Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things
von Adam M. Grant
When teams were relatively reactive, waiting for direction from above, extraverts drove the best results. They asserted their visions and motivated teams to follow their lead. But when teams were proactive, bringing many ideas and suggestions to the table, it was introverts who led them to achieve greater things. The more reserved leaders came across as more receptive to input from below, which gave them access to better ideas and left their teams more motivated. With a team of sponges, the best leader is not the person who talks the most,23 but the one who listens best. There’s a name for that feeling: it’s called languishing.23 Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. The term was coined by a sociologist (Corey Keyes) and immortalized by a philosopher (Mariah Carey). Languishing is the emotional experience of stalling. You may not be depressed or burned out, but you definitely feel blah. Every day starts with a case of the Mondays. You’re muddling through the moments, watching your weeks go by in shades of gray.fn4
“You don’t tell kids, ‘Well, you’re going to learn patience and determination and fortitude,’ ’cause they’ll fall asleep right away.” He laughs. “You say this: ‘This game is fun. Let’s go—I’m gonna beat you’.… stir their spirit, their competitive fire. They sit down, they start learning the game, and as they become hooked, and they lose a game, they want to win.”
He’s only able to do this because he fully rejects the notion of perfectionism. He knows that to be disciplined in some areas, we have to let others go. One of his specialties is being disciplined in deciding when to push for the best and when to settle for good enough. For him, this often means prioritizing durability and design while compromising on comfort.
This is different from the tutor effect, which highlights how we can learn through sharing the very knowledge that we want to acquire. The coach effect captures how we can marshal motivation by offering the encouragement to others that we need for ourselves. By reminding us of the tools we already possess, coaching others raises our expectations of ourselves.
Harmonious passion is taking joy in a process rather than feeling pressure to achieve an outcome. You’re no longer practicing under the specter of should. I should be studying. I’m supposed to practice. You’re drawn into a web of want. I feel like studying. I’m excited to practice. That makes it easier to find flow:
When we think of geniuses as people with extraordinary abilities, we neglect the importance of life circumstances in shaping them. When they had an idea, rich kids got to shoot their shot. Some of the less fortunate were lost Einsteins: they could have become great innovators, if only they’d had the opportunity.
"When teams were relatively reactive, waiting for direction from above, extraverts drove the best results. They asserted their visions and motivated teams to follow their lead. But when teams were proactive, bringing many ideas and suggestions to the table, it was introverts who led them to achieve greater things. The more reserved leaders came across as more receptive to input from below, which gave them access to better ideas and left their teams more motivated. With a team of sponges, the best leader is not the person who talks the most,23 but the one who listens best."
"There’s a name for that feeling: it’s called languishing.23 Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. The term was coined by a sociologist (Corey Keyes) and immortalized by a philosopher (Mariah Carey). Languishing is the emotional experience of stalling. You may not be depressed or burned out, but you definitely feel blah. Every day starts with a case of the Mondays. You’re muddling through the moments, watching your weeks go by in shades of gray.fn4"
"Becoming a creature of discomfort can unlock hidden potential in many different types of learning. Summoning the nerve to face discomfort is a character skill—an especially important form of determination. It takes three kinds of courage: to abandon your tried-and-true methods, to put yourself in the ring before you feel ready, and to make more mistakes than others make attempts. The best way to accelerate growth is to embrace, seek, and amplify discomfort."
"In a typical organization, those protests would have been enough to squash the idea. But Gore has a lattice system. Whenever you have an idea, you’re granted the freedom to go to a range of different senior people. To get your project off the ground, all you need is one leader who’s willing to sponsor it. So Dave kept socializing his idea. Eventually he found a sponsor, Richie Snyder, who connected him with an engineer named John Spencer."
"It shouldn’t take an extreme event like an injury to push us to stop, reverse, and switch routes. But the truth is we’re often afraid to go backward. We see slowing down as losing ground, backing up as giving up, and rerouting as veering off course. We worry that when we step back, we’ll lose our footing altogether. This means we stay exactly where we are—steady but stuck. We need to embrace the discomfort of getting lost."
"After people watch an especially upsetting film clip, over the next week they typically have six or seven disturbing flashbacks. But if they’re randomly assigned to play a few rounds of Tetris right after watching the scene, it cuts their flashbacks in half1 over the next week. Somehow, the act of rotating, moving, and dropping geometric blocks shields us from intrusive thoughts and aversive emotions."
"“You don’t tell kids, ‘Well, you’re going to learn patience and determination and fortitude,’ ’cause they’ll fall asleep right away.” He laughs. “You say this: ‘This game is fun. Let’s go—I’m gonna beat you’.… stir their spirit, their competitive fire. They sit down, they start learning the game, and as they become hooked, and they lose a game, they want to win.”"
- →Harmonious passion is taking joy in a process rather than feeling pressure to achieve an outcome. You’re no longer practicing under the specter of should. I should be studying. I’m supposed to practice. You’re drawn into a web of want. I feel like studying. I’m excited to practice. That makes it easier to find flow:
- →When we select leaders, we don’t usually pick the person with the strongest leadership skills. We frequently choose the person who talks the most. It’s called the babble effect. Research shows that groups promote the people who command the most airtime15—regardless of their aptitude and expertise.
- →Scaffolding unleashes hidden potential by helping us forge paths we couldn’t otherwise see. It enables us to find motivation in the daily grind, gain momentum in the face of stagnation, and turn difficulties and doubts into sources of strength.
- →What if we all invested as much time in our character skills as we do in our career skills? Imagine what America would look like if the Declaration of Independence granted every citizen the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of character.
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