Can we predict "success"?

Well, if we could predict that someone or something would be successful, life would be a whole lot less interesting.  

No miraculous surprises, defied expectations, or comeback stories. Everything would happen as we thought it would.  

From a people-perspective, just like there is no fool-proof recipe on how to become a "great leader” (read our most recent Leaders’ Book Club post for more on that), the beauty in predicting one’s success is there is no treasure map - we’ll be writing, revising, and evolving the formula for eternity.
 
The classic soundbite or clickbait, “if you follow these 10 steps, you’ll be a millionaire!”, will never go out of style.  

However, regardless of whether you’re a team-builder at a stealth start-up, non-profit, Google, a professional sports team, or venture capital firm, predicting the success of a hire, draftee, or founder can cost or earn you millions of dollars, a Super Bowl, or survival in the market.
 
That’s what makes team-building so complex, because you may find out if you’ve made the right decision on an individual not until after a very long time or before it’s too late.  

So, how do we hedge our bets on individuals when building a team? Or, what is an indicator that tells us how successful someone will be? 

Angela Duckworth, famous American academic and psychologist, posits in her book “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” and Ted Talk that grit is a tell-tale sign someone will be successful.

After undergrad, Duckworth taught 7th grade in New York City’s public schools and what stood out to her was that IQ seemed to not be what differentiated her best performing students from the worst.
 
Believing that her hardest working students were the ones who inevitably did better than others, Duckworth set out to prove this hypothesis. 

In post-grad, Duckworth conducted studies on the following:

1) Which cadets would stay in military training and which would drop out?

2) Which contestants at the National Spelling would advance the furthest?

3) Which rookie teachers placed in tougher schools would stay teaching longer and produce the best learning outcomes for students?

4) Which salespeople would keep their jobs and make the most money?

Her findings: grit was the leading and shared indicator.

To confirm her findings, though, in a Chicago Public Schools study, Duckworth asked thousands of high school Seniors to take “grit” questionnaires at the beginning of the school year and followed them through the end.

The results of her study suggested that the grittiest students were ones that graduated at a higher rate, even when matched by family income, standardized test scores, or how safe they felt at school.
 
While there are limitations to Duckworth’s conclusions and external factors to consider that may affect someone’s ability to achieve success (however “success” is defined), grit is where team-builders should start when evaluating how successful a potential hire, founder, or athlete will be.

Interestingly, Michael Lewis’ “Moneyball” paints a similar picture of grit.

While the crux of “Moneyball” is a story of how Billy Bean and the Oakland A’s were (arguably) the first MLB team to use statistics in predicting player success, the lesser-known story behind “Moneyball” is what Billy Bean learned from his youth and professional career:  

Talent only gets you so far, character (or grit) does.   

According to all the Major League scouts, Billy Bean had the full “toolkit” in his high school days - he could run, field, hit, and hit with power. Not to mention he was physically gifted and charming.  

For all intents and purposes, the scouts in the 1980’s had every reason to believe Billy was going to be the next Babe Ruth. Very few players checked all the boxes like he did.  

The problem was that Billy’s confidence and seemingly perfect “toolkit” blinded everyone to his inability to respond positively to adversity. Up until he was drafted and started playing with other top dogs, “baseball hadn’t yielded to his [Billy’s] character.”  

When Billy got in a slump, it stuck. When he failed, he could never take a deep breath, step back up to the plate, and give his best eye and swing. He ended up being a Major League Flop.  

The scouts did not test if he was, in Angela Duckworth’s definition, gritty.

After only hitting 3 home runs in his entire professional career, Billy ended up trading batting gloves and a mitt for a management role at the Oakland A’s.  

By way of reflecting upon his career, Billy was the first to eschew baseball’s traditional scouting “toolkit” and posited that outside of statistics, the biggest predictor of success in the MLB was based how gritty they were. 

This strategy led to Billy Bean drafting Jason Giambi, an eventual 5x All-Star and American League MVP, and fielding an Oakland Athletics team (one of the poorest teams in the MLB) that started winning against the top teams (such as the New York Yankees who in 2001 ended up signing Giambi for 7 years and $120M).
 
Before getting drafted Giambi never had the “toolkit”, but Billy knew he had the grit to evolve his game and hedge the bets being placed on him.

So, in considering just the two examples presented in Duckworth and Lewis’ work, regardless of what team you build, consider making grit a key trait - you’ll be amazed of it’s power.
 
While individual success doesn’t always equate to team success, I’m sure we’d all prefer a team of gritty contributors vs. one that struggles with adversity.

Wondering how to effectively evaluate and test for grit in your candidates, founders, potential draftees, etc.? 

Well, that’s for another Leaders’ Book Club newsletter perhaps :)