The Trouble With Bright Kids

It’s not easy to live up to your fullest potential.  There are so many obstacles that can get in the way:  bosses that don’t appreciate what you have to offer, tedious projects that take up too much of your time, economies where job opportunities are scarce, the difficulty of juggling career, family, and personal goals.  But smart, talented people rarely realize that one of the toughest hurdles they’ll have to overcome to be as successful as they might be lies within.   

People with above-average aptitudes – the ones we recognize as being especially clever, creative, insightful, or otherwise accomplished – often judge their abilities not only more harshly, but fundamentally differently, than others do (particularly in Western cultures).   Gifted children grow up to be more vulnerable, and less confident, even when they should be the most confident people in the room. Understanding why this happens is the first step to righting a tragic wrong.  And to do that, we need to take a step back in time.

Chances are good that if you are a successful professional today, you were a pretty bright fifth-grader.  You did well in several subjects (maybe every subject), and were frequently praised by your teachers and parents when you excelled.

When I was a graduate student at Columbia, my mentor Carol Dweck and another student, Claudia Mueller, conducted a study looking at the effects of different kinds of praise on fifth-graders.   Every student got a relatively easy first set of problems to solve and were praised for their performance.  Half of them were given praise that emphasized their high ability (“You did really well.  You must be really smart!”).  The other half were praised instead for their strong effort (“You did really well.  You must have worked really hard!”).

Next, each student was given a very difficult set of problems – so difficult, in fact, that few students got even one answer correct.     All were told that this time they had “done a lot worse.”  Finally, each student was given a third set of easy problems – as easy as the first set had been – in order to see how having a failure experience would affect their performance.

Dweck and Mueller found that children who were praised for their “smartness” did roughly 25% worse on the final set of problems compared to the first.  They were more likely to blame their poor performance on the difficult problems to a lack of ability, and consequently they enjoyed working on the problems less and gave up on them sooner.

Children praised for the effort, on the other hand, performed roughly 25% betteron the final set of problems compared to the first.   They blamed their difficulty on not having tried hard enough, persisted longer on the final set of problems, and enjoyed the experience more.

It’s important to remember that in Dweck and Mueller’s study, there were no mean differences in ability between the kids in the “smart” praise and “effort” praise groups, nor in past history of success – everyone did well on the first set, and everyone had difficulty on the second set.   The only difference was how the two groups interpreted difficulty – what it meant to them when the problems were hard to solve.  “Smart” praise kids were much quicker to doubt their ability, to lose confidence, and to become less effective performers as a result.

The kind of feedback we get from parents and teachers as young children has a major impact on the implicit beliefs we develop about our abilities – including whether we see them as innate and unchangeable, or as capable of developing through effort and practice.  When we do well in school and are told that we are “so smart,” “so clever, “ or “ such a good student,”  this kind of praise implies that traits like smartness, cleverness, and goodness are qualities you either have or you don’t. The net result: when learning something new is truly difficult, smart-praise kids take it as sign that they aren’t “good” and “smart,” rather than as a sign to pay attention and try harder.

[Incidentally, this is particularly true for women.   As young girls, they learn to self-regulate (i.e., sit still and pay attention) more quickly than boys.  Consequently they are more likely to be praised for “being good,” and more likely to infer that “goodness” and “smartness” are innate qualities.  In a studyDweck conducted in the 1980’s, for instance, she found that bright girls, when given something to learn that was particularly foreign or complex, were quick to give up compared to bright boys – and the higher the girls’ IQ, the more likely they were to throw in the towel.  In fact, the straight-A girls showed the most helpless responses. ]

We continue to carry these beliefs, often unconsciously, around with us throughout our lives.  And because bright kids are particularly likely to see their abilities as innate and unchangeable, they grow up to be adults who are far too hard on themselves – adults who will prematurely conclude that they don’t have what it takes to succeed in a particular arena, and give up way too soon. 

Even if every external disadvantage to an individual’s rising to the top of an organization is removed – every inequality of opportunity, every unfair stereotype, all the challenges we face balancing work and family - we would still have to deal with the fact that through our mistaken beliefs about our abilities, we may be our own worst enemy.

How often have you found yourself avoiding challenges and playing it safe, sticking to goals you knew would be easy for you to reach?  Are there things you decided long ago that you could never be good at?  Skills you believed you would never possess?  If the list is a long one, you were probably one of the bright kids  – and your belief that you are “stuck” being exactly as you are has done more to determine the course of your life than you probably ever imagined.  Which would be fine, if your abilities were innate and unchangeable.  Only they’re not.

No matter the ability - whether it’s intelligence, creativity, self-control, charm, or athleticism - studies show them to be profoundly malleable.  When it comes to mastering any skill, your experience, effort, and persistence matter a lot.    So if you were a bright kid, it’s time to toss out your (mistaken) belief about how ability works, embrace the fact that you can always improve, and reclaim the confidence to tackle any challenge that you lost so long ago.

Can You Be Damned By Strong Praise? Understanding Innuendo

We all know how easy it is to damn someone with faint praise.  When you describe a coworker as “not completely useless,” or a potential blind date as “decent enough looking, I guess,” other people understand immediately what you are really saying.  Faint praise is generally used intentionally, to send a message.  And that message is:  steer clear of that one.

Why don’t we just come out and say what we really mean?  The short answer is that  there is an awful lot of social pressure to avoid directly criticizing other people.  Studies show that people who “bad mouth” others are viewed very negatively.  (Gossipers very much included – lots of people like to hear gossip, but they rarely like the person delivering it.) 

As the saying goes, “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say it at all.”  Faint praise is a great way to get around that particular problem – you get to technically say something nice, knowing that you are really saying something very different.

But what if you say something that isn’t just technically nice, but is actually nice – something genuinely positive?  New research by psychologists Nicolas Kervyn, Hilary Bergsieker, and Susan Fiske suggests that you can still inadvertently send a negative message, even when you say only unambiguously positive things – a kind of “accidental” innuendo.  The reason has everything to do with context.

When you are describing someone, people (largely unconsciously) expect you to mention aspects of personality or character that are relevant to the situation you are in.  In other words, if you are describing Bob to a potential employer, she will expect you to talk about Bob’s competence – is he hard-working, reliable, innovative?  If, on the other hand, you want to bring Bob along to a party and you are describing him to the hostess, she will expect you to talk about Bob’s warmth – is he engaging, funny, easy to get along with?

When you violate those expectations – when you focus on Bob’s warmth in the context of work, or praise his competence in a more social setting, new studies show that people draw very negative conclusions (even though, technically, you had only good things to say).  They assume that since you aren’t addressing what you should be addressing, you must be doing it intentionally.  What you aren’t saying leaves the biggest impact.

For instance, in one study, “Pat” was described as either “nice, outgoing, and sociable,” or “smart, hard-working, and competent”  Participants were asked to evaluate Pat as either a potential employee or as a fourth member of their travel party across Europe. When Nice Pat was judged in the context of travel-buddy, the overall impression was highly positive.  But when Nice Pat was judged in the context of work, he/she was rated very negatively.  Participants assumed that since no one mentioned Pat’s most relevant attribute – competence – that Pat must be a very nice doofus.

The key to avoiding unintentional innuendo is to really think about context when you are weighing in on someone’s good and bad qualities.  You might think that your friend’s best quality is his terrific sense of humor, but if that’s what you focus on when speaking to a potential employer, you may cost your friend a job.  Take the perspective of the person you are speaking to – what do they want to know about Bob?   Focus on the most relevant attributes, and you are more likely to leave the impression you actually intended.

Check out my new HBR eSingle Nine Things Successful People Do Differently (an expanded version of HBR's all-time most viewed blog post)  (only $3.19 on Amazon!)

My New HBR eSingle "9 Things" Is Available Now!

HBR Singles is a new line of e-books created by Harvard Business Publishing, and I am so thrilled to have authored their very first Single!

It's based on my HBR blog post, Nine Things Successful People Do Differently, which remains their most-viewed blog post of all time (over 1.5 million views and counting.)  The eSingle offers much more detail about each of the nine "things," including simple, easy-to-implement instructions for putting it all into practice.  It's available for download today (Nov 1st) for $3.19 over at Amazon.

Forget Willpower! Stop Mindless Eating (And Other Bad Habits) Through Disruption

Do you snack every night in front of the television?  Do you drink a little too much when you are out with your friends?  Do you ever find that you’ve smoked a whole pack of cigarettes, bitten off half your nails, or eaten an entire bag of Doritos without realizing you were doing it?

That’s the real problem when it comes to ridding yourself of bad habits – back in the beginning, when the behavior was new, it was something you did intentionally and probably consciously. But do anything enough times, and it becomes relatively automatic. In other words, you don’t even need to know that you are doing it. 

In fact, as new research shows, you don’t even need to want to do it. If you develop the habit of snacking in front of your TV at night, how hungry you are or how tasty the snack is will no longer determine whether or how much you eat. 

Many bad habits operate mindlessly, on autopilot.  They are triggered by the context (e.g., watching TV, socializing, feeling stressed), rather than by any particular desire to engage in the behavior. So the key to stopping a bad habit isn’t making a resolution – it’s figuring our how to turn off the autopilot.  It’s learning to disrupt the behavior, preferably before it starts.

Take for example a recent study of movie theater popcorn-eating.  Researchers invited a group of people to watch fifteen minutes of movie previews while seated in a real movie theater.  They gave the participants free bags of popcorn, and varied whether the popcorn was fresh or stale. (The stale popcorn was actually a week old. Yuck.)  Then they measured how much popcorn each person ate.

Not surprisingly, everyone who got the stale popcorn reported liking it less than those who got fresh.  And people with a weak popcorn habit (i.e., those who didn’t usually eat popcorn at the movies) ate significantly more fresh popcorn than stale.  But here’s the kicker – for people with a strong popcorn habit (i.e., those who always ordered popcorn at the movies) it didn’t matter how stale the popcorn was!  They ate the same amount, whether it was an hour old, or seven days old.

That’s worth thinking about for a moment – people with a strong habit were eating terrible popcorn, not because they didn’t notice it was terrible, but because it didn’t matter.  The behavior was automatic, not intentional.  So if tasting like Styrofoam won’t keep you from eating something, what will?

The researchers found that there were, in fact, two effective ways to disrupt the automatic popcorn-eating.

First, you can disrupt the habit by changing the context.  When they conducted the same study in the context of a conference room, rather than a movie theater, people with strong popcorn habits at the movie theater stopped eating the stale popcorn.  The automatic popcorn-eating behavior wasn’t activated, because the situational cues were changed.

If you have a habit you’d like to break, spend some time thinking about the situations in which it most often occurs.  If you snack in front of the TV at night, consider doing something else in the evenings for a while – reading a good book, spending time with friends or family, even surfing the web.  Any alternative activity is less likely to trigger mindless eating.   If you just can’t give up your favorite shows, you might try rearranging the room, or sitting in a different chair – anything that alters the context can help.

Second, you can disrupt a habit by changing the method of performance.  In another study, the researchers found that asking strong-habit popcorn eaters who were in a movie theater to eat with their non-dominant hand stopped them from eating the stale popcorn, too. 

So if you can’t change the situation, you can change the way the habit gets executed.  If you mindlessly eat or smoke with your right hand, try only using your left.  If you mindlessly drink from the glass that the bartender keeps refilling, try sitting at a table instead of the bar so you’ll have to consciously get up and ask for a refill.  Making the behavior a little more difficult or awkward to perform can be a great way to throw a wrench in the works.

Too often, we blame our failures on the wrong things.  When it comes to ridding ourselves of bad habits, we usually chalk our difficulties up to a lack of commitment, or willpower.  But as I’ve argued in my new book Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals, conquering your behavioral demons needs to start with understanding how they really work, and applying the most effective strategy.   In this case, success comes from not making it quite so easy for your autopilot to run the show.

My One Piece Of Paper

Inspired by Mike Figliuolo’s new book One Piece Of Paper – which challenges leaders to distill their philosophies to a single sheet, making it easy for them to live and others to follow – I’ve completed Mike’s worksheet for “Leading Yourself.”  See my answers below.  What are your leadership maxims?

Leading Yourself  (Heidi Grant Halvorson’s Leadership Maxims)

Why do you get out of bed every day?

My maxim is:  Don’t visualize success.  Visualize the steps you will take to succeed.

I wish I could make the universe deliver wonderful things to my doorstep just by imagining them.  I can’t – and neither can you, no matter what anyone tells you.   There is not a single piece of hard evidence that “visualizing success,” and doing nothing else, will do a damn thing for you.  In fact, you are less likely to achieve your goals when all you do is imagine yourself achieving them. People who think not only about their dreams, but about the obstacles that lie their way  - who visualize the steps they will take to make success happen – are able to stay motivated despite setbacks, dig deep, and turn their dreams into reality.  You have what it takes to succeed - stop waiting for it to happen to you, and make it happen for you.

What guidelines do you live by?

My maxim is:  I love it when a plan comes together.

The A-Team’s Colonel “Hannibal” had it right – it’s all about having the right plan.  If-then planning, in particular, is a really powerful way to help you achieve any goal.  Well over 100 studies, on everything from diet and exercise to negotiation and time management, have shown that deciding in advance when and where you will take specific actions to reach your goal (e.g., “If it is 4pm, then I will return any phone calls I should return today”) can double or triple your chances for success.   

When you fall down, how do you pick yourself back up?

My maxim is:  It’s not about being good.  It’s about getting better.

Most people assume success has a lot to do with intelligence, but that’s surprisingly wrong.  No matter how high your IQ is, it says nothing about how you will deal with difficulty when it happens - whether you will be persistent and determined, or feel overwhelmed and helpless. What matters is whether your goals are about being good or getting better.  Where being good is about proving how smart, talented, and capable you already are, getting better is about developing those skills and abilities – about getting even smarter.  Studies show that people focused on getting better  - who see a less-than-perfect grade on a math test or awkwardly-given presentation as a sign to try harder next time, rather than as evidence of “not being good at math” or “not being a good public speaker,” find their work more interesting, and are less prone to anxiety and depression than their be-good colleagues. They are more motivated, persist longer when the going gets tough, and are much more likely to ultimately reach their goals.

How do you hold yourself accountable?

My maxim is:  Focus on the finish line.

Imagine you’re running a marathon, and you see the Mile 10 marker.  Is it more motivating to think about how far you’ve come (10 miles), or how far you have left to go (16.2 miles)?  The answer, which will seem a bit counter-intuitive to some, is that you should focus on the miles to-go.  Too much to-date thinking, focusing on what you’ve accomplished so far, will actually undermine your motivation to finish rather than sustain it.   Studies show that to-date thinking can lead to a premature sense of accomplishment, which makes us more likely to slack off.  We’re also more likely to try to achieve a sense of “balance” by making progress on other important goals.   We end up with lots of pots on the stove, but nothing is ever ready to eat. If, instead, we focus on how far we have left to go (to-go thinking), motivation is not only sustained, it’s heightened.   So don’t make the mistake of settling for a job only half done – always keep your eyes on the prize.

Two Versions Of The Perfect Leader Go Head-To-Head. Who Wins?

With all the talk of presidential candidacy in the air, it seems like a good time to revisit an enduring question – what kind of leader do people want?  Moreover, what kind of leader should I be if I want to rise to the top?  Research suggests two different and somewhat contradictory answers.

According to one theory, people want a leader who is “one of us.”  In other words, they want someone representative of the group or organization to which they belong.  Representative leaders draw their power from successfully conveying the sense that they will protect the group’s core values.  (This turns out to be particularly desirable in “us vs. them” situations, when one group is competing against or is threatened by another.)  They inspire liking, loyalty, and a sense of connectedness.  These are the leaders you “want to drink a beer with.”

Many argue, however, that what people really want is someone exceptional, rather than representative.  They want a bold, charismatic visionary who wants to take the group in a new direction.  Visionary leaders don’t blend in - they stand out.  They are risk-takers and innovators.  They have strongly-held views on what the group should be doing differently.  They offer “change you can believe in,” and can be very inspiring.  

So, which kind of leader rises to the top?  Do people want a leader who focuses on who they are, or who they could be?  Psychologists Nir Halevy, Yair Berson, and Adam Galinsky set out to find the answer in a series of new studies, pitting one style of leadership against the other to see which style is generally preferred, and why.

They found, across five studies, that people overwhelmingly prefer visionary leaders – particularly when there is a crisis creating high levels of stress, like a natural disaster, a recession, or looming takeover. 

Visionary leaders attracted more followers, made people feel more strongly identified with the group, and inspired more collective action.  They also helped group members channel their negative emotions more effectively, and enabled them to find their work more interesting and enjoyable.

For instance, in one study, participants were able to choose from two potential leaders to handle a crisis situation.  Those who chose the visionary (but not representative) leader reported an immediate decrease in feelings of fear and helplessness, while those who chose the representative (but not visionary) leader did not – in fact, they felt even worse after making their choice. 

In another study, participants were asked to imagine that much of their town had just been destroyed by a fire, and were then given one of two statements from the town Mayor. The statement from the representative Mayor talked about being a “proud member of the community,” and stressed the importance of demonstrating “who we are and what we stand for.”  The visionary Mayor wrote that he was “filled with hope for the future, “ and assured the townspeople that “I know where we are headed and I know that we will get there.”  

The researchers then asked participants how many hours (from 0-15) per week they thought they would volunteer in response to the Mayor’s call to action. Visionary mayors inspired nearly two more hours per week on average than representative mayors.

In their final study, MBA students with a minimum of three years work experience reflected on the last business unit leader they worked under.  Those who described that leader as visionary indicated that they were more effective, inspiring, and able to effect change than those who had a representative boss.

So “who we can be” trumps “who we are” when it comes to inspiring action.  Particularly in a time of crisis, people want visionary leaders who will offer up novel solutions.  Of course, as the researchers point out in the conclusion of their paper, we don’t necessarily have to choose one form of leadership over the other.  The most effective leader may well be the one who combines aspects of both, by being representative of who the group is now, but visionary with respect to the future – in other words, someone who is one of us, but believes we can become much more.

Guest Post: The 3 New “R’s” of Back-To-School Success

I'm so thrilled to bring my readers this guest post from Amy McCready, founder of Positive Parenting Solutions and author of If I Have to Tell You One More Time…The Revolutionary Program That Gets Your Kids to Listen Without Nagging, Reminding or Yelling.  Amy's advice is always practical, effective, and grounded in compelling research.  

The 3 New “R’s” of Back-To-School Success

Now that school’s back in session, kids are busy learning the fundamentals of “reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmatic.” But when will they learn to grab a raincoat on the way out the door, or to remember their library books, or to tell you they need a ride to soccer practice more than 15 minutes before it starts?

If these common conundrums have you dreading the school year even more than your third-grader dreads spelling tests, it’s time to learn the 3 “R’s” of school-year success: Routine, Responsibility and Ritual.

Routine

Getting the kids out the door every morning seems so simple—but clearly, it’s not. From dragging them out of bed to pushing them out the door, parents face battle after battle. Does it have to be this way?

Not when you set up a When-Then Routine. This type of routine structures your kids’ mornings so that the “yucky stuff” is out of the way before the “good stuff” happens. You can tell your kid, “When you’re dressed, your hair is combed, your bed is made and your backpack is ready, then you are welcome to have breakfast (or TV time, or playtime, etc.). But remember, the kitchen closes at 7:15 so we can get out the door on time.” No nagging required.

Yes, you may face the tough job of sending Max off to school without his usual bowl of cereal, but you can rest assured he’ll survive until lunchtime—and it’ll only happen once.

A When-Then Routine works because it gives your kids the power to manage their morning on their own terms, but within your limits—which makes for a happier, more peaceful home.

Responsibility

A big part of making your When-Then Routine successful is to hold your kids responsible for managing their own routine—make it their job, not yours, to get through it in time. This empowers children to be more independent and develop self-motivation, all while keeping you from being the “bad guy.”

Make sure you reinforce responsibility by implementing a “no rescue” policy. If your kids are constantly forgetting their music for piano lessons, for instance, warn them in advance: “You’re old enough now to take responsibility for your own music, without me reminding you or driving it to you if you forget.” Then, to help them get off on the right foot, you can say, “What ideas do you have to help you remember on your own?” Anything from a special cubby for school items and sports equipment to a checklist by the door might do the trick, and put the power in your child’s hands.

Ritual

Doesn’t it seem that as the school year gets into full swing, schedules get out of control? How’s a family to keep track of all the band rehearsals, math tests and carpools, let alone connect and actually have fun together?

A weekly Family Meeting can help you do all of the above, and also address other important topics your family faces—such as how to keep Lego blocks out of the garbage disposal, and the best way to potty train a new puppy. Once you initiate Family Meetings, they’ll become a welcome ritual for parents and kids, and will add a little structure to a hectic week.

Family Meeting rituals also help your kids learn important skills like communication, cooperation and respect, while the other “R’s,” Routine and Responsibility, will train your kids in managing their own lives, and how to hold themselves accountable for their own success. You’ll find that your kids will take these skills with them to school and beyond, long after the last carpool has been driven. 

Help Yourself and Help a Military Family

When you purchase your copy of If I Have to Tell You One More Time…  you can Pay It Forward to a deserving military family. For each book sold, Amy McCready, in partnership with Blue Star Families, will donate Positive Parenting Solutions Online training to military moms and dads who sacrifice every day to protect our country.  Learn more about Pay It Forward Parenting and how your book purchase makes a difference!