Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things

by Adam M. Grant

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.

receiver. Receiving is passive—if you’re always the one being coached, it puts you in the position of depending on others for guidance. Giving is active—coaching others reminds you that you have something to offer. It convinces you that your bootstraps are strong enough to support you. You’ve already seen them support others.

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. Dozens of experiments show that at work, when leaders hold high expectations, employees generally work harder, learn more, and perform better. In schools, when teachers set high expectations, students get smarter and earn higher grades—especially if they start out with disadvantages.

Being doubted by novices is a challenge. It fires you up. They’re clueless, so you don’t internalize their low expectations—but you don’t ignore them either. You become driven to defy them. I’ll show you. The doubts that threaten to crush your confidence can become crucibles that fortify it. You feel like an underdog who can beat the odds.[*]

It’s more important to be good ancestors than dutiful descendants. Too many people spend their lives being custodians of the past instead of stewards of the future. We worry about making our parents proud when we should be focused on making our children proud. The responsibility of each generation is not to please our predecessors—it’s to improve conditions for our successors.

Importante

It’s possible to confront obstacles alone. Yet we reach the greatest heights when we attach our bootstraps to other people’s boots. If multiple credible supporters believe in us, it’s probably time to believe them. If ignorant naysayers don’t believe in us, it might be time to prove them wrong. And when our faith falters, it’s worth remembering what we’re fighting for.

Importante

Every Child Gets Ahead Designing Schools to Bring Out the Best in Students Just as Michelangelo thought there was an angel locked inside every piece of marble, I think there is a brilliant child locked inside every student. —Marva Collins

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.

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.

Importante

To discover and develop the potential in each of their students, teachers make a fundamental assumption that education should be tailored to individuals.

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.

Finland loves to loop, and I was unprepared for how far they take it. It’s common for Finnish elementary schoolers to have the same teacher for multiple grades—not just two years in a row, but up to six straight years. Instead of just specializing in their subjects, teachers also get to specialize in their students. Their role evolves from instructor to coach and mentor. Along with delivering content, they’re able to help students progress toward their goals and navigate social and emotional challenges.

Alabama and West Virginia have raised high school graduation rates by intervening early to support freshmen whose grades have suffered in the transition from middle school to high school.

That love of learning flourishes in an environment designed for students to discover and develop their individual interests.

In Finnish early education, students spend most of their time in play. Mondays might be dedicated to games and field trips; Fridays may be for songs and activity stations. Tim watched kindergartners go from playing board games in the morning to building dams in the afternoon, and from singing in a circle to doing the activity of their choice. Some chose to make forts; others dove into arts and crafts.

Because Finnish educators assume the most important lesson to teach children is that learning is fun.

refrain among Finnish teachers captures it nicely: “The work of a child is to play.”

Sure enough, dozens of studies have found that deliberate play is more effective than direct instruction in teaching students some cognitive skills as well as character skills like discipline and determination.

A culture of opportunity only succeeds when students are motivated to take advantage of those opportunities.

They told me that although experiential learning programs are a start, there’s another key ingredient for intrinsic motivation. “Reading is the basic skill for all subjects,” Kari explained. “If you don’t have the motivation to read, you can’t study any other subject.” Cultivating the desire to read nourishes individual interests.

Reading is a gateway to opportunity: it opens the door for children to keep learning. But books face increasingly stiff competition from TV, video games, and social media.

Interest is amplified when we have the opportunity to choose what we learn and share it with others. Intrinsic motivation is contagious. When students talk about the books that light up their imaginations, it crystallizes why they love them—and gives others the chance to catch that enthusiasm.

In too many elite education systems, students sacrifice their mental health for excellence.

Their deepest underlying assumption may be that the tradeoff between doing well and being well is a false choice.

Mining for Gold Unearthing Collective Intelligence in Teams Some other eyes will look around, and find the things I’ve never found. —Malvina Reynolds

When we face complex and pressing problems, we know we can’t solve them alone. We assume our most important decision is to assemble the most knowledgeable people. Once we’ve found the right experts, we put our future in their hands.

Maximizing group intelligence is about more than enlisting individual experts—and it involves more than merely bringing people together to solve a problem. Unlocking the hidden potential in groups requires leadership practices, team processes, and systems that harness the capabilities and contributions of all their members. The best teams aren’t the ones with the best thinkers. They’re the teams that unearth and use the best thinking from everyone.

The best teams have the most team players—people who excel at collaborating with others.

Being a team player is not about singing “Kumbaya.” It’s not about getting along all the time and ensuring everyone’s cooperation. It’s about figuring out what the group needs and enlisting everyone’s contribution.

Unleashing hidden potential is about more than having the best pieces—it’s about having the best glue.

What really makes a difference is whether people recognize that they need one another to succeed on an important mission. That’s what enables them to bond around a common identity and stick together to achieve their collective goals.

Leaders play an important role in establishing cohesion. They have the authority to turn independent individuals into an interdependent team. But all too often, when it comes time to decide who takes the helm, we fail to consider the glue factor. 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.

But when people are already determined, we don’t need a leader to bark commands. Research demonstrates that when organizations have cultures that prize results above relationships, if they have a leader who puts people first, they actually achieve greater performance gains. When everyone is scrambling to make a rapid rescue, you want someone in charge who cares about everyone.

Importante

What made for effective leadership depended on how proactive a team was.

With a team of sponges, the best leader is not the person who talks the most, but the one who listens best.

“If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be: ‘meetings.’ ”

To unearth the hidden potential in teams, instead of brainstorming, we’re better off shifting to a process called brainwriting. The initial steps are solo. You start by asking everyone to generate ideas separately. Next, you pool them and share them anonymously among the group. To preserve independent judgment, each member evaluates them on their own. Only then does the team come together to select and refine the most promising options. By developing and assessing ideas individually before choosing and elaborating them, teams can surface and advance possibilities that might not get attention otherwise.

Importante

The brainwriting process makes sure that all ideas are brought to the table and all voices are brought into the conversation. Sure enough, there’s evidence that brainwriting is especially effective in groups that struggle to achieve collective intelligence.

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.

We normally call that a climate for voice and psychological safety. There’s evidence that just being looked at by the leader is enough to encourage people who lack status to speak up. But as I dug into Amy’s research, something caught my eye. The rescue leaders hadn’t just established a climate—they had built an unconventional system for making sure that ideas were carefully considered rather than dismissed. And it’s a system that I’ve seen unlock collective intelligence in all kinds of settings.