How many times have you attended one of those motivational seminars where the presenter attempts to “pump you up” with the belief that greatness resides inside of you? And, all you have to do is convince yourself (through self-talk) that it is there, and it will be “released” into your life.
As you might have suspected, positive self-talk is not as effective as your motivational guru promised. In fact, you may do better doubting yourself, rather than trying to talk yourself toward greatness.
A few months ago, I wrote a series (1,2,3) on Daniel Pink’s latest book called Drive. If you haven’t read these articles, you may want to catch up on his compelling discoveries concerning motivation. Pink recently uncovered another research study that defies conventional wisdom on this topic.
This study was reported in the London Telegraph over the weekend and was originally conducted at the University of Illinois.
“In a nifty set of experiments, three social scientists explored the differences between what they call ‘declarative’ self-talk (I will fix it!) and ‘interrogative’ self-talk (Can I fix it?). They began by presenting a group of participants with some anagrams to solve (for example, rearranging the letters in ‘sauce’ to spell ’cause’.)But before the participants tackled the problem, the researchers asked one half of them to take a minute to ask themselves whether they would complete the task – and the other half to tell themselves that they would complete the task.The results? The self-questioning group solved significantly more anagrams than the self-affirming group.”
In a second, follow-up study, the initial finding was validated by the results of a new experiment:
“We told participants that we were interested in people’s handwriting practices. With this pretence, participants were given a sheet of paper to write down 20 times one of the following word pairs: Will I, I will, I, or Will. Then they were asked to work on a series of 10 anagrams in the same way participants in Experiment One did.The outcome was the same. People ‘primed’ with Will I solved nearly twice as many anagrams as people in the other three groups. In subsequent experiments, the basic pattern held. Those who approached a task with questioning self-talk did better than those who began with affirming self-talk.‘Setting goals and striving to achieve them assumes, by definition, that there is a discrepancy between where you are and where you want to be. When you doubt, you probably achieve the right mindset,‘ explained one of the researchers. ‘In addition, asking questions forces you to define if you really want something and probably think about what you want, even in the presence of obstacles.'”
These findings have a direct and immediate application to your business. If you have responsibility for coaching those on your team, teach them to ask questions about their abilities and to contemplate their chances of success.
“People who ask questions come from a more humble place, which creates space to come up with a deeper solution. In other words, questions open and declarations close. We need both, of course. But that initial tincture of honest doubt turns out to be more powerful than a bracing shot of certainty.”
If you are a hiring manager, integrate this principle into your interviews. Ask your candidates how they approach difficult tasks. If you get back a response that highlights their bravado…it’s a red flag. Those who are truly successful will likely be more humble.
Editor’s Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you’re an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the “comments” link below.
