The Grit Factor
I’m going to violate all storytelling guidelines and get to the TL:DR point: grit is one of the leading determinants to achieving success, and essentially, is a rebrand of the good ‘ol character traits - passion and determination. More interestingly though, is the emerging science behind this from University of Pennsylvania psychology professor, Angela Duckworth.
Angela’s my jam - she’s from Philly and appreciates the practical application of behavioral science to our life’s goals. Her 2013 TED talk on the subject is one of their most popular and she wrote a book about it - Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. She also heads up the Grit Lab at Penn where she teaches students how to develop and cultivate grit.
More than 10 years ago, Angela was a teacher in the NY public school system when she posed the question:
What if doing well in school and life depends on much more than your ability to learn quickly and easily?
For anyone with a work ethic and passion, this is a ‘duh’ question, but a dominant amount of predictive performance research focuses on cognitive performance, or IQ. Further, how will this influence workplace behavioral or personality assessments which are debated for their accuracy and effectiveness in predicting professional performance and cultural fit factors.
Here is what recent research from Duckworth, Peterson, and Michael Matthews revealed (or validated for you know-it-alls):
A 2019 study followed 11,000+ West Point cadets to see how cognitive ability, physical ability and grit affected the cadets’ success. Researchers measured success in several ways, including grades, graduation within four years and completion of the cadets’ initiation training, known as “Beast Barracks” — a rigorous six-week training course described as the most physically and emotionally demanding part of the four years at West Point.
The study found grit was more influential than cognitive or physical ability when it came to making it through Beast Barracks.
Cadets possessing higher grit than their peers had 54% greater odds of making it through this initiation period without dropping out.
When it came to graduating from West Point in four years, grit and physical ability were each better predictors of success than was cognitive ability.
An increasing number of universities nixed standardized test requirements as part of the application process, and even more so during the pandemic. It will be interesting to see how universities evolve the application assessment process.
I certainly have better success coaching clients that possess grit, and wonder how employers will incorporate these findings into their hiring processes or performance management research.