This blog post summarizes the book titled “Hidden Potential”, by Adam Grant

Prologue

Adam Grant makes the case of developing character skills as quintessential for achieving mastery in any field. Case in point is the way Maurice Asley, the coach of “Raging Rooks” NYC chess team motivates the team to win a chess championship against the seemingly insurmountable odds. In the process of highlighting the story, the importance of Scaffolding to the process of learning is explained with a wide variety of examples. Scaffoldings or temporary structures gives the opportunity and motivation to learn for any learner and subsequently it becomes easier to sustain learning for a sustained period of time.

I have found the importance of Scaffoldings arise in many situations:

• Paper trade before doing the actual trade
• Write blog posts to express effectively before writing for a journal
• Work on Code Katas or code puzzles before sitting to work on a monolithic project
• In the context of playing an instrument like Sitar, learn to play the paltas, variations, murchanas, alankaars before trying to create and play taans in a raag
• Doing multiple short sprint projects that have low costs of a failure

In any kind of learning, one should not be in a situation where the initial experimentation and failure has BIG cost associated with it. One must take small bets in the learning process that have low cost of failure and subsequently learn.

Creatures of Discomfort

The author discusses the relevance of discomfort as a key element in an effective learning process. Most of us would have heard about “learning style” theory, where it is said that one might have to customize the learning method based on the individual. The author says that it is a complete myth and it is only by actively seeking discomfort in the learning process, that one makes progress

A gem of a statement that verbalizes the difference between character and personality

Character is the capacity to prioritize values over instincts

I have been guilty of over preparing certain things in life, while I should have jumped in to the activity with just enough knowledge and learn stuff as things evolve. The amount of knowledge that one learns on the go with just enough knowledge triumphs the effort in understanding the theoretical aspects of a skill.

In the context of language learning, this is a great perspective

Your mental library expands as you do communicate

One of the things I have found it interesting is the hack of tracking number of mistakes done in a day. We always tend to track the things accomplished, but I guess one can reflect and make more progress by actively committing to doing more mistakes in a day.

The chapter makes one pause and reflect at one’s tendency to approach various tasks in a day. How many times do we actively amplify discomfort in activities ? How many times do we take up an alternative route of learning that appears uncertain, chaotic and unstructured ? How to seek uncomfortable outcomes ? Be it learning a tech stack, learning an instrument, understanding a mathematical model, it is often by embracing discomfort in the learning that we achieve true learning

Human Sponges

The author talks about sea sponges as a species that survived many catastrophic disasters that stuck our planet. He uses the species as a metaphor for character skill, a form of proactivity that’s vital to realizing hidden potential. Our absorptive capacity depends on how we recognize, value, assimilate and apply information. These subskills further depend on two behavioral tendencies:

• How do you acquire information ?
• How do you filter information ?

The author uses a simple 2 by 2 matrix to categorize people in to four categories:

1. Reactive approach to acquiring information + Ego based filtering approach - Rubber
2. Reactive approach to acquiring information + Growth based filtering approach - Clay
3. Proactive approach to acquiring information + Ego based filtering approach - Teflon
4. Proactive approach to acquiring information + Growth based filtering approach - Sponge

In whatever you are trying to learn and master, it is important to recognize which quadrant you lie in. You might vacillate between various quadrants depending on various situations. In all situations, Sponge based skill acquisition is one of the best quadrants to be.

The other important aspect of effective learning is feedback. The author gives a few guidelines that help in choosing the kind of feedback to take in and kind of feedback to filter out. Not all kinds of feedback are made equal.

The Imperfectionists

The author takes a dig at pursuing perfection in our lives. I mean there is nothing wrong in wanting to give one’s best at a job. But when we give our best, it is often the outcome that determines our response. Instead of comparing whether we have become a better person, we tend out beating ourselves(metaphorically ofcourse). There is a story of a self-taught architect in this chapter who not only shuns perfectionism but actively seeks out imperfectionism in all his designs. The author highlights three limitation of any perfectionist

• Focusing obsessively on details
• Avoid unfamiliar situations that might lead to failure
• Berate themselves for making mistakes

The author also mentions a few interesting examples that highlight the importance of having a feedback mechanism for one’s work. I loved the example of my one of my favorites - Twyla Tharp and her creative methods of obtaining feedback on her work.

The takeaway is similar to the advice given to any entrepreneur - make an MVC and keep shipping instead of focusing on perfection.

Transforming the Grind

Needless mastering anything requires one to put in a lot of hours of practice. However there is a danger of a burnout. The author picks up examples of artists, players who have incorporated something that he calls deliberate play. It is different from deliberate practice in the sense that you are doing something as a play thing, as something to have fun. It is different from gamification where you turn a task in to game. Deliberate play involves redesigning the task itself so that one can have fun while doing it. Evelyn Glenn who was born deaf goes on to win three grammy awards. Her story highlights the importance of deliberate play and need for rest between practice sessions. So is the story of Stephen Curry and his coach Brandon Payne. It is a story that emphasizes the crucial role of scaffoldings in one’s learning process.

The takeaway from this chapter is that it is up to us to turn the daily grind in to something so that we look forward to it. Unless we consciously think and reconfigure the way we do something, we run the risk of burnout and exhaustion

Getting Unstuck

The author tries to illustrate a few examples of dealing with the feeling of “unstuck”. Frankly there isn’t anything new that I haven’t already come across earlier

Defying Gravity

The author gives the example of “The Golden thirteen”, the group of officers who are known to be the first set of black naval officers to have graduated from Navy. Their story highlights a few ways to get over seemingly insurmountable barriers

• Tutor effect: The act of teaching something that you yourself are not too confident about or have limited understanding, in turn helps in your own understanding
• By trusting one another, the environment becomes far more conducive to learning

Also the example of Alison Levine, who turns a failed Everest Expedition in to a rallying cry to get better at mountaineering and eventually manages to climb the Everest and complete the Adventurers Grand Slam. How did she do it ? How did she overcome the failure ?

Here is a nice Ted talk by her Lessons from the ledge: Alison Levine at TEDxMidwest

• Acclimatization : Keep coming to base camp. One tends to spend a lot of time going back after every advance. Progress happens even when you back
• Fear is OK. Complacency will KILL you. You have to be able to react to the environment as it keeps changing
• Focus on execution
• Move from rock to rock
• Turned around is harder. Make tough decisions. Conditions are not appropriate - Cut your losses and move on
• Managed to climb by having a purpose beyond one self
• You don’t have to have clarity to put one foot forward
• Standing the top of the summit - Did not mean a lot. Summit is not the important but the journey. What you learn from the journey ?

I think the lessons from the chapter are something that one must re-remember each time one meets a setback or when one comes across impossible barriers.

Every Child Gets Ahead

The author focuses on Finland that has consistently ranked high in the PISA scholastic tests, and finds some surprising ingredients that make the system effective. Here’s a mindmap that captures the ingredients

Mining for Gold

The author uses the case of “Chile Mine rescue operation of 2010” to highlight a slew of points relating to effective team aggregation, team building and team effectiveness hacks

Diamonds in the Rough

The chapter is named so as a reflection of our current selection and hiring processes across companies and organizations. The metaphor refers to the fact that we should be choosing something or some person based on their potential to shine under duress and not how much one shines as of a specific date. Another related idea is to focus on the rise over run on the various achievements that a person has accomplished. Giving equal weights to all the achievements is kind of meaningless.

The chapter is amazing from so many perspectives. One gets to learn about Jose Hernandez, a immigrant who ends up being a NASA astronaut despite getting rejected umpteen number of times. His patience and perseverance is obvious. But what is not obvious is the way he went about adapting his life as things showed up or happened. Unlike ditching the idea of NASA after rejections, he treated each rejection as a step towards changing his strategy, learning a new skillet, experiencing a new experience all towards making his application a little better. These little steps indeed add up to a crescendo point in the story - Jose getting to lead a life of NASA astronaut - Truly remarkable story. Later I googled a bit a came to know that there was a movie released on Amazon prime based on the life of Jose.

The other story is about Gil Wench who disbands traditional means of hiring employees and runs a call center mainly run by disabled people. Here is a TED video link that explains the rationale behind his hiring process.

• A traditional interview is a stressful situation
• Founded a call center where more than half of the employees are disabled
• Entry procedure is overly focused on thriving under stressful few minutes
• Reverse the current policy of “Let’s pick employees by viewing them when they are the worst”
• Interview skills
  • Low anxiety and insecurity
  • Choose an environment at ease
  • Assess skills in every day life positions

Takeaway

The book challenges common thinking patterns in many ways. Our fixation on innate abilities, our tendency to look at external achievements as a point in time data rather than look at the entire time series of achievements and failures, our tendency to not put in enough time to develop character skills. In many ways, the book urges to develop one’s character which will in turn help one to discover hidden potential. Focus on character building along with seeking scaffolding structures yields better learning outcomes. I think I will re-read this book at a later point in time to understand the ideas better.