Book Review: Hidden Potential by Henry Castel

This week is book review week, and I’ve found one very interesting. The title is "Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things" by Adam Grant. It explores how we can elevate ourselves and others to unexpected heights by focusing on character development and learning, rather than just innate talent. Grant uses evidence-based strategies and stories from various fields to illustrate how anyone can improve and succeed. Let’s dive in.

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The book starts with Grant coaching a group of middle schoolers who happened to be interested and available. They didn’t have any special chess aptitude. He knew from experience that although talent is evenly distributed, opportunity is not. During the competition, he reminded them they could control their decisions, not their results.

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This is the beginning of the book. For Grant, everyone has hidden potential, and his book is about how we unlock it. Sure, there are gifted people, but the book aims to illuminate how we can all rise to achieve great things. Everybody can learn, almost all people can learn, if provided with appropriate conditions for learning.

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I like when the author says, “What we overlook is when people can’t see the path, they stop dreaming of the destination.” To continue dreaming, the author uses the scaffolding analogy.

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Here is the definition of it. Scaffolding in construction is a temporary structure that enables work crews to scale heights beyond their reach. Once done, the support is removed. From that point, the building stands on its own. In learning, it serves a similar purpose.

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The book is meant to be that scaffolding:

• Explore the specific character skills that catapult us to greater heights. We can list them:

Proactive: how often did they take initiative to ask questions, volunteer answer and seek info from books.

Prosocial: how well did they get along and collaborate with peers

Disciplined: how effectively did they pay attention

Determined: how consistently did they take on challenging problems and persist in the face of obstacles.

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• Create structures to sustain motivation. On the path to any goal, roadblocks are inevitable. Lift comes in the form of scaffolding, a temporary support structure that enables us to scale heights we couldn’t reach on our own. It helps us build resilience to overcome obstacles that threaten to overwhelm us and limit our growth.

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• Build systems to expand opportunity. With the right support at the right moments, we can overcome obstacles to growth. It unleashes hidden potential by helping us forge paths we couldn’t see. It enables us to find motivation in the daily grind, gain momentum in the face of stagnation, and turn difficulties and doubt into sources of strength.

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Another important point is that stretching beyond our strengths is how we can reach our potential and perform at our peak. What counts is not how hard we work but how much we grow. To help students develop cognitive skills, effective teachers are required.

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I hope you enjoyed this article as much as I did. You need to read it. Grant, a renowned organizational psychologist, weaves together groundbreaking evidence, surprising insights, and vivid storytelling to show that progress depends less on how hard you work and more on how well you learn. As a manager or leader, the book will help you challenge the notion that talent alone determines success and emphasizes the importance of character development and learning. It provides a new framework for raising aspirations and exceeding expectations, making it a valuable read for anyone looking to unlock their full potential.

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Engineer success, encourage excellence, and upsurge leadership by Henry Castel?

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