Wednesday, February 28, 2018

True Grit

"Well, pilgrim, ya just need to persevere & persevere and persevere some more."  John Wayne, sort of.

From time to time I like to delve into the realm of cognitive science, so bear with me here.


I ran across a study by Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews & Kelly published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology titled:

"Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals".
"Grit", of course, is a highly technical term that measures an individual's resolve quotient. (Not really, I made that up.)

Nevertheless, this psychological study attempted to assess how the non-cognitive trait "grit" factors into individual achievement. The authors' definition of grit is a passion for achieving long-term goals that can span years. A marathon, not a sprint. There are well established correlations between intellectual talent and achievement, but that is just part of the story.
The authors developed a "grit scale" which, when used at West Point, turned out to be a better predictor of success for plebes than West Point's homegrown candidate scoring system. The grit scale measures an individual's ability to focus & persevere.  The researchers found that a significant indicator of how successful you will be is how you handle setbacks and failures. Do you learn from your failures, get off the deck and dive back into the fray? This may seem obvious, but continuing to continue through trials and criticism is fundamental to becoming the best you can be and takes an enormous strength of character. (see Olympic athletes like Lindsey Vonn for example.)
A side lesson from these conclusions can be a guide when building teams to accomplish specific goals. Make sure you don't have all blue-sky idea people. Include some nose-to-the-grindstone folks as well, those who can get you from inspiration to execution. And character is important because when most projects complete, you must persevere through the final test - the rewarding of the non-participants.

If you dare, you can get your your "grit score" with this University of Pennsylvania survey: https://sasupenn.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_06f6QSOS2pZW9qR
(I'll tell you my score if you tell me yours)
I'm kind of tired of this topic now, so you should probably go read the research paper.

Copyright © 2018 Dave Hoplin

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting this. I feel like a better human being knowing that I'm gritty. Actually, I kinda knew that already, but it is good to see value being placed on that quality.

    I don't see myself as one the smartest ones. Educational testing usually terrifies me, and I've always been left with the feeling tests work against the process of education. Learning to the test does not seem like good learning, whereas working through problems is something that gives me joy.

    Perhaps that's why I feel comfortable with forgiving processes like iterative development processes. I just need to get a few more things right on each iteration. I'll iterate until the product is right enough/sufficiently congruent with customer requirements.

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  2. P.S. Being gritty is not always a good quality. Sometimes a project should be killed, as you well know. Killing a project takes courage, though, so maybe that is a display of grit.

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