The Best Leaders I Know Focus On Mastering This One Thing
This One Thing Will Determine Your Success More Than Anything Else
The ability to delay gratification. Although it’s not quite that.
That’s how it’s tested.
You put a marshmallow in front of a four year old child. Then you tell them that if it’s still sat there uneaten after you leave the room and come back again they can have two marshmallows.
Anyway, fast forward 30 years and the kids who managed to hold out for the two marshmallows are more successful in every measure.
House on the hill, white picket fence, all that.
We’re being asked to sacrifice now in order to obtain something better in the future.
Rather than eat the potato now, plant it and have 10 when it’s time to harvest.
The wrong takeaway here would be that by 4 years old you’ve either got it or you don’t.
Although of course that’s the obvious takeaway and the study did play out that way.
You could say that what was being tested was the child’s ability to sacrifice.
You could also say that what was being tested was trust.
We make sacrifices in the present because we actually believe we WILL obtain something better in the future.
We start a diet or an exercise program because we believe it’ll allow us to look, feel, perform better in the hopefully, not too distant future.
We quit when we either lose that trust or believe it’s too great a sacrifice. We’ve lost faith that A will lead to B or that life with A is worth B.
The kids either didn’t trust what the adult told them or didn’t trust themselves (perhaps because they’d be told they couldn’t be trusted and believed it in the same way that kids believe in Santa Claus).
I go to great lengths with my clients to help them make promises they know they can keep. That’s how we build trust in ourselves (particularly in an area we’ve lost it) and that trust rewarded with evidence, builds momentum.
This mechanism is worth thinking about when it comes to leadership.
Each time you promise a second marshmallow and fail to deliver you lose trust.
When you lose trust people start doing what they feel like in the moment.
It’s easy to look at someone and say, they aren’t prioritising, they aren’t following the unwritten social contract (whether that’s coming into the office, doing the extra hours when there’s a deadline, speaking up in meetings) or what ever it might be.
It’s worth asking,
what promises did I make when I hired them that I’m not keeping?
People naturally seek to equalise and people naturally avoid sacrifices that they no longer believe will produce the promised outcome.
It’s worth asking, if I took those 4 year olds that ate the marshmallows.
Then said, “you can have this one marsh mallow or walk across the room and have those two over there” how many would have gone for the two. My guess 100%.
My guess is that if you increased the distance/ time incrementally it wouldn’t be long before enough trust was formed between child and adult all the kids to pass the test.
Which isn’t to say this would have been curative. It is to suggest that leadership is an exercise in trust.
Check your promises. Make promises. Keep your promises. Make promises. Repeat.
Trust is the ultimate leverage in leadership.
Ed Ley
Ps I am opening up my calendar for two new clients.
If you’re looking for a performance upgrade and you’re in a leadership position then respond to this email and we’ll see if we’re a good fit.
