the grammar. Our eldest, when a toddler, understood it was “raining” or “snowing,” or the “sun was shining.” So of course when the wind was blowing, it was also “winding.” That’s toddler grammar—and it is instinctual says Steven Pinker.

Where we go from there is highly dependent upon environment, opportunity, learning and motivation. If you’re familiar with the conclusions regarding deliberate practice, you know that expertise in any domain requires a great deal of modeling, feedback, coaching and practice. That’s true whether the issue is chess, golf, math--or language. Buy shoes at Nordstrom’s and buy tennies at the local discount shoe store and ask both salespeople about their shoes. It doesn’t take much to recognize the language distinctions of trained middle-class people versus those of poorly trained people trying to work their way out of poverty. That’s the result of environment and education. Yeah, I know. The students of deliberate practice don’t want to rule out some special giftedness for world-class performers in golf, violin or chess. But let me assure you, you don’t need to be a world-class performer to become a top salesperson.

But at one point, I’m in full agreement with Martin. Top salespeople sure as hell need more specialized language skills than they’re liable to get in 95% of families or even in the better schools. They need to learn the art of conversation.

Why are the skills of interactional conversation so lacking in business culture? Or, for that matter, in the American culture? The answer is hidden in plain sight. The interactional skills of top salespeople are built upon a number of obvious issues: domain, operational and strategic knowledge. But interactional skills are also built upon dialog competencies. Specifically, critical thinking, listening, advocating, inquiring and turn-taking.

The better schools teach critical thinking, advocating and active listening. But questioning and turn-taking are a completely different animal. Business people, and especially the male of the species, are taught to advocate, not inquire and interact. Leaders who ask questions are thought to be weak and looked down upon. Amazing to me how that “W” is thought to be a leader because he advocated, but “Obama” is not, because he questions. And does it publicly. More nonsense from the idiocracy.

We’ve got a pot full of research explaining why in our culture and especially in the professional and business cultures we don’t inquire. (Lawyers question—but only with leading questions. Those aren’t the interactional and collaborative questions of development, innovation and strategic sales.)

In one of a number of studies, Fiona Lee asks, When the going gets tough, do the tough ask for help? She finds that individuals do not seek help—translated, they do not ask questions. Why? Help seeking implies incompetence and dependence and is therefore related to powerlessness. At bottom, questioning implies vulnerability and fear to most people. Letterman asks questions, but only so he can make fun on his show. They aren't the questions of dialog.

So, is language specialization instinctual for the few? Not at all. What holds us back is the fear of vulnerability and ignorance of the questioning process. Can that mental model be changed and people gain the necessary competence of dialog: the art of talking, thinking, turn-taking and questioning together? Of course. But it won’t happen overnite. As my friend, Alexandra Levit, puts it in her brilliant new book, Blind Spots (see my Good Book list on the left column), the widely held belief of overnite success is pure myth.

Once more. Is the language specialization necessary for top salespeople a matter of instinct? Of course not. Those who think so haven’t done their research.

Fiona Lee, “When the Going Gets Tough, Do the Tough Ask for Help? Help Seeking and Power Motivation in Organizations.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Vol 72, No. 3, pp. 336-363, 1997.

Photo: Flickr, by Valerie Everett

Quotation of the Week: Javier Bardem

Javier Bardem, the "hot" Spanish actor of "Eat, Pray, Love," comes from an acting family.  He is, as Sunday's NYTimes says, an actor who builds his roles.  

To get to the art, one must work very hard.  Art doesn't exist just as talent.  It exists as effort, work and judgment.

        --Javier Bardem, NYTimes, in The Actor as Architect of a Role, by Larry Rohter

Rohter's fascinating essay takes the perspective of actors as architects.  The comparison is intriguing, emphasizing the process of thoughtful, detailed and systematic development.  What's more intriguing is that growing up as the son of a great actress, he learned the value of deliberate practice from his mother at an early age.  When his mother was learning a character, Bardem would read the other characters to her.  He was fascinated listening to her.  She'd begin to speak, thenstop and correct herself.  Go back to the beginning, and go over and over the same process until she had control of the role, and then "she would fly." 

Bardem creates the character like an architect builds a building: drawing the plans, laying the foundation, and gradually building up.  Once this is complete, Bardem says, then you decide on the walls, the materials and the colors.  Bardem, in spite of his great success, continues to work with an acting coach, gaining the insight and feedback that are necessary for expertise.

How Bardem creates a character and architects build buildings is identical to what all expertise requires.  In a number of blogs on deliberate practice, I emphasize the same details.  In my blog, on changing your personality, deliberate practice includes five phases:

• Crystallization of discontent
• Extensive practice,  practice, practice
• Mentoring and coaching
• Adaptation to feedback
• Integration of behaviors

Sounds just like Bardem?  The model works for all of us.

 

A Question from the Middle East: "How Do I Improve My Business Writing Skills

The other day I received a question from one of my readers in the Middle East. He's a Gen-Yer with an MBA for whom English is not his first language. He'd found that in professional life writing skills matter a lot and was very keen to develop those skills. He went on to say that he was always very impressed and attracted by outstanding emails or articles written by professional personnel. He knew that one could not learn those formats and writing skills overnight, but wondered whether I could give him some tips for improving his writing. Here's my response to his question.

_________________________

You're absolutely correct.  It takes a lot of time to learn to write more effectively, especially in a second language.  But, since English is the world's business language, it will stand you good stead to learn how to write well in English.   (As an aside, I was surprised to learn just yesterday that more Chinese are studying English than the entire 300 million population of the U.S.--so they'll have more opportunity in the business world.) 

Improving writing skills  

Here's what I'd do to improve your business writing.  If possible, start with several native English speakers in your firm, preferably at your level or one level above, who would be willing to give you feedback on your writing.  If you can't find native English speakers, look for several who write well.  I suggest coaches at your level or slightly above because if you get people who are too high above you in the hierarchy, they may not understand the level of detail you need.  (An important rule for accessing coaches and mentors is to remember that the higher we get in an organization, generally the more difficult it is to give feedback to someone with lesser experience.  Higher level managers tend to give information in more abstract form and forget the necessary details.)  Get several coaches, if possible.  Few business managers will take a lot of time with someone.  But if you ask for occasional input, they'll help.  That's why several coaches are an advantage.  Remember this rule: your mentor (or coach) is a network, not an individual. (I weigh in on that subject in a blog here: http://tiny.ly/mVT6.)  You'll need to figure out how to pay your coaches back.  I'm not talking about repayment in the form of money, but I'll write about that in the future.  

Gaining feedback

Show your coaches a few paragraphs of what you're writing and ask what you've done well, and what needs to be written better.  And listen, listen, listen!  Then follow with a paraphrase:  "so what you're saying is that I need to . . . ?"  And listen some more until you're certain you understand.  Pay attention to what your coach says you're doing well,  and keep doing that.  But also pay attention to what you need to do better.  Ask your coaches to give you examples of what to write if you corrected those one or two small errors.   Keep track of the feedback, watching for just 2 – 3 recurring errors you make.  Work for a month or so on correcting those two or three errors, and ignore the rest of the issues.  Then go back and get feedback to find out if you've corrected those errors.  If so, celebrate.  If not, go back to the drawing boards and continue working on those few errors until you've internalized the correction.  Over the long term, you'll be able to develop what one writer calls "strategic patience"—a very important characteristic of the best learners.  

Rules for effective learning

When you start to add writing skills, it's important to understand that one of the major mistakes most of us make is to take on objectives that are too big.  Research shows that the best way to learn is through feedback and a strategy I call "chunking."  Chunking is the process of breaking a skill up into small bits and perfecting those small bits before moving on to more.  It's a micro form of what's called "small wins," a well-researched strategy for achieving important objectives over time.  I think of chunking as the process of taking baby steps to achieve a major breakthrough.  If you're searching for more information on chunking, Ignore the discussion in Wikipedia.  That's not exactly what I'm talking about.   

Chunking

To chunk is to take any behavior and break it out into small bits that you can master.  If, for example, you're trying to improve your golf game, you might spend an hour with a coach on the subject of putting or hitting long drives.  To chunk putting is to break that single skill into small bits.  You may simply work at keeping your body from moving when putting—the "hit and hold" technique.   Or you might chunk the putting for different lengths--2 feet, 3 feet or 8 feet—and so forth.  Practice without the coach, and then go back to the coach to have him assess your "hit and hold" technique or 2, 3 and 8 foot putts.  As a general rule, the smaller the chunk you're working on, the faster and more effective you become.  So think about chunking as "staggering baby steps."  Chunking is how you tap into the power of the multiplier effect.  Although I couldn't find a useful article on chunking, here's a swell discussion of small wins.  

It's important to read good business writers.  You might look at some of the writing on Harvard Business Blogs.  That writing has been edited and it can provide you with numerous examples of effective writing.  

This is what I do for my writing.  About once every three weeks I give my bright protégé (a 27 year-old college English major who works in finance) a blog to edit.  Sometimes he's ruthless with a red correction pen, but it's always marvelous stuff.  My friends tell me they could never deal with that much feedback.  I chuckle because I know that we really can't learn without practice AND feedback.  The research on expertise building and deliberate practice reveals that feedback is an absolute necessity for real growth.  Practice doesn't really make perfect without feedback.  So I can't express how valuable his input has been for me.

I really, really appreciate your occasional questions.  I'll be happy to respond. 

How to Really Change Your Personality: From Introversion to Extraversion

I’ve been thinking an awful lot about the huge interest in my blog, Can You Really Change Your Personality?.  While in Detroit working on a couple major projects (there are still consulting opportunities in the Motor City!), it crossed my mind that I ought to explain how to change your personality.   BTW: Please forgive my week-long absence from blogging.  I’ve been up to my ears in those projects.

 

In this post I want to focus on one of the personality changes with which I’m most familiar: how to change from primarily an introvert to more of an extravert. 

 

As a general rule, business rewards the personality effects of both introverts and extraverts.  I've observed, however, that more introverts gravitate toward finance and technology, while more extraverted types gravitate toward marketing and sales.  But, just because you're introverted doesn't mean you shouldn't gravitate toward marketing and sales.  No reason also, why extraverts couldn't gravitate toward finance and technology.  Still, it’s clear that business rewards people skills, one of the major effects of the extraverted personality, more than any other skill.  That fact has been documented by research at the Dallas Fed, dating from 2003.

 

A caveat:  If you're satisfied with your introversion and not interested in becoming more extroverted, you can stop reading right here.  But if you've decided that you need to become more extraverted, read on.

 

High scoring extraverts are friendly, outgoing, assertive, energetic and optimistic.  Extraverts are gratified by what takes place outside their person.  The result is that many are focused on people skills and are better at them than introverts.  In contrast, introverts get enough stimulation from their own ideas, not what's going on outside of them.  Preferences become priorities.  However, contrary to the common perception, introverts don't suffer from shyness or social anxiety.   

Introversion and extraversion are nothing more than ingrained preferences, preferences that show up in relationships and decision making.  Carl Jung, the Swiss psychologist, says that everyone has both an extraverted and introverted side, with one being more dominant than the other.  

 

In my previous blog on personality, I listed four relatively stable personality characteristics: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience and conscientiousness.  (I missed agreeableness, per the correction of one of my readers.)  Introversion is not on that list of stable personality characteristics which suggests to me that it may be quite changeable.  Anybody got info on that subject?

 

Most of us have known people who are highly neurotic, and often show their anxieties in anger, depression, self-consciousness, impulsiveness or stress (not all of these at the same time).  And if, for example, you know someone who dealt with depression at a period in their life, you may have seen them learn how to handle, even conquer their depression with counseling and chemistry (drugs), and move the dial back on anxiety and depression.  That’s personality change.  Mike Wallace of CBS 60 Minutes suffered depression, but learned to deal with it successfully--and change that personality characteristic.  Change, as I said in my previous post, often comes about as the result of a crystallization of discontent.  That was true for Mike Wallace.

 

Personality change is supported by the research of Hazel Markus.  Stanford's Markus found that when the context is changed the possibilities a person faces spur him to find role models he’d like to become.  Those models  ignite motivation and drive us to personality change.  Driven to change, we gradually try on a different mask, and over time changes can take place. 

 

On a number of occasions I've seen ambitious people come to believe that their more introverted personality will need to undergo change if, for example, they're going to be able to work successfully with their clients.  As a result, over the years these introverted professionals focused on the activities of their own work and how other people do it.  They learned to develop ideas through discussion with others, rather than solely by their own reflection.  In short, they learn to pay a great deal of attention to the activities outside of themselves.  I also know quite a few that weren’t able or willing to make that change, often to their own detriment.

 

Some, in the change from introvert to extravert, actually get to the place where they like having people around.  For managers, this shows up in the focus upon other people's behaviors, figuring out how to work more successfully with groups, willingly putting their incomplete ideas on the table and working to achieve their ends through other people.  They do not lose their introverted tendency to analyze problems deeply before they make decisions.

 

One client whom I've known for more than 20 years has made very significant personality changes in his move from introversion to extraversion.  But he has not dropped all his introverted effects.  That's wise, since there are important strengths to that aspect of personality.  A CIO for three different organizations, he recognized early on that he'd need to become much more knowledgeable about what was going on outside of himself.  Aware that he was highly reflective, often ignoring the ideas of others, he's worked for years to gain the competencies that enable him to develop ideas by discussion.  His change objectives were specifically extraverted consequences:  to create a motivational environment, to adjust his approach to decision making, and to learn to adapt to the styles of others in order to sell his organization’s services more effectively. 

 

My own experience of personality change was a long time coming, but the narrative has been highly useful to many of my introverted clients desirous of making change.  As a kid, I had a very active mind, always interested in my own internal world of ideas.  I rarely shared my ideas until they were fully formed.  By no stretch of the imagination did I have any sense, nor interest in collaborating in the full development of ideas.  Furthermore, I thought a lot before taking any action, even asking a girl out for a date.  I remember my dad asking me when I was going to invite that girl that I'd been talking about for months out for a date.  Because so much of my time was spent in my inner world of ideas, I did not learn for years how to speak in public, handle a team or engage in a highly interactive conversation.   That was just not an interest, thus I took no opportunity to practice those skills, much less ask for coaching.

 

Fifty years later I went to a high school reunion, walked into a crowd of nine people whom I knew from high school, but had not seen since graduation.  I took part in the conversation, even occasionally interrupting, asked questions and made my opinions known.  Twenty minutes into the conversation I was shocked when one of the women, Donna, stopped the group conversation and said, "Who are you?"  There was silence in the group.  I responded, "I'm Dan Erwin, the guy who sat next to you in typing and history class."  She came right back at me with, "I know that Dan Erwin, but I don't know you. The Dan Erwin I knew 50 years ago has no relation to the one standing in front me."  She was serious and I was really curious to know whether others thought the same thing, and if so, why.  Taking advantage of the situation, I asked whether each them held the same perspective.  One by one, I checked out the members of the group, trying to understand that conclusion.  Every single, last one said that I had no relation now to the guy they knew 50 years ago.  They saw me as withdrawn, shy, and non-communicative.  The truth was that at that time I had no reason to share my world with many people. 

 

The following week, I called a college roommate whom I had visited a couple years earlier while on a project in southern Illinois.  I told him about the experience and before I finished the story he started laughing.  Since I’m sometimes slow on the uptake, I wanted to know what was so funny.    "Of course, they're correct.  I barely knew you when you called.  This Dan Erwin has no relation to the old Dan Erwin.  You were a bit stuffy, pious and religious (that's an understatement), and revealed practically nothing about yourself or your thinking.”  I asked why he roomed with me that summer and he responded that since none of his friends were going to summer school he thought he could deal with me for eight weeks.  He did say that after eight weeks he “thought there might be something there,” but was also “shocked” when he first talked to me over the phone.

 

How did the change take place?

 

Over time, both my client CIO and I took consistent, sometimes daily actions that enabled us to become highly capable of the extraverted effects.  What's important to understand is that neither of us are who we once were.  That laser-like focus on development and the changing of behaviors resulted in a different personality.  Consistent, regular decisions to behave in certain ways can change your personality.

 

I can hear those who believe in the "real person" theory reinterpreting our stories and saying something to the effect that the real person was always there.  That notion is similar to the traditional perspective on innate intelligence.  It’s false.  Markus essentially draws the same conclusions about personality.  Intelligence changes are like personality changes.  They take awhile, but they're both possible. 

Change strategies

 

Personality change follows the research of Anders Ericsson and deliberate practice.  It includes five phases:

·     Crystallization of discontent

·     Extensive practice,  practice, practice

·     Mentoring and coaching

·     Adaptation to feedback

·     Integration of behaviors

 

Personality can be defined as a fairly dynamic, organized set of characteristics that uniquely influence one's cognitions, motivations and behaviors in various situations.  With that definition, both my client and I have come to think about people, decision-making, ideas and even behaviors differently than what originally characterized us.  That's personality change.  

How to Use Feedback to Make Better Decisions

From entry level to the most senior executive, today’s employees are being forced to make complex decisions and make them faster and far more often than their 20^th century predecessors.  Most of all, business people have become a lot more aware of the importance of making good decisions.  Yet all of us are bombarded with opinions in the form of proposals, estimates and predictions.  Most of us know that we need to suspect the certainty with which these beliefs are stated. 

So how can we improve our decision making?

One of the very best ways to improve our decision making is through timely, accurate, and clear feedback.  The work in deliberate practice, shows that quality feedback is the most essential ingredient for developing expertise.  Getting quality feedback, however, is not always very easy.  

In some decision making, like long-term investing, business strategy, or even software installations, the feedback comes with a time lag and is often ambiguous.  As a result, the learning is not as successful.

Much to my surprise, research shows that the best and most accurate decision makers are weather forecasters.  In one study, when U.S. Weather Service forecasters predicted a 30% chance of rain, out of 15,536 predictions, it rained almost exactly 30% of the time.  That superb accuracy holds along the entire range of probability, except at the highest levels.  When a 100% chance of rain was predicted, it actually rained only 90% of the time.  What makes weather forecasters so accurate is precise, timely feedback about repeated judgments.  And, of course, they’re held very accountable by their supervisors, their colleagues and the public. 

The decision-making journal. 

If you’re really serious about improving your decisions and are open to feedback, there’s a simple, inexpensive technique with a great deal of value:  a decision-making journal.

Whenever you make an important decision, take a few minutes to write down what you decided, how you went about making that decision, and what you expect to happen.  Get your decision down in specific, concrete statements.  That’ll keep you from conjuring up ways to defend your decision choices, and unduly preserving your self-image.  The lesson:  even good feedback is not useful if you don’t use it.

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When you first learn that weather forecasters are the best, most accurate decision makers, you may want to discredit that research.  The study makes it very clear and obvious that most of our decision making is pretty inadequate.  Suck it up, and deal with the truth, as painful as it really is.  Then, when you make an important decision, learn from it by using the decision journal. 

A well-kept journal makes it possible for you to audit your decisions.  It also can illuminate your decision-making patterns.  You may see, for example, relationships between your moods and your decisions.  When you’re in a good mood, you may be more overconfident.  I’ve noticed that when I’m in a slightly pessimistic mood, I make better decisions.  Since I can’t always determine my moods, I’ve built my game on other strategies.

Useful references:

Russo and Schoemaker, Managing Overconfidence.

Michael Mauboussin, Think Twice.

What's the Best Way to Build Personal Expertise?

Most of my clients understand that their work future and long-term employability is tied to the quality of their expertise.  As a result many continuously work to build that expertise.  Although gaining new opportunities, working in stretch settings and working with cross-disciplinary peers offer fine ways to develop your expertise, those situations don't always come on a regular basis.  If you're a fairly new employee, you're liable to stay in the same job for three or four years.  If you're like me, between 18 and 24 months into a new job, I had learned most of what that job offered and I was looking for a new opportunity.  It was often six or seven months between the time I believed I was ready to move on and when I actually gained a new job. 

But there is one very personal way to keep building expertise in most any setting.  Primarily the way to build expertise is to recognize mistakes and successes, remember them and incorporate those memories into your thinking.  That's why making the process of debriefing, a subject I wrote about in an earlier post, is so very important.

Studies show that expertise is largely acquired not only by practice, but by receiving feedback that helps you understand your technical errors and misguided actions.  That's only one side of debriefing and building expertise.  The other orientation is figuring out why you were highly successful in a project, and incorporating those practices into your toolkit.  And it can be just as important to go after concrete, specific feedback on your successes--as well as your failures.

What's driving this blog is a conversation with one of my former clients this morning.  Recently he sold several million dollars worth of projects (yes, even in this economy).  I called to congratulate him on his performance, and then asked how he had gone about gaining the projects.  He was initially silent, then said he was unsure.  Finally he said that "maybe" it was just luck.  I suggested that two sales like that might have some luck involved in them, but I was unwilling to believe that was the sole reason for his success.  Finally he came up with the notion that he was becoming more strategic.  I wanted to know what he meant by that, but again, he wasn't certain.

Educator/consultant that I am, I asked him to think through the entire client development processes, and the strategic changes he'd made.  I thought they might be valuable to him, and I knew that the information would be  valuable to him and the firm in the future.

He promised to think more seriously (debrief them), and I promised to get back to him in a couple weeks.  My client has a lot of smarts, so when he puts his brain in gear, we'll get some good stuff--useful for the future.

My point: You can learn as much, even more useful stuff, from your successes as from your failures.  That's the most basic method for developing personal expertise.

Five Keys to Brilliance: The Fuel for Genius.

I’m excited to learn that more than 3,000 visitors  have read my post, How to be brilliant, since last Sunday.  That post grew out of David Shenk’s new book, The Genius in All of Us.  It was largely focused on the research of Anders Ericsson, the well-known father of “deliberate practice.” 

But we know that deliberate practice is hard.  It’s so hard that no one can do it without the benefit of motivation, a lot of motivation.  What can we do to develop that motivation?  Why is it so many of us seem to fall apart when we face the challenges of deliberate practice?  The answer is surprising.  Carol Dweck, the leading expert in motivation and personality theory, has discovered that the key to growth and perseverance is our mindset.  In more than 20 years of research, she’s discovered that our mindset is not a minor personality quirk. 

The motivational mindset unfolds and drives every aspect of our lives.  Long-term motivation grows out of a very basic mindset, the growth mindset.  This is not about taking more risks or believing in yourself.  Instead, as Dweck says, the belief (mindset) that your qualities can be grown leads to a “host of different thoughts and actions, taking you down an entirely different road.”  What can you do to develop a growth or mastery-oriented mindset—so that you will face up to your challenges rather than be overwhelmed by them?  Dweck has found that a focus on effort, thinking about what you could do to stay on track, and the information you can gather is the key to genius.

Here, then, are Dweck’s five keys to brilliance, the fuel for genius.  Notice that all five keys are connected, and that the mindset changes what we strive for and what we see as success. 

1.  The belief that effort is a positive, constructive force.  Success is not mistake-free or always about winning.  Those are the wrong issues.  Success is about preparation and and effort. 

2.  Development and progress are important—not just the product or the outcome.  Undue emphasis on testing can be harmful if it conveys to students that the whole point of school is to do well on these tests, and if it conveys to them that how well they do sums up their intelligence.  Jack Welch, Lou Gerstner and Anne Mulcahy are fascinating because they transformed their companies by putting a culture of growth and teamwork in its place.  These people talk journey, an inclusive, learning-filled journey, rather than about their own royalty.

3.  Substantial change, stretch and growth are the business of life, and that’s a lot of fun.  In today’s volatile business world, stretch and growth are the key ingredients for success.  My paper, “Bluff your way into a new job,” is all about stretch growth.  Research shows that stretch growth provides some of the very best work opportunities.

4.  Brains can become bigger.  Challenge is good.  Daniel Coyle’s fascinating book, The Talent Code, nails the issue:  Greatness isn’t born.  It’s Grown.

5.  Being on a learning edge is the smart thing to do.  Gains from occasional training or developmental experiences are useful.  But the really smart approach to your career is staying in the learning mode all the time.  The research shows that the more we learn, the easier and faster we can learn.  Success in the talent age requires constant learning.

Changing how you feel about yourself and your future liberates you to focus on effort.  It makes motivation a part of daily living. 

In an interview, Carol Dweck summarizes the most important findings of her research.  This is what she has to say:

What has intrigued me most in my 30 years of research is the power of motivation.  Motivation is often more important than your initial ability in determining whether you succeed in the long run.  In fact, many creative geniuses were not born that way.  They were often fairly ordinary people who became extraordinarily motivated. 

By motivation, I mean not only the desire to achieve, but also the love of learning, the love of challenge, and the ability to thrive on obstacles.  These are the greatest gifts. . . .

Success Is Not Just About Practice, Practice, Practice. It's Also About Better, Better, and Better Coaching.

I’m finding that the public at large is beginning to gain an understanding of the development of expertise through what Anders Ericsson calls “deliberate practice.”  It’s been touted in all kinds of popular magazines and talked about at the water cooler.  In fact, the public is beginning to understand that the development of expertise takes a long time and a lot of effort.  That means that whether you’re trying to improve your golf score, your chess game or your project management skills, it’s not going to happen overnight.   

In their attempts to understand deliberate practice, I’ve noticed that people get the practice bit fairly well, and that they’re trying to figure out how to stay motivated and persevere in their practice and development. 

But there’s one disconnect.  Practice, practice, practice can reinforce some very poor habits and not bring you the success you want.  Practice will not help you improve your skills without regular coaching and feedback.  And that’s easier said than done.

Anders Ericsson, the father of deliberate practice, says that not only will our practice require full attention and concentration, failure is likely to arise (that’s an understatement) and that gradual improvements with corrections and repetitions are necessary.

The key phrase is gradual improvements with corrections. To become more successful we’re going to need better coaching.  Finding effective coaches on the job is a task of itself.  If coaching is available from your manager or colleagues, that’s one thing.  More often than not they can help you with all that you need. 

Over the long term, however, you may find that you really need a master coach.  In larger firms that will mean that you start working the network to find someone.  Some managers and most executives can get their company to fund a coach to work with them over a long period of time.  I usually spend ten to twelve months with a client.  It’s not unusual, however, for me to work up to two years with an exec.   

Do you need the best coach you can find?

It’s really not necessary, however, to start with the best coach you can find for developing a new competency.  As Daniel Coyle notes in the Talent Code (see my review), a large number of world-class talents start with seemingly average teachers.  But what’s important is to be able to identify when you’ve learned all you can learn from that coach.

I studied piano as a kid from the time I was in the fourth grade through high school.  Even as a kid, I realized by the time I was in the sixth grade that that I’d advanced beyond my teacher, and with my grade school music teacher’s help, found a better teacher.  Toward the end of the ninth grade, when I’d advanced so much that I could recognize some really terrific piano players around school who were obviously getting better coaching, I started asking around.  Eventually one of the top high school players suggested her teacher, a University of Michigan piano major with a master’s who had studied with the great Artur Schnabel at Michigan.  As soon as I walked into her living room and saw two Steinway concert grands, I knew that I was in a different ballpark than anything I’d ever experienced.

But looking back at that last teacher I realize something of much importance.  She was an outstanding pianist, and merely a very good teacher. 

The great coaches not only understand their discipline, whether piano, relationship or project management, or even strategy formulation, but also understand the individual and can adapt their coaching to the individual.  That requires both a deep knowledge of the specific discipline, as well as a deep knowledge of the coaching process and the ability to identify and adapt to an individual’s need.  That’s why Daniel Coyle indicates that most of the great coaches he met were all in the sixties or seventies.  (At my age, I have a real investment in that conclusion.  Ha!)

Remember this principle: Better and better coaches will be needed to support your practice, practice, practice.