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Synthèse

Buidling grit

What determines how much you accomplish: your talent, intelligence, education, or how much passion and perseverance you have to achieve your goals? All of these factors play a role in what you achieve in work and life, but, according to Angela Duckworth’s research, the latter – or a quality that she terms “grit” – plays the greatest role of all.

We all want to commit to something, to achieve something that is expressed both through the action itself and over time. But often we come up against a self-built wall: we don’t have an idea, we don’t have the means, we don’t have the time, and, right now, we have low visibility. Duckworth counters all that with a very simple conviction: effort counts for twice as much as talent. And the level of effort you put into a task depends on what she describes as grit, “having the passion to accomplish a particular top-level goal and the perseverance to follow through.” 

If Duckworth’s psychology of success arguably at points lacks nuance, she still provides a compelling argument against our well-documented, though unconscious, and seemingly irrational human preference for natural talent over effort. In other words, she provides an inspiring, practical reminder that: “Our potential is one thing. What we do with it is quite another.” 

Based on
Parmi tous les facteurs qui vous permettent d’avancer même dans le brouillard, de vous engager même sans rien y voir, quels sont ceux qui ont le plus d’importance : le talent, l’intelligence, l’éducation, la passion ou la persévérance ? Tous sont facteurs clés de succès, mais, selon Angela Duckworth, les deux derniers – qui constituent ce qu’elle appelle la niaque – sont majeurs.

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth (Scribner, may 2016). 

Biography

Angela Duckworth


Angela Duckworth is a 2013 MacArthur Fellow and professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She has advised the White House, the World Bank, NBA and NFL teams, and Fortune 500 CEOs. Prior to her career in research, she was a math and science teacher. She holds a BA in neurobiology from Harvard, an MSc in neuroscience from Oxford, and a PhD in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.

La détermination, pilier fondateur de l’engagement 

According to Duckworth, the world’s most extraordinarily high-achieving individuals all share a trait that she calls grit, or the “passion and perseverance” to strive relentlessly day in and day out, often in the face of great difficulty and failure, to achieve a goal. “In sum, no matter the domain, the highly successful had a kind of ferocious determination that played out in two ways. First, these exemplars were unusually resilient and hardworking. Second, they knew in a very, very deep way what they wanted. They not only had determination, they had direction. It was this combination of passion and perseverance that made high achievers special. In a word, they had grit.” 

So what does this mean for you? Start from the idea that grit is a character trait like any other, that it can be nurtured and developed as long as you understand its four key elements: interest, practice, purpose, and hope. 

#1 Interest: identify what excites you and foster a passion 

What motivates you to get up in the morning isn’t always clear, and it can change over time. “When I first started interviewing grit paragons, I assumed they’d all have stories about the singular moment when, suddenly, they’d discovered their God-given passions,” writes Duckworth.   

In fact, however, she found that “grit paragons” rarely came by their passions in a mysterious, passive way. On the contrary, they all describe working actively and intensely for years to identify and develop them, by, for example, finding mentors.  

What’s more, they often had to try out multiple different interests before finding the one that ended up becoming their passion. As she explains, “(Most highly successful people) spent years exploring several different interests, and the one that eventually came to occupy all of their waking (and some sleeping) thoughts wasn’t recognizably their life’s destiny on first acquaintance.” So there’s no point waiting for passion to hit you over the head. You may be better off trying out several things that might interest you. 

#2 Practice: go all out  

“After you’ve discovered and developed interest in a particular area,” writes Duckworth, “you must devote yourself to the sort of focused, full-hearted, challenge-exceeding-skill practice that leads to mastery. You must zero in on your weaknesses, and you must do so over and over again, for hours a day, week after month after year.” To be gritty is to resist complacency. ‘Whatever it takes, I want to improve’ is a refrain of all paragons of grit, no matter their particular interest, and no matter how excellent they already are.  

This exercise in grit, as defined by Duckworth, is based on four key principles: 

  • Set yourself clearly defined, challenging goals. 
  • Aim for full concentration and sustained effort. 
  • Ask for instant, informative feedback. 
  • Repeat, aiming for perfection. 

#3 Purpose: how do your actions connect to the big picture? 

The conviction that your actions matter nourishes determination, Duckworth writes. For grit to flourish, what you’re doing must not only be personally interesting, but you must also feel that it is impacting on others.  

In support of this argument, she cites the research of her Wharton colleague Adam Grant1: “leaders and employees who keep both personal and pro-social interests in mind do better in the long run than those who are 100% selfishly motivated.” Note that your sense of purpose is linked less to what you do than what motivates you to do what you do: “Whatever you do — whether you’re a janitor or the CEO — you can continually look at what you do and ask how it connects to other people, how it connects to the bigger picture, how it can be an expression of your deepest values.”

#4 Hope: think about your own growth 

“Hope defines every stage (of building grit),” writes Duckworth. “From the very beginning to the very end, it is inestimably important to learn to keep going even when things are difficult, even when you have doubts.” The ability to stay positive despite any difficulties (even during a period of transformation such as the current health crisis) seems largely determined by whether or not you have a fixed or growth mindset: “In every sample,” she writes, “I’ve found that a growth mindset and grit go together.” If you think you could learn and grow — but a ton of hurdles are standing in your way, then you have a fixed mindset. Conversely, if you think it is possible “to get smarter if you’re given the right opportunities and support and if you try hard enough,” then you have a growth mindset. 

#5 Infusion: building a culture of grit 

Our passion and perseverance do not spring from a cold, calculating analysis of the costs and benefits of alternatives. Rather, the source of our strength is the person we know ourselves to be. Your minute-to-minute decisions to work hard to achieve your goals probably aren’t entirely rational or conscious, but rather are determined by your ingrained values and norms. That is why, above and beyond your own personality, your cultural environment will have a bearing on your grit. “If you want to be grittier, find a gritty culture and join it. If you’re a leader and you want the people in your organization to be grittier, create a gritty culture.” 

#6 Diffusion: communicating grit 

Like trust, happiness, or sadness, grit is contagious. “For me, language is everything,” says famed soccer coach Anson Dorrance, who notes at the same time that carefully articulated values can be all too easily ignored in the daily actions of a team. 

What’s his solution for avoiding banal platitudes and instead ensuring core values have a real impact? He insists that team members memorize and interpret those values. He even wrote a memo about this requirement, explaining: “Each year, you must remember three different literary quotes, each handpicked to communicate a different core value. You will be tested in front of the team in pre-season, and then tested again in every player conference. Not only do you have to memorize them, but you have to understand them. So reflect on them well.”  

The team’s first core value is: We don’t whine. And the corresponding quotation that Dorrance’s team members must memorize and interpret to ensure they process that value is by George Bernard Shaw: “The true joy in life is to be a force of fortune instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.” 

Duckworth’s “theory of grit” has spread rapidly across corporations and locker rooms.2 And yet, it’s not entirely new, as she herself points out repeatedly in her book. For example, in 1994, Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, named his nascent company after the longest river in the world. A lesser known fact is that, in testament to his gritty work ethic, he also at that time registered the URL www.relentless.com, which to this day still takes you to Amazon’s website. 

Naturalness bias: “we love naturals” 

“The ‘naturalness bias’ is a hidden prejudice against those who’ve achieved what they have because they worked for it, and a hidden preference for those who we think arrived at their place in life because they’re naturally talented,” explains Duckworth. A 2015 American study3 on “naturalness bias” found that when asked directly, “If you were hiring a new employee, which of the following qualities would you think is most important,” Americans endorse “being hardworking” almost five times as often as they endorse intelligence. But when researchers probed attitudes more indirectly, they found that “in direct contradiction to their stated beliefs about the importance of effort versus talent,” respondents consistently deemed “(natural talents) to be more likely to succeed and more hirable” than “(strivers), or those with early evidence of high motivation and perseverance.” 

1 “The art of giving: a surprising new success factor”, (Business Digest n°239, (September 2013). 
2 “Is ‘Grit’ Really the Key to Success?” by Daniel Engber (Slate, May 2016). 
3 “Privileging Naturals Over Strivers: The Costs of the Naturalness Bias”, by Chia-Jung Tsa (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2015). 

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Françoise Tollet
Published by Françoise Tollet
She spent 12 years in industry, working for Bolloré Technologies, among others. She co-founded Business Digest in 1992 and has been running the company since 1998. And she took the Internet plunge in 1996, even before coming on board as part of the BD team.