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Why you need a pep-talk to boost you morale
Mindsets are what encourage our kids to spend their lives pursuing meaningful goals instead of hiding from failure.
- PUBLISHED: Sat 23 Feb 2019, 9:15 PM UPDATED: Sat 23 Feb 2019, 11:17 PM
- By:
- Nick Tasler (Mind Over Matter)
I am a self-hating motivational speaker. Or at least I used to be.
For starters, I have never won an Olympic gold medal. I have never summited Mount Everest. I have never lived in a van down by the river. So, my street cred was suspect.
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But the bigger problem - the thing I found especially hard to swallow - was the implicit value proposition. How could a staged monologue lasting the same amount of time it takes me to watch an episode of The Americans magically reroute the lifelong behaviour patterns of a roomful of strangers?
Sure, I could easily believe that a healthy blend of intriguing stories, some chuckles here and a few throat-lumps there could spark interesting conversations at that night's cocktail hour. But claiming that a one-hour speech could sustainably change a life or transform a team sounded like something toothy pitchmen on late-night infomercials would use to coerce insomniacs to "call now!" It conjures up images of the late, great Chris Farley face-planting on coffee tables while bellowing "la dee frickin' dah!" I had simply spent too much of my life immersed in the science of behaviour change to buy such a ridiculous suggestion.But what if I was wrong?
A few years ago, a group of soon-to-be members of the white-collar workforce spent an hour with a pair of Stanford researchers. The group learned about, and then reflected on, the changes they were facing. Then they left. They never again saw the researchers.
But the study didn't end there. In fact, the interesting part had just begun.
Over the next three years, the researchers kept tabs on the group. They compared their progress to their peers who were like them in nearly every way. What the researchers discovered is that the people who had participated in this one hour of lightly structured noodling needed to see a doctor half as many times as their classmates. Their self-esteem was nearly twice as high. They were also performing better than their peers -quarter after quarter after quarter for three straight years.
As much as nine years later, these same people were significantly happier with their careers and more satisfied with their personal lives.
Take a second to let that sink in. The session lasted one hour start to finish. There were no takeaway tools. No SMART goals. No monthly check-ins. No weekly emails.
No follow-up coaching. No learning reinforcement at all.
What exactly happened in that one hour? Did the Stanford researchers put on a performance so memorable, so sticky, so Martin-Luther-King-I-have-a-dream inspirational that the participants wept-nay, shuddering shoulders, and quivering lips while the message of hope and empowerment eternally branded itself on their souls?
Not so much. Three years later, the study participants were surveyed about that magical hour. Do you know what they said? A full 92 per cent of them didn't have the foggiest idea what the session was even about. And yet - it worked. It's not an exaggeration to say that the one-hour session altered the course of their lives.
The Stanford study isn't a one-off fluke either. It is one among hundreds of so-called "wise interventions" that have recently begun popping up all over social science journals. These short interactions with astonishingly long-lasting results are re-writing the rules of change.
Does this mean we should take everything we've been taught about behaviour training and bury it? Not exactly.
Motivational speeches, TED talks, and informational videos won't solve all our problems. No matter how good my guitar teacher is, I won't be able to play Stairway to Heaven after one 45-minute lesson. You won't become a scratch golfer without deliberately devoting thousands of frustrating hours to the nuances of your putt. A single dose of insight won't inject you with the knowledge you need to flawlessly operate the new accounting software. Mastering new skills still requires focused training, deliberate practice, and endless repetition.
But a skillset is different than a mindset. Mindsets are what enable us to endure the 10,000 hours of teeth-gritting, mistake-ridden practice required to master the skillset. Mindsets are what motivate your team to keep exploring - day after uncertain day of a long change initiative. Mindsets are what encourage our kids to spend their lives pursuing meaningful goals instead of hiding from failure. And yes, mindsets are also what a motivational speaker can alter by delivering a 45-minute speech to a roomful of strangers grappling with a changing world.
-Psychology Today
Nick Tasler is an organisational psychologist and author of four books on change and decision making