Adam Grant Discusses the Connection Between Sparking Joy and Increasing Creativity and Generosity

In the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Austin, guests shuffle in and out of the bustling lobby as they prepare to attend speaking events by their most admired influencers at SXSW. Among them is Adam Grant, a top-rated Wharton Professor and renowned Organizational Psychologist. Adam is the author of the two New York Time’s Bestsellers:Originals and Give and Take and an avid researcher on ways to spark more creativity and increase generosity. In a quiet corner of the lobby surrounded by books, he spoke with Marie and the KonMari team on the psychology behind the KonMari Method’s approach to tidying and the benefits of considering joy more often, a topic he explores in-depth in his upcoming book Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy.

KMI: We are very excited about your new book coming out next month! Could you tell our readers a little bit aboutOption B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy?

AG: The starting point for this book was when Sheryl Sandberg lost her husband suddenly two years ago. Dave was a good friend and amazing person, and Sheryl and I spent a lot of time talking about how to build resilience and face adversity with strength. We realized that the insights we were discovering were relevant to all kinds of adversity – not just grief and loss, but also everything from divorce to job loss to, in some cases, abuse and assault. We all have a vision of a perfect life where everything brings us joy. The sad reality is, we all have circumstances that we didn’t plan for or hope for. Nobody lives option A. The book is about how you make the most of option B – after we have major setbacks in our lives, personal and professional, what does it take to not only bounce back but also fast forward and maybe even find some joy again.

KMI: The KonMari Method focuses on keeping only what sparks joy in your life. How would you describe the psychology behind why the KonMari Method leads to life-changing experiences, including overcoming grief and adversity?

AG: One of the clever aspects about this method is understanding that we are wired to focus on the bad things in our lives. In prehistoric times, if you were walking through a jungle thinking, “There’s something in the bushes that seems to be orange with black stripes, and has sharp objects protruding from its mouth. I wonder if that’s a tiger,” you would die, and no longer pass on your genes. If you instinctively said, “Tiger! Run!” you would live to have descendants. We are evolutionarily wired to watch out for threats, which was survival-relevant. But sadly, today we do that for things that are not at all survival-relevant. When people hold on to things, they are always worrying, “What if I need this one day,” or “What if I throw away something that I’ll miss at some point.” The method completely disrupts that tendency. It pushes people to focus on what brings positive energy as opposed to just the bad. And that’s to me, part of the psychology of why this works.

KMI: Do you think completing the KonMari Method gives people more capacity to be givers?

AG: I would hope so. A good social science perspective in positive psychology explains why that would work. When you pay more attention to joy, you’re in a positive mood more often. When you’re in a positive mood more often, you tend to trust other people more. You tend to see other people as deserving of your help, and focus much less on the cost of giving your time to others. There’s a very good chance that people’s generosity spikes after focusing more on following what sparks joy.

KMI: Marie emphasizes that you must tidy at once, versus tidying a little bit at a time. What does this have in common with your research?

AG: It makes so much sense to do it all in one go with a dedicated window of time. A big mistake people make when trying to help others is spreading out their acts of generosity. People think that performing one act of kindness per day is a way to make sure that everyday brings a little bit of joy. That has no effect whatsoever on your mood, happiness, or energy. Only when you pick one day as your helping day and chunk it all together do you feel like you actually accomplished something and made a difference. The KonMari Method works in a similar way. When you clean a little bit at a time, you don’t feel like you’ve made a dent. There’s no sense of progress, no change in your environment around you. But if you take it on as one giant task, you feel like you’ve achieved something. You’re looking at a completely different space afterward, and it’s similar to a New Year’s resolution where you have a fresh start and hit the reset button on your life.

KMI: One aspect of the KonMari Method is that if you don’t tidy up and live a life that sparks joy, it’s hard to encourage others to do the same. Have you seen similar findings?

AG: That fits well with one of the messages that I find myself returning to over and over again, about giver burnout and how you can overextend generosity. People are often bad at securing their oxygen mask before helping others. This is another way into that same conversation, which is to say that if your life is out of order, it’s hard to be there for other people. I think that’s something many people know intuitively but don’t practice.

KMI: In your book Originals, you talk about how individuals champion new ideas and leaders fight groupthink. In your view, is Marie an “Original,” and if so, in what way?

AG: Marie is definitely an “Original.” I think of “Originals” as people who look at something and instead of just complaining about what’s wrong, take initiative to improve it. The books, method, and speeches are all about getting people to reach in their lives, and instead of saying, “I'm stuck with this environment or with this structure,” saying, “I can do something about it and take initiative to change it.” The delivery method is also incredibly original. The first time I became aware of Marie’s work was when somebody sent me a viral video of her making her spark joy pose and sound. Visually demonstrating how these changes in your life could spark joy was really clever.

KMI: Are you on the tidy side or not-so-tidy side?

AG: It depends. I am incredibly tidy electronically. I clear my inbox and try to get it to as close to zero as I can everyday. I know where all my files are and have very systematic orderings and a process for being able to save them and retrieve them. With physical items, I’m not quite as neat. If you send something in the mail I will lose it. If you email it to me, I will keep it forever.

KMI: You play various roles in your life, including a husband, father, writer, professor. You also travel frequently. How do you stay physically organized, in your home, your office, and your suitcase?

AG: When I started travelling more frequently, I would lose something everywhere I went. On the Give and Take book tour, I lost something in every city. Somehow, I was losing things I didn’t even have! I realized I needed a consistent routine and set some habits that would make things less likely to get lost and keep me organized. I realized I needed duplicates of things I tended to lose. Instead of taking my phone charger with me, I bought an extra phone charger to put in my suitcase so it’s always with me. I created a travel kit of clothes to always leave in my suitcase in case I forgot to pack something. I also get rid of a lot of stuff. When you go to a conference there’s always a gift bag. The pack rat in me would be motivated to keep it. Instead, I dump it all out. This is one of the ways Marie’s work has influenced me. I immediately ask, “what joy could this bring.” If something won’t give me or my kids joy, we get rid of everything.

KMI: You receive many requests for interviews, joint research, and other work. How do you decide what work to take on, and what interviews to accept? Do you do it based on what sparks joy for you?

AG: Yes, but I also do it on the basis of what’s going to spark joy for other people. One of my favorite things about the spark joy idea is that it doesn’t have to be just about me. The first question I ask is, “is what I say yes to going to get in the way of something that would spark joy for me and my family?” With kids, you think much less about what gives you joy, and much more about what gives your family joy. If I can do it while I’m travelling or while our kids are at school or asleep, I’m always likely to say yes. The next question is, “Is this going to interfere with other things that I’ve already committed to that are joy-relevant for me or for other people?” If I have a choice between doing an interview and answering a series of student questions or helping them navigate a career dilemma, I’m going to choose students first, because that’s the group that I care most about helping professionally. Beyond that, I think about if there’s a unique contribution I can make or something novel I can say.

Follow Adam Grant on LinkedIn: www.dhirubhai.net/in/adammgrant, Facebook and Twitter @AdamMGrant, and his website at www.adamgrant.net 

Photo Credit: George Lange