Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things

by Adam M. Grant

Experts often have an intuitive understanding of a route, but they struggle to articulate all the steps to take. Their brain dump is partially filled with garbage.

Getting discouraged is a common obstacle after turning around. That’s because going backward doesn’t always lead directly to a new peak. Sometimes you end up stuck, and it’s not because you’re on the wrong path. It’s because your path is taking you in long circles toward the top, and you can’t even tell that you’re gaining ground. You’re not seeing enough progress to maintain your motivation.

Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness.

Of all the factors that have been studied, the strongest known force in daily motivation is a sense of progress. You can’t always find motivation by staring harder at the thing that isn’t working. Sometimes you can build momentum by taking a detour to a new destination.

Chapter 6 Defying Gravity The Art of Flying by Our Bootstraps

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When we’re facing a daunting task, we need both competence and confidence. Our ability to elevate our skills and our expectations depends first on how we interpret the obstacles in front of us.

students realized that the strongest bootstraps weren’t the ones they created alone, but the ones they built together.

Teaching is a surprisingly powerful method of learning. In a meta-analysis of 16 studies, students who were randomly assigned to tutor their peers ended up earning higher scores in the material they were teaching. Students who taught reading improved in reading; those who taught math got dramatically better at math. The more time they spent tutoring, the more they learned.

The expectations people hold of us often become self-fulfilling prophecies. When others believe in our potential, they give us a ladder. They elevate our aspirations and enable us to reach higher peaks.

PART III Systems of Opportunity Opening Doors and Windows

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Team and organizational systems can recognize that good ideas don’t flow only from the top down—and fill silence with voices from the bottom up.

Instead of only looking for geniuses where we expect to find them, we can reach humanity’s greatest potential by cultivating the genius in everyone.

Chapter 7 Every Child Gets Ahead Designing Schools to Bring Out the Best in Students

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In Finnish schools, a popular mantra is “We can’t afford to waste a brain.” This ethos makes their educational culture distinct. They know that the key to nurturing hidden potential is not to invest in students who show early signs of high ability. It’s to invest in every student regardless of apparent ability.

In organizational psychology, culture has three elements: practices, values, and underlying assumptions. Practices are the daily routines that reflect and reinforce values. Values are shared principles around what’s important and desirable—what should be rewarded versus what should be punished. Underlying assumptions are deeply held, often taken-for-granted beliefs about how the world works. Our assumptions shape our values, which in turn drive our practices.

Students who made significant progress didn’t have better teachers. They just happened to have the same teacher for two years in a row. The practice is called looping. Instead of staying in the same grade and teaching new students each year, teachers move up a grade with their students.

Research reveals that when students get to pick their own books and read in class, they become more passionate about reading. It’s a virtuous cycle: the more they read for fun, the better they get and the more they like it. And the more they like it, the more they learn—and the better they perform on exams. A teacher’s task is not to ensure that students have read the literary canons. It’s to kindle excitement about reading.

Chapter 8 Mining for Gold Unearthing Collective Intelligence in Teams

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In a meta-analysis of 22 studies, Anita and her colleagues discovered that collective intelligence depends less on people’s cognitive skills than their prosocial skills. The best teams have the most team players—people who excel at collaborating with others.

When they have prosocial skills, team members are able to bring out the best in one another. Collective intelligence rises as team members recognize one another’s strengths, develop strategies for leveraging them, and motivate one another to align their efforts in pursuit of a shared purpose. Unleashing hidden potential is about more than having the best pieces—it’s about having the best glue.

Collective intelligence is best served by a different kind of leader. The people to promote are the ones with the prosocial skills to put the mission above their ego—and team cohesion above personal glory. They know that the goal isn’t to be the smartest person in the room; it’s to make the entire room smarter.

To unearth the hidden potential in teams, instead of brainstorming, we’re better off shifting to a process called brainwriting.

Collective intelligence begins with individual creativity. But it doesn’t end there. Individuals produce a greater volume and variety of novel ideas when they work alone. That means that they come up with more brilliant ideas than groups—but also more terrible ideas than groups. It takes collective judgment to find the signal in the noise.

A powerful alternative to a corporate ladder is a lattice. A physical lattice is a crisscrossing structure that looks like a checkerboard. In organizations, a lattice is an organizational chart with channels across levels and between teams. Rather than one path of reporting and responsibility from you to the people above you in the hierarchy, a lattice offers multiple paths to the top.

Weak leaders silence voice and shoot the messenger. Strong leaders welcome voice and thank the messenger. Great leaders build systems to amplify voice and elevate the messenger.

If we listen only to the smartest person in the room, we miss out on discovering the smarts that the rest of the room has to offer. Our greatest potential isn’t always hidden inside us—sometimes it sparks between us, and sometimes it comes from outside our team altogether.

Chapter 9 Diamonds in the Rough Discovering Uncut Gems in Job Interviews and College Admissions

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It’s a mistake to judge people solely by the heights they’ve reached. By favoring applicants who have already excelled, selection systems underestimate and overlook candidates who are capable of greater things.

Epilogue Going the Distance

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If you’re going to write a book, start with your own ideas! Have you forgotten what you taught us? The worst kind of success is achieving other people’s goals. Don’t live someone else’s dream.

Success is more than reaching our goals—it’s living our values. There’s no higher value than aspiring to be better tomorrow than we are today. There’s no greater accomplishment than unleashing our hidden potential.