Adam Grant on the Science of Potential and Achievement
Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist and Wharton professor, discusses his book "Hidden Potential." He explores the importance of character skills, seeking discomfort, embracing imperfection, and how to identify and champion the hidden potential in ourselves and others.
Deep Dive Analysis
17 Topic Outline
Introduction to Adam Grant and his new book, Hidden Potential
Adam Grant's personal motivation and definition of potential
The misnomer of 'soft skills' and importance of character skills
Evidence: Character skills' impact on long-term success
Developing character skills: Embracing discomfort and exposure therapy
Challenging learning styles and diversifying learning modalities
Developing character skills: Practicing imperfectionism
Using a rating system for feedback on creative work
Developing character skills: Being a sponge for advice
The concept of temporary scaffolding for growth and coaching
Finding effective coaches and mentors
Addressing systemic barriers to opportunity and democratized knowledge
Growth mindset in education and its controversies
Strategies for identifying hidden potential in others
The 'do-over' interview technique for hiring
Overcoming judgmental tendencies in assessing others
Imposter syndrome as a sign of hidden potential
7 Key Concepts
Hidden Potential
The capacity for growth and achievement that is not immediately visible, often overlooked due to biases focusing on initial performance rather than progress. It's about how far one can travel against the odds, not just where one lands.
Character Skills
Learnable capacities that enable individuals to put their principles into practice, often undervalued 'soft skills' like dependability, determination, discipline, proactivity, and pro-social tendencies. These skills are not just taught in kindergarten but can be learned in adulthood.
Discomfort Seeking
A character skill involving intentionally putting oneself in situations that are challenging or unpleasant to foster growth. This means overcoming weaknesses and stretching oneself beyond current strengths, even if it leads to mistakes or negative judgment.
Imperfectionism
The skill of discerning between acceptable and unacceptable mistakes, knowing when to strive for excellence and when 'good enough' is sufficient. It helps prevent rumination on minor flaws and allows focus on broader improvements, rather than getting stuck on past errors.
Being a Sponge
A character skill that involves effectively absorbing useful knowledge and filtering out harmful or irrelevant information. This is best achieved by seeking targeted advice rather than general feedback, especially from multiple independent sources.
Scaffolding (in learning)
Temporary supports, like those used in building construction, that help individuals scale new heights in learning or development. Once a new level of skill or understanding is reached, the scaffolding (e.g., a coach or mentor's specific guidance) can be removed as the learner has internalized the skill or overcome the deficit.
Growth Mindset
The belief that abilities are not fixed but are flexible and can be learned and improved over time. While teaching it directly has mixed results, it is particularly important for underprivileged students and requires teachers to also hold this mindset about their students' potential.
8 Questions Answered
Potential should be defined and measured in terms of progress—the distance traveled against the odds—rather than initial performance or starting abilities.
So-called 'soft skills' are crucial for success and should be re-framed as 'character skills' because they are learnable capacities that allow individuals to put principles into practice and can be more influential than cognitive skills.
Three key character skills to develop are discomfort seeking (embracing challenges), being a sponge (actively seeking and filtering advice), and imperfectionism (knowing when 'good enough' is sufficient and learning from mistakes).
It is better to ask for advice because it tends to elicit more constructive, targeted suggestions about what can be changed in the future, helping to filter out irrelevant or unchangeable criticisms.
To get better feedback, especially on large creative projects, ask trusted individuals to rate the work on a scale (e.g., 0-10) to calibrate whether major or minor changes are needed, and to help them see the overall quality rather than just isolated flaws.
We can utilize temporary 'scaffolding' – short-term guidance from coaches or mentors who are one or two steps ahead of us, allowing us to internalize skills and become self-reliant.
Instead of relying on past experience or initial performance, look at trajectories of progress, motivation to learn, and give candidates opportunities to demonstrate their skills and even 'do-overs' to show improvement.
Imposter syndrome is a paradox where you doubt yourself but believe your own low opinion over others' belief in you. It can be a sign of hidden potential, indicating that others recognize a capacity for growth you might be underestimating.
24 Actionable Insights
1. Focus on Progress, Not Performance
Measure success by the amount of progress made and distance traveled against odds, rather than initial abilities or final performance, to avoid premature discouragement and realize hidden potential.
2. Actively Develop Character Skills
Invest in learning and honing character skills like dependability, determination, discipline, proactivity, and pro-social tendencies, as they are learnable in adulthood and more influential than cognitive skills for achieving goals and improving relationships.
3. Reframe Imposter Syndrome
If you doubt yourself but others believe in you, consider that your self-doubt might be a biased internal view, and their objective belief in your capacity for growth may be more accurate.
4. Take the Leap to Grow
Do not wait until you feel completely ready to pursue a goal or take a leap, as the act of taking the leap itself is often what builds readiness and confidence.
5. Cultivate Three Core Skills
Focus on building three key character skills: being a discomfort seeker (embracing challenges), a sponge (absorbing and filtering advice), and an imperfectionist (knowing when ‘good enough’ is sufficient).
6. Seek Discomfort for Growth
Intentionally put yourself in uncomfortable situations, even those where you might fail or be judged negatively, to stretch yourself, overcome weaknesses, and accelerate personal growth.
7. Engage with Uncomfortable Ideas
Actively wrestle with ideas that make you uncomfortable or that you find abhorrent, as this process is crucial for improving critical thinking skills and refining your own assumptions and views.
8. Diversify Learning Modalities
Avoid exclusively relying on your preferred learning style; instead, mix up your modalities (e.g., reading physical books if you’re an audiobook person) to stretch your mind, concentrate more, and absorb information better.
9. Distinguish Acceptable Mistakes
Cultivate the skill of knowing when to strive for excellence and when ‘good enough’ is sufficient, avoiding rumination on minor imperfections to prevent tunnel vision and allow for broader improvement.
10. Use Rating System for Work
For significant creative projects, establish a target quality rating (e.g., 9/10) and ask a few trusted individuals for an honest 0-10 rating, which helps calibrate whether major or minor changes are needed and when the work is ready.
11. Ask for Advice, Not Feedback
When seeking input, ask for ‘advice’ rather than ‘feedback’ to receive more constructive, targeted suggestions about what you can change next time, focusing on actionable steps to move forward.
12. Gather Diverse Advice
To filter out noise and identify true areas for improvement, ask several people (e.g., five to seven) independently for their advice, then focus your energy on the common suggestions that emerge across multiple sources.
13. Utilize Temporary Scaffolding
View coaching and mentorship as temporary scaffolding: seek specific, short-term support to overcome an obstacle or learn a skill, then internalize the learning and move on without permanent reliance.
14. Choose Guides Just Ahead
When seeking a guide or mentor, prioritize individuals who are one or two steps ahead of you, as they can offer more relatable and actionable advice than top experts, and also seek those who genuinely love teaching and sharing knowledge patiently.
15. Leverage Online Resources
Actively use online platforms like YouTube, Khan Academy, or Wikipedia as personal scaffolding to learn and develop new skills, especially when access to traditional coaching, training, or opportunities is limited.
16. Prioritize Progress Trajectories
To identify hidden potential in others, shift focus from raw talent or initial abilities to their trajectory of progress and how much they have improved over time.
17. Implement Do-Overs in Hiring
Incorporate ‘do-overs’ or practice opportunities into job interviews, such as giving candidates a chance to redo a challenge or prepare pitches in advance, to assess their motivation and capacity for learning and improvement.
18. Adopt a Potential-Finding Mindset
When interviewing or evaluating others, reframe your goal from simply hiring or judging to actively identifying where a person’s hidden potential lies, even if they’re not a match for the current role.
19. Inquire About Passions
Before or during an interview, ask candidates to share their passions, skills they’ve developed, or strengths they want to showcase, providing a more comprehensive view of their potential beyond job-specific requirements.
20. Cultivate Patience in Judgment
Combat the tendency to make quick judgments based on cognitive shortcuts, bias, or credentialism by intentionally cultivating patience in forming conclusions about people’s potential.
21. Pivot When Limits Clear
If you fail at one specific endeavor, calibrate your efforts and pivot to a related area where you have potential to grow, rather than overgeneralizing and giving up on an entire domain.
22. Choose Exposure Therapy Wisely
When seeking discomfort for anxiety, consider an incremental approach (systematic desensitization) for extreme physiological responses or disorders, but for normal anxiety, a ‘flooding’ approach might accelerate the process.
23. Foster Growth Mindset
Recognize that teaching a growth mindset is especially impactful for underprivileged students, but it must be coupled with teachers who also believe in their potential and school systems that provide the necessary resources and opportunity structures for actual growth.
24. Assess Your Character Skills
Visit adamgrant.net to take the ‘hidden potential quiz’ to assess your current character skills (discomfort seeking, sponge, imperfectionist) and identify areas you might want to develop further.
9 Key Quotes
Most people think about potential in terms of performance when they should think about it in terms of progress.
Adam Grant
If I had judged my potential by my starting abilities, I would have given up.
Adam Grant
It's good to be smart. It's even more important to be dependable, determined, and disciplined and proactive and pro-social.
Adam Grant
If you like to get better, then investing in character skills might be the most enjoyable and worthwhile investment you can make in the long run.
Adam Grant
Sometimes learning in a domain that is uncomfortable for you forces you to concentrate more. It stretches your mind more and you end up growing more because of it.
Adam Grant
When you ask for advice, what research shows is you tend to get more constructive suggestions about what you can change next time that will move the needle.
Adam Grant
A coach is somebody who helps you become a better version of yourself.
Adam Grant
If you doubt yourself, shouldn't you also doubt your low opinion of yourself?
Adam Grant
The way you become ready is by taking the leap.
Adam Grant
4 Protocols
Seeking Advice for Improvement
Adam Grant- Ask multiple people (e.g., five to seven) independently: 'What's one thing I can do better?' or 'What advice do you have for my next talk/project?'
- Look for common threads or convergence in their suggestions.
- Focus energy on addressing these quality control issues that bothered multiple people, as opposed to idiosyncratic tastes.
Rating System for Creative Work Feedback
Adam Grant- Establish a target rating (e.g., 7 for an op-ed, 9 for a book) based on the project's importance.
- Give a draft to a few trusted people.
- Ask them for an honest rating on a scale from zero to 10.
- If ratings are low (e.g., fours), consider starting over.
- If ratings are close to the target (e.g., seven and a halves or eights for a book), focus on tweaking rather than major overhauls.
'Do-Over' Job Interview Technique
Kal Yechol (described by Adam Grant)- Design challenges similar to the job tasks (e.g., convincing a teenager not to bring their phone to the dinner table for a call center role).
- Allow the candidate to perform the role play.
- At the end, ask the candidate how they think it went.
- If the candidate is not satisfied with their performance, offer a chance to do a 'do-over' (mulligan).
- Evaluate not only the performance in round two but also the improvement from round one, as a sign of learning ability and motivation.
Hidden Potential Quiz
Adam Grant- Go to adamgrant.net.
- Take the 'hidden potential quiz' (takes about five minutes).
- Receive a score on how often you tend to seek discomfort, operate like a sponge, or are an imperfectionist.
- Identify your current consistent character skill and one you might want to develop further to unlock your hidden potential.