Research report by Peter Doskoch in Psychology Today indicates that:
... a mere 25 percent of the differences between individuals in job performance ... can be attributed to IQ (personality factors, creativity and luck are said to contribute to the other 75 percent.)
Doskoch reports:
Louis Terman, the legendary psychologist who followed a group of gifted boys from childhood to middle age, reported that "persistence in the accomplishment of ends" was one of the factors that distinguished the most successful men from the least successful.
And in the most-cited paper in the giftedness literature, University of Connecticut psychologist Joseph Renzulli, director of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, argued that "task commitment"—perseverance, endurance and hard work - is one of the three essential components of giftedness (along with ability and creativity).
Renzulli says the evidence that these nonintellectual factors are critical to giftedness is "nothing short of overwhelming."
Grit - what they mean by it
So if pure IQ accounts for only 25%, what is this grit, which along with luck, accounts for the remaining 75% of success? Duckworth and Seligman describe it as "the determination to accomplish an ambitious, long-term goal despite the inevitable obstacles." Its component parts appear to be:
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Persistence
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Passion
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Ambition
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Self-discipline
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Optimism
Persistence - sticking at it, perseverance, working hard
... experts often speak of the "10-year rule"—that it takes at least a decade of hard work or practice to become highly successful in most endeavors, from managing a hardware store to writing sitcoms—and the ability to persist in the face of obstacles is almost always an essential ingredient in major achievements. The good news: Perhaps even more than talent, grit can be cultivated and strengthened.
Passion - single-minded, having one's imagination captured by something
Although extremely persistent people are usually passionate about their work, that doesn't mean that the passion always comes first. Perseverance, notes Duckworth, can itself foster passion. Often the most fascinating aspects of a topic (particularly a highly complex one) become apparent only after deep immersion, to a level "where you understand it and are enlivened by it."
Ambition - setting long term goals, knowing where you want to go
Truly gritty people ... tend to set especially challenging long-term goals; one of Duckworth's recent students confidently stated that he planned to become a U.S. Senator.
Self-discipline - not wasting time or energy, not giving in to whims
... whereas perseverance implies the ability to keep doing something, self-discipline primarily implies the ability to refrain from doing something—to stop drinking, goofing off or straying from one's diet. It doesn't embrace the ambition and zest needed to tackle a challenging goal. "Self-discipline is probably necessary for grit," Duckworth says, "but it's not sufficient."
Optimism - not getting despondent, a positive frame of mind, belief in the future
... a trait that Dean Keith Simonton of the University of California at Davis finds is extremely common among high achievers. "It helps them hang in there in times when they have to overcome all of these obstacles," he observes. "They just really believe in the end that they're going to win, and until they do, they're just going to keep on pushing, keep on making the phone calls, writing the letters, whatever they have to do."
Extract taken from our Development Academy website.
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