True Grit - How we bring Grit into the Workplace

Grit – the passion and perseverance for long-term and meaningful goals

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, by Angela Duckworth, has been a popular book since 2016 – you might have read it. She explores aspects of Grit with a curious and open mind. If you need a gentle push to get moving in your Leadership or in life, this book could help.

Research indicates that the ability to be gritty—to stick with things that are important to you and bounce back from failure—is an essential component of success. Grit is independent of and beyond what talent and intelligence contribute (Duckworth 2016). It is working hard on something day in, day out, for years if necessary. It is working to make your envisioned future a reality.

Who are Gritty People?

Gritty people include a range of highly successful sports people, renown scientists, those who recover from almost unimaginable circumstances, celebrated academic achievers and decorated defence personnel. You might notice that these tend to be people that have been self-successful. Even though supported by others, it is the grit of the individual that brings success to that individual. Our interest is different. It is in grit in the workplace – how teams apply grit to add business value.

We find that grit, the single-minded focus by an individual on goals to the exclusion of all else, is rigid behaviour that is counter-productive in a business setting. It can strain relationships, damage reputations, lack strategic insight and action, and discount the wisdom of others.

Rigidly Gritty

Grit can bring great benefits when harnessed properly. But there can be unintended consequences if we apply it rigidly. For example:

• We apply grit in a direction that has more negative impacts than positive.
• We don’t take the time to critically consider alternatives or create new approaches.
• We apply grit to a poor strategy.
• Our grit runs over other people.
• Our single minded-focus distances our colleagues.
• Circumstances change but our grit drives us in a direction that fails to consider the changed circumstances.

Having Grit alone is not enough to guarantee success.

When Grit becomes Rigid Grit

Consider for example the recent event in which an airline forcefully dragged a passenger from the plane injuring him. (He had a ticket.) The passenger had refused to exit the plane to allow airline staff (without a ticket) to take his seat. The airline “gritfully” enforced their policy in which passengers had agreed when they purchased a ticket (usually unknowingly). The airline considered therefore that they were within their rights to forcefully remove the passenger. However, the display of grit resulted the airline losing more than 250 million dollars in stock value as well as being sued. It was an extreme example of grit gone wrong.

Turning Grit into a Strength

In the next part of this article, next week, I will look at how GRIT can be turned into a strength in a team based work environment.