Wk7 Case Study: Discipline
Wk7 Case Study: DisciplineReview the following pieces:
Wk7-HBR-Realistic Optimist Wk7-HBR-Realistic Optimist – Alternative Formats (Heidi Grant Halverson)
Write a 1,000-1,500 word paper including the following headings and content:
Include at least three P/QCRs (
, Citation, and Reference) – from these articles and one from one of your textbooks.
Include at least two QCRs from at least two peer-reviewed journals that have been published in the last five years.
REPRINT H0076M
PUBLISHED ON HBR.ORG
MAY 02, 2011
ARTICLE
MANAGING YOURSELF
Be an Optimist
Without Being a Fool
by Heidi Grant
This document is authorized for use only by RICK MANN (RMANN@TREVECCA.EDU). Copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. Please contact
customerservice@harvardbusiness.org or 800-988-0886 for additional copies.
MANAGING YOURSELF
Be an Optimist Without
Being a Fool
by Heidi Grant
MAY 02, 2011
There are quite a number of motivational speakers and self-improvement books out there with a
surprisingly simple message: believe that success will come easily to you, and it will. There is one
small problem in this argument, however, which unfortunately doesn’t seem to stop anyone from
making it: it is utterly false.
In fact, not only is visualizing “effortless success” unhelpful, it is disastrous. This is good advice to
give only if you are trying to sabotage the recipient. It is a recipe for failure. And no, I’m not
overstating it.
But how can this be? Isn’t optimism a good thing? Yes it is. Optimism and the confidence it creates
are essential for creating and sustaining the motivation you need to reach your goals. Albert Bandura,
one of the founding fathers of scientific psychology, discovered decades ago that perhaps the best
predictor of an individual’s success is whether or not they believe they will succeed. Thousands and
thousands of experiments later, he has yet to be proven wrong.
But there is an important caveat: to be successful, you need to understand the vital difference
between believing you will succeed, and believing you will succeed easily. Put another way, it’s the
difference between being a realistic optimist and an unrealistic optimist.
Realistic optimists (the kind Bandura was talking about) believe they will succeed, but also believe
they have to make success happen — through things like effort, careful planning, persistence, and
choosing the right strategies. They recognize the need for giving serious thought to how they will
deal with obstacles. This preparation only increases their confidence in their own ability to get things
done.
2COPYRIGHT © 2011 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
This document is authorized for use only by RICK MANN (RMANN@TREVECCA.EDU). Copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. Please contact
customerservice@harvardbusiness.org or 800-988-0886 for additional copies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Bandura
https://hbr.org/cs/2011/02/nine_things_successful_people.html
https://hbr.org/schwartz/2011/04/how-i-became-an-optimist.html
Unrealistic optimists, on the other hand, believe that success will happen to them — that the universe
will reward them for all their positive thinking, or that somehow they will be transformed overnight
into the kind of person for whom obstacles cease to exist. (Forgetting that even Superman had
Kryptonite. And a secret identity that took a lot of trouble to maintain. And also relationship issues.)
One of the clearest illustrations of the dangers of unrealistic optimism comes from a study of weight
loss. Psychologist Gabriele Oettingen asked a group of obese women who had enrolled in a weight-
loss program how likely they felt they were to reach their goals. She found that those women who
were confident that they would succeed lost 26 pounds more than self-doubters, as expected.
But Oettingen also asked the women to tell her what they imagined their road to success would be
like — if they thought they would have a hard time resisting temptation, or if they’d have no problem
turning down free doughnuts in the conference room and a second trip to the all-you-can-eat buffet.
The results were astounding: women who believed they would succeed easily lost 24 pounds less
than those who thought their weight-loss journey would be no walk in the park.
She has found the same pattern of results in studies of students looking for high-paying jobs after
college, singles looking to find lasting love, and seniors recovering from hip replacement surgery.
Realistic optimists send out more job applications, find the courage to approach potential romantic
partners, and work harder on their rehabilitation exercises — in each case, leading to much higher
success rates.
Believing that the road to success will be rocky leads to greater success because it forces you to take
action. People who are confident that they will succeed, and equally confident that success won’t
come easily, put in more effort, plan how they’ll deal with problems before they arise, and persist
longer in the face of difficulty.
Unrealistic optimists are only too happy to tell you that you are “being negative” when you dare to
express concerns, harbor reservations, or dwell too long on obstacles that stand in the way of your
goal. In truth, this kind of thinking is a necessary step in any successful endeavor, and it is not at all
antithetical to confident optimism. Focusing only on what we want, to the exclusion of everything
else, is just the kind of naïve and reckless thinking that has landed industry leaders (and at times
entire industries) in hot water.
Cultivate your realistic optimism by combining a positive attitude with an honest assessment of the
challenges that await you. Don’t visualize success — visualize the steps you will take in order to make
success happen.
Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D. is a motivational psychologist, and author of the new book Succeed: How
We Can Reach Our Goals (Hudson Street Press, 2011). She is also an expert blogger on motivation and
3COPYRIGHT © 2011 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
This document is authorized for use only by RICK MANN (RMANN@TREVECCA.EDU). Copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. Please contact
customerservice@harvardbusiness.org or 800-988-0886 for additional copies.
http://www.psych.nyu.edu/oettingen/
http://www.psych.nyu.edu/oettingen/Oettingen,%20G.%20(2000).%20Expectancy%20effects%20on%20behavior%20depend%20on%20self-regulatory%20thought
https://hbr.org/cs/2011/02/get_your_goals_back_on_track.html
https://hbr.org/schwartz/2010/08/six-keys-to-being-excellent-at.html
leadership for Fast Company and Psychology Today. Her personal blog, The Science of Success, can be
found at www.heidigranthalvorson.com. Follow her on Twitter @hghalvorson
Heidi Grant, PhD, is a social psychologist who researches, writes, and speaks about the science of motivation. She is
Global Director of Research & Development at the NeuroLeadership Institute and serves as Associate Director of
Columbia’s Motivation Science Center. She received her doctorate in social psychology from Columbia University. Her
most recent book is Reinforcements: How to Get People to Help You. She’s also the author of Nine Things Successful
People Do Differently and No One Understands You and What to Do About It.
4COPYRIGHT © 2011 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
This document is authorized for use only by RICK MANN (RMANN@TREVECCA.EDU). Copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. Please contact
customerservice@harvardbusiness.org or 800-988-0886 for additional copies.
http://www.heidigranthalvorson.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/hghalvorson
