Harvard Business Review Special Issues Summer 2018

WE ALL ADMIRE people who deftly conquer one challenge after another. How do they do it? Most often they are astute about how they set goals and pursue them. Goals provide a sense of purpose that focuses your energy. When you need to galvanize other people to articulate their intentions and actually get things done, “if-then planning” is an effective technique. In “Get Your Team to Do What It Says It’s Going to Do,” Heidi Grant explains that leaders excel most in this effort when they define what needs doing—and specify in concrete terms how to get it done. “Humans are very good at encoding information in ‘If x, then y’ terms and using those connections (often unconsciously) to guide their behavior,” writes Grant. “In this way, they establish powerful triggers…

THE IMPORTANCE of delaying gratification is universally recognized. Being able to forgo immediate benefits to achieve larger goals in the future is viewed as a key skill. For example, consider the classic “marshmallow test” experiment: Children’s ability to delay eating one marshmallow so that they can get two marshmallows later is linked to a number of positive life outcomes, including academic success and healthy relationships. But wouldn’t immediate benefits also help us follow through on our long-term goals? To explore this question, we conducted five studies, surveying 449 people on their ability to persist in their long-term goals and whether they experienced immediate and delayed benefits when working toward these goals. Our article was published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. In one study, we asked people online about the goals they…

WHY HAVE you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren’t sure, you are far from alone in your confusion. Even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or fail. The intuitive answer—that you are born predisposed to certain talents and lacking in others—is really just one small piece of the puzzle. In fact, decades of research on achievement suggest that successful people reach their goals not simply because of who they are but because of what they do. 1. Get specific. When you set a goal, be as specific as possible. “Lose 5 pounds” is a better goal than “lose some weight,” because it gives you a clear idea of what success looks like. Knowing…

WARREN BENNIS, one of the most respected authorities on leadership in the world, said: “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” On the surface, this sounds perfunctory. But when we examine this more deeply, several important implications arise. If leadership is the ability to translate vision into reality, what is the method to do this? One way, according to the latest research, is to use our brains to optimize our chances of success. Incontrovertible evidence now shows that imagining a movement will stimulate the movement areas in the brain. This technique has been used to help people who’ve had a stroke begin moving and to help elite athletes optimize their precompetition training, such as Mikaela Shiffrin’s detailed visualization that led to an Olympic slalom gold medal. This evidence suggests…

MY SON’S karate teacher recently asked his young students, “What’s the one thing you really want to improve on in the new year?” Hands shot up immediately, with responses like “Watch less TV!” and “Improve my karate form!” and “Work on my time management!” He asked each student to write down the goal and bring it to the next class. With a wide grin, he told the kids to expect that he would periodically stop class throughout the year to engage everyone around how they were doing. As I watched the class, I reflected on how these kids were quite likely to meet their goals because they had the additional support from their teacher and one another. Whether it’s kids in a karate class or adults in a Weight Watchers meeting,…

DO A QUICK Google search of “work-life balance” and more than 104 million results will flood your screen. But the current conversation often treats “work” and “life” as separate and, all too often, in tension. We make annual resolutions, detailed daily plans, and to-do lists, but we do so as individuals—generally not sharing those plans or planning jointly with those closest to us. And we often think of our personal and professional goals as occupying distinct and separate spheres. But what if these two spheres could merge and actually improve the odds that we’ll achieve our goals? Research shows that it’s easier to achieve our goals when we’re not trying to go it alone. One recent research study found a positive correlation between participation in digital communities and reaching fitness goals.…