Yes, You Will Succeed: Three Keys to Building Persistence.

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mousetrap

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration. The rest of us just get up and go to work.”
– Stephen King

Back in the early 90s we used to go to a club in Charlottesville VA to see Dave Matthews and his band play. It was free to get in. One time we drove there and the doorman asked for $5, and we were like, “What!? What a ripoff, it’s just Dave.” During that same time period, I found myself president of the Student Activities Union at my college in North Carolina, a job which mostly required throwing parties and sometimes managing intramural leagues. I discovered if your job is to throw parties, people often recommend bands to you. A friend recommended some band from Columbia SC I had never heard of, but he assured me they would rock the house. So I called up Darius Rucker and asked if his Hootie and The Blowfish band would come play at our school. He asked for a keg of beer to play.

It seems like I blinked, but once I picked my head up to pay attention to popular music a couple years later, Dave Matthews and that Hootie band were playing stadiums at $200 a seat, and touring the world.

But here’s the thing: All of those blockbuster songs like Ants Marching, One Sweet World, Only Wanna Be With You, Hold My Hand, and so on, they were playing those same songs in little bar clubs for fourteen people back in the day. And had been playing them for years. They didn’t get famous and then write hit songs. They wrote hit songs and the world didn’t know it, until after they had played and played them again and again.

This is the myth of “suddenly” becoming famous. We don’t become successful overnight. We become successful as a result of showing up every day and putting in the hours, developing deep expertise and finding our tribe over time. Or as Aristotle so wisely put it, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.”

The standout word of the day is Grit. We implore our kids to persevere, to stay in the game, to try new ways of solving a problem. We encourage our colleagues to “fail faster” in expectation of finally arriving at an innovative breakthrough. We all just need to be a bit more gritty. One parent in California has a Kickstarter campaign to develop a line of dolls action figures for boys called Generation Grit.

But how do we instill a sense of stick-to-itiveness in our kids, and our colleagues? There are a few clues in recent studies from Brigham Young University in which researchers followed 325 families over a period of four years, examining the behavior of the families with kids between the ages of 11 and 14. After examining parenting styles, family attitudes and subsequent goals attained by the kids, the researchers concluded that three key ingredients consistently created higher levels of persistence:

  • supportive and loving environment
  • high degree of autonomy in decision-making
  • high degree of accountability for outcomes

There it is again – that word autonomy. From previous research by Teresa Amabile and others, we have known for some time that high levels of autonomy lead to more creative outcomes. But here we also see that high levels of autonomy also build greater persistence.

According to Paul Miller, associate professor of psychology at Arizona State University, “When held accountable in a supportive way, mistakes do not become a mark against their self-esteem, but a source for learning what to do differently. Consequently, children are less afraid of making mistakes, are more inclined to try to make better choices in order to demonstrate that they can accomplish and live up to the expectations they share with their parent(s).”

Five Traits of Leaders Working at Scale

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sweepersIt’s not a glorious job. And would likely be completely forgettable, if not for the frantic brushing down the ice. It’s distracting until you figure out that they are actually making the stone go faster by polishing the ice in front of the sliding stone. Sometimes I wonder if they accidentally bump into the other stones on the ice. I’ve never seen it happen. But it’s the role of the sweeper that can often make the biggest difference in the outcome in a game of curling.

Effective leaders who create excellence, at scale, in the companies and communities in which we work, have this skill of clearing the way ahead, along with several other key traits. These unique people operating at the highest levels of leadership can divest their ego from the end goal. They have accountability when things go awry but not granular responsibility over individual elements, because the journey toward a shared audacious goal must be emotionally owned by the entire organization to create scale.

Those leaders who can create innovation and excellence at scale possess these five traits:

Sweep away barriers: In order for excellence to grow rapidly and unimpeded, the clutter of antiquated bureaucracy and organizational roadblocks needs to be mitigated or removed entirely. This is the job of the best managers – not to create work that distracts, but instead identify obstacles and have the power and political clout to remove them. Jack Welch likes to use the analogy of the sweepers in a curling match, whose job is to clean the ice in front of the oncoming stone.

Mine the organization for expertise: Lou Platt, the former CEO of HP once said, “If only HP knew what HP knows, we’d be three times more productive.” By that he meant that there was redundancy and untapped capability within their own organization. The best leader creates environments and communication patterns to recognize untapped potential and surface latent expertise. Sir Howard Stringer of Sony, once hosted an international gathering of their engineers just so they could meet and talk, and discover the great capabilities Sony already possessed. Many later thanked Howard, saying they had no idea the depth of skill and knowledge within their own organization.

Build an ownership culture: One of the strongest and fastest ways to build a culture of ownership is to facilitate the building of shared language. When leaders create the circumstances and opportunities for the people around them to define the language use to build projects and collaborate, it creates a higher sense of ownership because suddenly each team member has a vested interest in the eventual outcome. When you have the team name the project, or the outcome, it becomes more about how “we” play the game. This is a stepping stone to building signature solutions. A signature solution is a process or result that has the character, the personality, of it’s contributors baked in to the finished result.

Give credit: A hallmark of a great leader is one who doesn’t want the credit. Or more specifically, doesn’t need the credit. These leaders who can scale excellence recognize that by giving credit, they allow those around them to step to the front – to become leaders themselves. In this way, remarkable leaders are more inclined toward starting something with a greater purpose, and then allowing those more capable people around them to execute on the details and drive scale.

Emphasize process over results: I once had an interview with the Dean of Melbourne Business School, Zeger Degraeve, who has a strong passion for understanding how people make decisions, and create excellence at scale. In our discussion, he strongly reinforced the power of process-driven cultures in eradicating blame tendencies among managers and peers. When individuals and teams are punished on the basis of poor outcomes, despite strong collaboration and decision making, it sends a signal to the rest of the organization that failure is dangerous, and therefore risk should be avoided. Yet inversely, rewards-centered cultures create disincentives for people to make mistakes at a time when making mistakes is the most reliable way of figuring out what works.

Most organizations today create bonus and reward structures that focus on and reward results. If we want an outcome to be repeatable, we instead need to focus on the process that created the result and reward for that. To truly connect with people in our organizations, we should spend more of our time and energy as leaders asking them to examine more closely how they perform their tasks and collaborate as teams, and how the organization, as a whole, operates.

Make the Comfortable Uncomfortable

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I coach lacrosse with my friend Pete. Coach Pete, who played Division I lacrosse back in the day, certainly looks the part. Big, fast, strong, and possessing a booming voice, one would think the new kids on the team would be intimidated by him, and only the seasoned players would be the ones who would dare to push his buttons, or have the audacity to slack off during drills.

It’s just the opposite. The new kids find him approachable, inviting and encouraging as a coach. Yet the kids who have been playing with Coach Pete for a few years find him sometimes demanding and expecting excellence. He pushes those experienced players the hardest.

Pete has a coaching philosophy worth borrowing. “Make the comfortable uncomfortable, and the uncomfortable comfortable.” What he means is that the new kids are already moderately intimidated by trying a new sport, developing new skills, immersing themselves in a fast, and often chaotic game. They are already on edge, and perhaps even a bit past the positive learning state that creates excellence. When the challenge and chaos of the game exceeds their skill and ability to deal with it, they feel overwhelmed, and move from a state of thriving and learning to a state of retreat. They close down. They drop a pass, take a hit going to a ground ball, and can’t figure out the strange offside rule. The game suddenly isn’t fun.

Inversely, the kids who have played the game for a few years have their posse, their attitude, and their predictable set of moves. These are the ones who need to try new things, who need to cradle and shoot with their non-dominant hand, play a new position, and work on the face-offs that start the game. They need to get out of their comfort zone. They will learn to see more of the game and become better players.

These are emotionally fluent leaders – those who can read people at their current comfort level and present just the right amount of challenge to let their skills and capabilities evolve. Sometimes to accelerate excellence, circumstances need to be chaotic by design – intentionally unstable.

Working in a world of constant change is half the fun of it. Deadlines shift, goalposts move, budgets shrink, markets evolve, new competition emerges, perceptions alter, stakeholders clash, and just when you are ready to deliver, your product is antiquated. After all, it takes a storm to make a rainbow.

Jumping the Shark and the beginning of the end

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fonzsharkjump-300x300Colgate once introduced a line of dinner entrees. Harley-Davidson rolled out their own perfume. The Fonz jumped his Shark.

And you may remember the tragic 77 days of mourning when New Coke was on the market. But Coca-Cola marketing executive Sergio Zyman couldn’t bear just one product disaster, so he then championed the release of OK Soda under the slogan “Things are going to be OK.” It never made it past test markets. Actually, we shouldn’t beat up on Mr. Zyman. He did, after all, have outstanding success with the incredibly popular Diet Coke, and even the decade-long run of Fruitopia (which appears to still enjoy a Canadian following on Facebook).

We have to test products and throw new ideas at wall to see what sticks. Innovation needs volume. But the right kind of volume and experimentation – the kind of innovation which is challenge-driven instead of idea-driven. Zyman started with the idea that “OK” was one of the most popular words in the English language and deducted that the word would therefore make for one of the most popular drinks in the world. Wrong.

Better product design starts with a deeper look at understanding the challenge and opportunity. Intuit uses “follow me home” studies, which allow product developers to get as close as possible to native user environments. By watching how people actually conduct their days, spend their time, and follow their preferences, Intuit designers get closer to understanding the ticks and quirks of their customers. This is different than starting with ideas and testing them in controlled environments, where things are structured, rigorous, and researchers are managing the perimeters.

Rule #1 of great companies: Better before cheaper. Quality and craftsmanship. Beauty and elegance. But better is hard. Cheaper is easy. Quality demands hard work and excellence. “But I have low-price overseas competitors!” you say. “But I could use inferior materials or fewer people and raise my profits!” you say.

So you start to look at costs. Cutting costs is a straight-forward, even tidy process. This is the beginning of the end of excellence. It’s tempting to go after the savings. The trouble is it compromises your product integrity. And when you compromise your product integrity, you compromise your brand. When you compromise your brand, your loyal customers head for the door.

Talent is cheaper than table salt

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reality

“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”
– Stephen King, Author

Carol Dweck led a fascinating study back in 1998 in which she and her colleagues worked with four hundred 5th graders and gave them a series of tests, mostly puzzles, and then praised them in two different ways with these six little words.

With half of the group they said, “You must be smart at this.”
With the other half of the group they said, “You must have tried really hard.”

The first word set awarded intelligence, and innate talent, similar to how many parents and coaches (myself included) get trapped into talking about, and to, our kids. We say how smart they are, or how naturally gifted they are. The second word set praised effort, determination, preparation, grit. What the researchers were interested in, was how the kids would view their abilities, as fixed and unchanging or as malleable and able to grow and change with work.

In the next round of puzzles, the kids were offered a choice. They could try harder problems or easier ones. You guessed right, the kids praised for effort choose to attempt the harder problems. The kids praised for talent selected the easier problems because when you praise for innate talent, you create a form of status. If someone believes they have special talent and they are expected to perform well, then the thought of failing expectations becomes a liability. So to protect yourself as a “gifted and talented” individual we will choose easier tasks to ensure we have high performance.

In the next part of the study both sets of kids were given harder problems to solve and both sets of kids performed more poorly. But here’s the interesting thing. When the researchers asked the kids how they did on the problems, the kids praised for talent lied 40% of the time, presumably to maintain their social status as “talented.” However, when the other kids praised for effort were asked to tell their peers how they did on this set of questions, only 10% of them exaggerated their performance. They felt no loss of self-esteem from doing poorly on difficult problems.

Here’s where it gets really interesting. In the next phase of the study, both sets of kids were given problems comparable to the original set of problems. In terms of difficulty, this next set was just as challenging as the first. The group praised for talent had just had an ego setback in the earlier round, and did 20% worse than they did the first time around. They were told they were smart, then they performed poorly, and now attacking the same level of difficulty with decreased confidence they do 20% worse.

But the second group did 30% better this time around. There’s the difference – 6 words. But keep in mind there are a lot of ways to say, “You must have tried really hard.”

Carol and her colleagues use these kinds of effort or “process” praise: which is praise for engagement, perseverance, strategies, improvement, etc.

– You really studied for your English test, and your improvement shows it. You read the material over several times, outlined it, and tested yourself on it. That really worked!
– I like the way you tried all kinds of strategies on that math problem until you finally got it.
It was a long, hard assignment, but you stuck to it and got it done. You stayed at your desk, kept up your concentration, and kept working. That’s great!
– I like that you took on that challenging project for your science class. It will take a lot of work—doing the research, designing the machine, buying the parts, and building it. You’re going to learn a lot of great things

Next time you see excellent, praise the effort, the grit, the patience and hard work it must have taken to get there. You’ll not only be rewarding excellence, but also building growth and confidence.

A group of all-stars does not make a team

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teamworkThey were unbeatable, invincible. The supergroup, the dream team.

There must be thousands of ten year old boys in New England that play soccer. About forty of the best players from the very best teams were hand-picked to be evaluated by the best coaches. Of those top forty, twenty-eight were cut. They picked twelve players to form the all-stars. From thousands down to twelve. Twelve boys were plucked from the masses to form an elite team – an elite team that would make just one appearance at a tournament and then disband.

They had to work out a few kinks in their first match. They won 12-3, allowing three goals. Their second match was 10-0. Their third match, against us, was 14-0. I was surprised someone kept count. Towards the end of the game they were scoring every few seconds it seemed. We would gather the ball out of our net and trudge back to midfield to kick off, to be trampled again by the little Rooneys, Maradonas and Peles. They played in a stampeding rush down the middle of the field. With flashy footwork to be sure, and passing when necessary, but like marauders all eager for a goal. They played like what they were – mercenaries. Hired guns.

All of the other teams at the tournament, were exactly that – teams. Teams that played and practiced, and ate and laughed and traveled together. And there was one team at the tournament called NEFC that had been playing together for years, probably since they were only five years old. They were amazing, and unlike any U11 soccer team I had ever seen. In their match against us they held possession of the ball at least 90% of the time. I do not exaggerate. And when we did somehow intercept a pass, they were upon us, deftly extracting the ball to resume their hypnotic passing.

They were mesmerizing as they glided around the field, passing sharply from one to another to another. After they scored 6 goals against us (in the first half), their coach instructed them to stop scoring. So instead, they would pass up the alleys, to the corners, into the middle to create a scoring opportunity. And then not score. Instead they would pass away from our goal to the outside and back down the far side of the field, all the way back to the goalie. The goalie would reset the ball, and they would commence to pass again up the field to build a scoring position. Again and again, while our players stabbed at the ball and ran in circles chasing their spellbinding passes.

Then their coach told them to play on their off foot – that is, pass and dribble using primarily their less agile, non-dominant foot. It didn’t matter. They didn’t lose the ball. We’re a good team, and we had a great experience at the tournament. But against NEFC it was all clearly a training exercise for them as they continued to hone their skills together.

And so it was destined that the all-star elite team would meet the NEFC team in the tournament finals. NEFC won 6-0, and although I didn’t see the game first hand, I bet their coach again asked them to stop scoring after 6 goals.

That’s excellence, class, precision, and true teamwork. Unlike the all-star team in which every player wanted a heroic goal, it was impossible to tell which player was dominant on the NEFC team. The quality of the team was such that everyone was elevated together. Instead of competing for an alpha team position, the NEFC players supported each other so well, everyone was great.

Think about that. Do you want to be on a team in which everyone is fighting for glory? Or a team in which the camaraderie and support is so tight everyone gets better?

Five Strategies for Accelerated Learning

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HRInsights_NovDec2013Bobby Brown is one of the few freestyle skiers on the planet who can execute a switch double misty 1440, a fantastic move that entails skiing backwards off a ramp, spinning sideways in the air three times while holding one ski, and landing backwards. It’s an astonishing feat to watch—and a maneuver that was totally unheard of only a few years ago.

But this remarkable stunt didn’t spontaneously emerge from Brown’s skis just at that moment. Like everyone else, Brown started on the bunny slope. He began with small jumps and worked up to flipping on trampolines, leaping onto airbags, and jumping into water. After years of work, he finally had the skill to perform a switch double misty 1440.

Brown’s amazing feat is just one example of the power of practice when learning new skills. No one becomes an expert in a field overnight. Consistent—yet varied—situational practice builds both the skillset (ability) and mindset (belief) to foster innovative new capacities. Both individuals and organizations can reap the rewards of practice, and HR managers would do well to give careful thought to how to incorporate practice and learning better in their training programs.

Here are a few techniques companies can use to introduce and promote such accelerated learning among employees…[To read the full article in November HR Insights click here!]

It’s not about who, but how you do it

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passing-the-baton

I don’t believe in failure. It is not failure if you enjoyed the process.”
– Oprah Winfrey

Drummer Hoff was one of my favorite childhood books. It’s a story about people who, in turn, provide pieces of a cannon (“Sergeant Chowder brought the powder, Corporal Farrell brought the barrel…”), and then finally it’s Drummer Hoff who fires it off – KAH-BAH-BLOOM! It’s a lesson in teamwork, a lesson in process.

In 1985 Michael Jordan was Rookie of the Year. Yet after just a couple of seasons, critics were whispering if he really had what it takes to bring the Chicago Bulls to championship level. Then Jordan learned to play defense as well as he could score. Then he honed his team instincts, and then came the 1990-1991 season which started an eight year run in which Jordan would lead the Bulls to six Championships. Even the great Jordan couldn’t do it alone.

I recently participated in a 4-hour client presentation with five of my colleagues, all from different parts of the company. It worked beautifully, and we all agreed that each person had played a unique and crucial role. We started by envisioning the outcome. Then, we created a process for composing and delivering the presentation to fulfill that ambition. Finally, we chose the right people to play each position. We didn’t start with the people.

The how is the process. The who are the people who perform the tasks. Yes, the impact, the why, matters. But after settling on the why, think about the how.

Here’s a few reasons why how beats who:

  • Process is replicable and scalable. When the process isn’t clearly identified, evaluated, and constantly improved, the results aren’t easily repeatable. When we place results alone as the overarching goal, we de-emphasize the process that got us there.When we de-emphasize the process, we can’t easily retrace our steps and examine, dissect, and replicate how we got there.
  • Process emphasizes networks, not heroes. A results-only culture can provide too much focus and reward on sole contributors, creating superstars deemed irreplaceable. Results then can take on a heroic quality. This has a doubly negative effect because it not only relies on the elusive and unqualified “talent” of an individual, but also handicaps that individual with a superstar label.
  • Process builds integrity. If it’s the results that count, not how we got there, then we risk inviting unethical behavior to gain the result. The global financial crisis taught us that predatory lending bankers with little oversight and with quick money as their sole motivation were gleefully willing to game the system to their benefit.
  • Process cultures remove blame and heighten intelligent risk. Results are the culmination of a series of decisions that are sometimes intricate and often involve many stakeholders. Individuals at all levels of the process chain contribute decisions that eventually lead to an outcome. It’s possible that a strong, high-quality decision can lead to a poor outcome for reasons entirely beyond the control of the person who made the decision.

You have great taste. And it’s killing your work.

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wine_taster_1What’s your most enjoyable pop music out there today? Mumford & Sons? The Lumineers? Carly Rae Jepsen?

Please. Get that weak sauce out of here. For ten minutes of toe-tappin, wide grinnin joy, try Andrea Perry. She has been quietly producing inspiring music in her home studio in Austin TX, and she has the catchiest beats and phrases around. And no one digs a deeper groove than Mofro.

Read non-fiction? I once sent a note to Dan Coyle after reading a chapter in which he managed to metamorphose a car chase and a bank heist into a tale of accelerated learning and developing remarkable talent. Brilliant. And don’t get me started on Laura Hillenbrand. I just finished Unbroken and can’t shut up about how marvelous it is.

We have opinions. That’s ok. Just don’t let it kill your work. After I listen to Willy Porter, I get inspired and walk into the living room and pull out my guitar. Then I make some noise on the guitar, and sadly know that I’ll never sound like him. But again that’s half the point – only Willy Porter sounds like Willy Porter. You don’t need to sound like him. You only need to sound like an inspired version of you.

Years ago, for months I went out to the Portland Headlight with our dog, at dawn, at dusk, under blue skies, in the falling snow, when storms were looming, to take photographs of that beautiful lighthouse. Then one day someone said to me, “You know, that’s the most photographed lighthouse in the world.”

I almost quit the effort. And then I didn’t. I decided that of the millions of prints and postcards of the Portland Headlight, at the very least I would produce a signature image – something perhaps not iconic and sublime, but at least my own.

Here’s the thing: what often inspires us to paint, write, play, dance, or join the masters soccer team is that we know excellence. We recognize beauty and talent and art and skill when we see it. And then we have a go at it ourselves and find it intimidating. We decide we suck.

Remember these truths:

  • You will learn something. It’s impossible not to. You just decided to learn how to make crepes from scratch? Yes, they will probably be sad, tired crepes your kids won’t eat the first time, but you are guarenteed to learn something. You’ll wind up asking your friend the french chef or wandering through recipes on epicurious
  • You will get better. Well, you may actually get worse before you get better. It’s ok. It’s common. But you will improve. Incrementally, in fits and starts until you turn that killer riff into a full song, that idea into a full blown argument.
  • People are cheering for you. Really they are. People want you to succeed. Even that cantankerous curmudgeon in the IT department who ignores your pleas for help. When they took a chance, pitched a new idea and stood out on a ledge at the last department meeting, you were impressed.
  • People will jump in and help you. I have a friend who talked about creating a distillery. He decided to just get started – start creating what he dreamed of instead of talking about it. Then all kinds of people came out of the woodwork to help. What you chat about over the water cooler is valuable but it isn’t action. What you draw on the back of the napkin is interesting, but it isn’t compelling until you take hte lead – take the chance. And when you do, others see what you’re attempting and recognize intersections of where they can help.

Something interesting happens when you start by creating value and realizing your ideas. People show up, They show up with ideas, support, and energy because they sense something being realized and want to be a part of it, they want to help.

Show up every day, and never believe you are a genius. But do believe that every once in a while one might visit you and blow pixie dust on your work.

And no one says it better than Ira Glass

There it is again. Weird works.

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fosburyIn 1968 Dick Fosbury astonished the world at the Mexico City Olympic Games by clearing 7′ 4″ 1/4 inches in the high jump. His efforts before 80,000 people were an aberration – an anomaly in track and field events. Dick was a gangly 6’3″ athlete who hadn’t excelled at any event in track and field at his Medford, OR high school and he unveiled a maneuver to set a world record. More remarkably, his competitors failed to recognize and adopt his innovative style and lost – not only on that occasion, but for years to come because they couldn’t acknowledge the power of his innovation.

Fosbury’s own coach, who didn’t care for the move at all, called it “a shortcut to mediocrity.”

But it wasn’t, in fact, “unseen before.” Fosbury had been working on perfecting the technique for a couple years. Not only that, another athlete, the Canadian Debbie Brill, had developed an identical style she called the “Brill Bend.”

So how in the world did the lesser athlete Dick Fosbury not only develop a technique to best his rivals, but do so quite publicly while his competitors failed to recognize and adopt the innovation to excel?

The day Fosbury actually unveiled this new technique was five years earlier at a track meet in which he beat his own personal best by a foot and a half. Eighteen inches. High jump improvements are typically measured in inches – or fractions of inches. People should have been paying closer attention instead of ridiculing him. But why? Because it was new, because it was different, because it looked weird, and because no one else had the discipline to bother.

There it is again…curiosity, experimentation and persistence as keys to excellence.