The Power and Peril of praising Effort

Thanks to Meg for forwarding that blog by Seth Godin on Effort and thanks to Vivian for her invitation to attend a Stanford Breakfast Briefing where Carol Dweck talked about her Mindset model.  Both things got me thinking.  I couldn’t spare the time to properly connect these ideas but here they go anyway:  

• The point in Seth’s blog is that for most of us it is only through effort that we can succeed, despite the media constantly bombarding us with information that contradicts that statement.  It is only a miniscule minority that can bet on luck and win.
• A while back I read about a study by the University of Exeter(a study that examined outstanding performances in arts and sports) that determined that “opportunities, encouragement, training, motivation, self-confidence and – most of all – practice determine excellence”.  Michael Howe (Exeter) went as far as saying that “Talent is a myth; it is hard work that brings success”.  He pointed out that despite Mozart being considered a genius, he had to work hard for 16 years before he could produce his first masterpiece (I know, this last bit is debatable for someone who wrote his first symphony at 8!)
• Carol Dweck thinks that if you primarily believe that things are achieved by sheer brilliance and talent then you probably won’t reach your full potential.  Because you will be concerned with looking smart and not making mistakes.  After all, you either have it or not and you surely want to have it.  This is what she calls a fixed mindset.  On the other end, if you believe that talent and intelligence can be developed, then you will push yourself out of your comfort zone, make mistakes, confront them and learn from them.  This is what she calls a growth mindset.  A growth mindset is what allows you to embrace challenges, persist in the face of setbacks, recognize that effort is the only path to mastery, learn from criticism and find lessons and inspiration in the success of others.  If you think this is an interesting concept I’d encourage you to read her book (Mindset: the New Psychology of Success).  It is short and easy to read.
• According to another good book: The Five dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni, people cannot be effective or reach their full potential if they operate in the absence of trust.  There is a need of an environment of “Psychological Safety” (back to Dweck) that allows people to make mistakes and learn from them.  It is this what in Dweck’s terms makes you smarter.  To promote such an environment where people can expose their vulnerabilities it is necessary that managers don’t penalize them for trying out new things despite the occasional failure.

All the above leads to one concept I really liked from Dweck.  Her emphasis on what to praise.  If you recognize an achievement by saying “Wow, you are really smart!” as opposed to saying “Wow, you must have worked really hard!” you might be pushing people towards a fixed mindset.  You are giving them a label of “smart” that they will make a point not to lose.  Therefore they won’t take risks and will avoid challenging assignments.  Instead, when you praise effort, you are recognizing them for something completely within their immediate control (“Effort is totally available, all the time” – Seth Godin).  Her research produced enormous amounts of evidence that confirms this to the point of making it almost indisputable.  One of those studies indicated that students with a fixed mindset “are more likely to cheat in an exam” simply because learning is not as important as looking smart.  This same group of students went as far as “lying about the results of their tests”.

When praising you need to be specific and realistic.  I actually learnt this from a parenting article that explained how it was better to say “I like the way you used colors in your painting” than saying “You are the best artist” because you took time recognize the specifics the praise will be taken more seriously.  There is hardly anything more discouraging than being praised by someone who makes it clear in their praise that they don’t understand the nature and magnitude of your accomplishment.  Unless the praise comes from Grandma, of course, in which case it is always fine.

Of course concepts that are fully applicable to parenting are not as easily applicable to management.  Primarily because when it refers to your children, their reaching their full potential is possibly the most important goal in your life.  While as a manager, ensuring your employees reach their full potential is one very important goal in your job (along with other, perhaps more tangible and immediate things like productivity, revenue, deadlines, you name it).  It then becomes a harder balancing act to recognize and reward effort without sending the wrong message and holding people to double standards.

 

But if you look at the long run, a small loss in productivity today may very well be a reasonable price to change a mindset.

 

8 things about Ariel

A “gaucho” by Florencio Molina Campos

Here is my self introduction to TalentedApps and 8 things you may or may not know about me.

1. First of all, I am a boy.  I know, my name makes you think of a mermaid, but it is a boy’s name where I come from.  It is supposed to be pronounced differently but I’ve given up on that.  I hope that if we’ve met before this is not something you did not know about me.
2. So where do I come from? One could argue that from the southernmost country on the planet (although I didn’t see snow until I was 17).  A place you definitely want to visit at least once in your life.  The land of San Martin, Gardel, Peron, Borges and Maradona.  Although lately I find more people who can recognize the name of Manu Ginobili more than they can recognize any of these other names.  This place is Argentina.
3. I wrote a short story when I was 8.  It was about chocolate and madness.  It was huge success among family members.  Unfortunately, it followed the same destiny as the Colossus of Rhodes and the Statue of Zeus at Olympia (although of slightly smaller artistic value).  
4. I was passionate about insects and spiders as a child.  I used to say I’d be an entomologist when I grew up until I actually met one and realized the life this person lived.  At about 13 years of age I decided I would be better off focusing my energy on my other passion, which would later become my professional career (software).
5. I migrated to the US in 2002.  This was mostly due to the economic crisis that hit Argentina on December 2001.  I was working then at Peoplesoft Argentina when our VP of development paid us a visit and said our team would be disbanded so we should better start looking for other opportunities.  I received an offer to transfer to Peoplesoft Inc and move to the US.  I had tremendous doubts about moving to another country, especially one on the other side of the planet.  The offer was coming from who would become one of the best managers I’ve had, a frequent blogger on this website who I will always be thankful to.  I finally decided to go with it so I married my lifelong girlfriend, jumped on a plane and started a new life.
6. Moving to the US was challenging in pretty much every aspect.  From the obvious missing family and friends to having to learn how to do a large number of things again.  The hardest aspect was language (despite years of formal education in the English language).  Communication had always been one of my strongest skills (in Spanish of course) and all of a sudden I was crippled.  And consequently I kept quiet for a long time.  Despite positive reinforcement from my manager, it took me several years to partially overcome my self imposed limitation.  360 feedback helped me enormously.
7. My life changed again when my first son was born in 2005.  I had heard  many times that children change your life.  Now I think it is more accurate to say that they actually take it away from you.  And still you can’t figure out how you could possibly have lived this long without them.  My second son arrived 16 months later.  Yes, our hands are quite full and my wife and I constantly remind each other about how very lucky we are.
8. Among other things, I am a carnivore (why can there be vegetarians and vegans but not carnivores?), I use lots of sugar on my coffee (and I probably drink too much of it),  I have a serious spatial orientation disability (which conflicts with the fact that I am a pilot).  I love football (although I had to learn to call it soccer) and I am looking forward to South Africa 2010.  And here it is, a bit more than 8 things about me.