Adam Grant: The Surprising New Research On Procrastination, Perfectionism & Happiness!

Adam Grant (0:00)

Rinaldo is an individual superstar, but the way he plays his game does not elevate the team. So what can we learn from this?

SPEAKER_2 (0:07)

First of all, Adam Grant, business psychologist, one of the world's most influential career and business thinkers.

SPEAKER_3 (0:13)

He will help you do the best work of your life and reach your professional potential.

Adam Grant (0:17)

My job is to study how to make work not suck and help you become a better version of yourself.

Steven Bartlett (0:23)

So what is some of the myths and findings about unlocking our hidden potential?

Adam Grant (0:27)

These might surprise people.

It turns out that perfectionism is not all it's cracked up to be. It's a risk factor for burnout. First borns score higher on IQ tests, but later borns tend to be more willing to take risks. We don't procrastinate for the reasons we think we do. It's not hard work that you're avoiding when you procrastinate. It is. Decades of research on brainstorming has shown that if you get a group of people together to generate ideas, if instead you would let them work alone, you would have gotten more ideas and also better ideas. When people talk about imposter syndrome, that feeling is actually pretty rare. What's much more common is imposter thoughts. But there are all kinds of benefits of having those thoughts. For example, data from 50,000 people found that Chrome or Firefox users are on average better performers and they stick around longer than if you're using Safari or Internet Explorer.

Steven Bartlett (1:10)

Give me one more.

Adam Grant (1:11)

Okay. Well, this is the most vital skill to unlock the hidden potential of yourself. So what you have to do is... Before we wrap, I have a couple of questions for you.

Steven Bartlett (1:19)

Why do I feel nervous?

Adam Grant (1:20)

You should feel nervous. First question is, what's something I can do better as a podcast guest?

Steven Bartlett (1:26)

Oh, gosh. Adam, at the very essence of your work, what is it you are trying to do, teach or give people?

Adam Grant (1:48)

I want to give people the most useful insights from social science, to help them think more clearly and critically, and make choices that will build happiness and meaning and success.

Steven Bartlett (2:01)

And if you think about your career over the last couple of decades, what points of inspiration have you pulled from to give you as an idea of your sort of academic and experience profile that has pulled into all of this work, all of these books that sit in front of me now?

Adam Grant (2:17)

So I'm an organizational psychologist by training. That means my job is to study how to make work not suck. Sometimes it's a tall order. But I'm interested in how we find meaning and motivation, how we can lead more generous and creative and curious lives.

Steven Bartlett (2:34)

We were talking earlier about the books that you've written.

This particular book in front of me here, Originals, one of my team members, Grace Miller, she went around her office and gave a copy of this book to everybody and she wrote a personalised note inside. When you use this word originals, you yourself are an original in many respects. I had a read through your earliest years and it was quite clear to me that you were different in several ways. Throwing that question back at you, you know, I've got this photo here actually. My team printed off for me.

Adam Grant (3:11)

Yeah. I was seven years old and I was obsessed with Nintendo. And I think there must have been a Saturday where I was, I must have played for seven or eight hours straight. And then I got really frustrated when I didn't beat the game. And my mom said like, these video games are just like turning my happy kid into a gremlin. And I'm worried that they're frying his brain. And she called the local newspaper and said, you should do a story about how video games are hurting kids. And they said, you're right. And we want to profile your child. So here I am with a lot of hair and no teeth, just hooked on a video game.

And you know, what's funny about this is if you read the research on the effects of video games, it turns out that most of the benefits outweigh the costs. That kids who play video games, even a few hours a day, end up with more self-control, better working memory, more grit and self-discipline, because they're constantly having to face and overcome challenges and build their resilience. And there are even some possible mental health benefits. So video games were not the devil, as my mom thought.