An Appeal to Self Interest

Silver Medals Have Merit

Talented people often face challenges when they run into situations where effort, or beginner’s mind is required.

When performance comes naturally to us, it can be tempting to shy away from situations requiring sustained effort with uncertain payoff.

This decision to “shy away” can be enhanced between peers, siblings and the risk of outside judgement.

I’ll illustrate with a story about my family but I’d encourage you to look wider to see this principle in action. I find these tendencies are quite strong in myself.

Setting The Bar

In our school district, the kids have to score 90% to get an A. This is different than 86%, which was the hurdle when I was in school.

Bs are awarded for scores in the 80s. Also different from back-in-my-day when Bs were any score in the 70s.

I prefer the lower thresholds as it enables the teachers to make the course material tough enough for the smart kids to make errors (and learn we are all fallible). Lower thresholds also enable us to recover from one bad test.

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School Memories

As a freshman at McGill, I avoided being kicked out of the honors economics track with a single well-placed final exam. The professor scored my entire year on the basis of my final at the end of eight months of studying. Before doing so, he requested an interview to find out “what the hell was going on, earlier in the year.” I explained I started his class without understanding calculus, which I had been taking in parallel. I wasn’t able to understand the assignments until mid-way through the academic year.

Do your subordinates (or kids) understand the assignment?¹

Another school memory was a professor leaving me at 84%, rather than rounding me up to an A. When we spoke he smiled and said he wanted me to remember I could do much better work. 35 years later… I remember.

Encourage your best employees (and star students) to do difficult things.

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Pro Athlete LARP for Teens & Parents

LARP = Live Action Role Play

Swimming is a high priority and large expense for our family. My wife spends more time at swim meets than we spend together. Some of the meets require the kids to miss classes. As the kids progress up the swim performance ladder, they travel out of state and can miss up to a week of school.

In middle school, missed classes/days are not a big deal. The pace is slow enough that the kids can pick up when they return.

However, last year in high school, our daughter blew an entire semester with a 14-day bad patch following a week of missed classes. The grading thresholds are set so high, a single bad test (across several subjects) torpedos an entire semester.

I was glad it happened during Grade Nine, at home, rather than finding out she blew a semester at college at the end of her freshman year. We’ve seen this happen with other families.

We took the opportunity to help her figure out what’s required when she misses school. We spoke with the teachers, who were completely unaware why she disappears from class.

The fix was simple:

1. Communicate with your supervisor.

2. Get personal instruction on what you missed.

3. Complete the assignments with the teacher, or a tutor.

But the fix didn’t fix everything.

• Performance is a result of choices.

• Performance is not a root cause => meaning, don’t assume everything is OK just because performance is OK.

Back to my opening observations…

• If I can’t be an A-student easily, then is it worth the effort to be a B-student?

• If I’m having to work to score marks that are lower than my siblings, then maybe I should opt out of the game?

  • We’re all familiar with the child who decides to be the class clown.

• Making an effort, academically, feels hard. Maybe I should focus on my sports instead?

• Maybe I’m not as smart as I thought I was. What happens if I try and fail, publicly? Can I handle everyone seeing my “failure?”

Adult issues. Soon the schoolgirl will be a young woman. She will be away from home. She will be asking herself questions we all need to consider…

• Why bother if outcome is uncertain?

• Can the value of my performance be assessed based on the outcome of others?

• Why should I persist at difficult things?

• The risk of failure scares me. Public failure, terrifies me.

How might we learn our answers?

Here’s what I came up with.

Silver medals have merit. In sport, we talk about having A, B and C goals. I don’t want my standards to prevent others from doing their best.²

That said, we don’t want to be facilitating a decline in academic performance³. The disastrous 14-day stretch was preceded by a week-long swim meet (out of state). This swim meet was a dream-come-true for a young teen swimmer. A high-level meet where my wife travelled alongside (and took care of her every whim) while I was picking up the slack at home.⁴

I started by setting a minimum bar.

If you want to miss school⁵ then you need at least a B in every class.

Before setting this minimum, I made sure I was on the same page with my wife (who is providing the kids with a childhood she wished for herself).⁶

A low bar, done daily, is my favorite tactic for extraordinary gains.

• In college, my minimum bar was attend every class and complete every assignment. The one class where I didn’t pull that off was my worst result, and a horrible (but valuable) learning experience. It nearly cost me my honors degree.

• In life, start every day with one action that moves me towards the life I desire.

• In sport, do the work & don’t screw up tomorrow.

When we are not hitting our goals, the first step is lowering the bar. This keeps us in the game. So long as we are in the game, we can improve.

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Motivation

But how do we motivate improvement?

With an appeal to self-interest.⁷

• If we want to convince anyone, of anything, then start by figuring out where their self-interest lies.

• This strategy is even more powerful when we connect with self-image.

There’s no need for threats, intimidation or stress (but a good example up the chain of command helps).

Here’s what I said:

Sweetie, you’re a fantastic swimmer and I know you want to get into a great program. It would be a shame if you have the times for a top program but couldn’t get in because of marks.

What is the minimum required to get into the programs you’ve been looking at?

She went away and discovered it was a B average. I never had to mention “the minimum” again. She owned it.

We were also fortunate when my wife made friends with a retired math teacher (also a swimmer) who was willing to tutor. A new teaching relationship helped our daughter regain her confidence in her most challenging subject⁸.

All credit to the individual, but the right teacher (or coach) can be the difference between success and failure.

Might As Well Win

The turning point happened when our daughter made her own decision to do the work. Self-motivated work, consistent with her self-image and the direction SHE wants to take her life.

Once she committed to doing the work (without threats or follow up) the results started to flow.

This year, she ended up with all As and one B (from a teacher who declined to round up).

Perhaps, like me, she will remember the experience for a long time.

Back to Index

1. There’s so much BS in large organizations, including schools. I find it important to acknowledge this reality with my kids.

2. If you have high standards then you won’t need to remind anyone. It will be obvious.

And if you don’t have high standards then tread with caution. You’ll get a better outcome improving your own game than risking relationships via hypocritical advice.

3. The equivalent statement in the business world is “we don’t fund operating losses.” In a family values system, we might say “every adult earns their own way, to live their life in the manner they see fit.”

4. Many of the travel parents are invested in the lifestyle of fast-kid sport parenting. The lifestyle of these parents isn’t a good fit for me.

5. Swim meets challenge me. The kids miss school, spend money and take my wife away.

6. All children are burdened with the unfinished dreams of their parents. If you can’t see this reality then look closer (both up, and down, the generational tree).

7. Be willing to let people fail. Wait until they come to you. Be prepared with an appeal to self-interest. Do not take ownership of other people’s problems.

Great teachers let things go wrong.

8. Something we’ve seen with all our kids is when they come home complaining about a teacher, it’s worth (immediately) having a look at their performance in the class they are complaining about.