Delayed Gratification – What would you choose?

I’m going to pick up where I left off again and hopefully bang the drum a little louder this time on some similar themes from my last post. There are all kinds of studies about delayed gratification; probably the most notable was done in the 1960′s by Stanford University psychology researcher Michael Mischel. His study demonstrated how important self-discipline is to success.

The study began with a group of children four years old. He optionally offered them one marshmallow immediately, but instead if they could wait for him to return later, they could have two marshmallows instead. He left for approximately twenty minutes. His theory? The children that could wait would demonstrate they had the ability to delay gratification and control impulse, both significant and important traits for attaining wealth and being financially successful. As you would expect, some children took one marshmallow, and other children decided to wait and received two later.

Fourteen years later, the simple study demonstrated the significant differences between the two groups of children. The children who delayed gratification and waited until Dr. Mischel’s return were more positive, persistent when faced with life difficulties, more self motivated and were able to delay immediate gratification in order to pursue their longer term goals.

The children who chose 1 marshmallow didn’t fare as well. They were more indecisive, mistrustful of others, less self confident and often more troubled in general. They were more obviously unable to delay immediate gratification. It has also been proven over time that a lack of impulse control has proven to result in less successful marriages, low job satisfaction, bad health, overall frustration in life.

So what do marshmallows have to do with business you ask?  In today’s world of pressure to perform, emphasis on quarterly results and what have you done for me lately sales cultures it is often a tough choice to delay the immediate gratification of known results for the possibility of improved results in the future. I would argue that the trap of rushing toward an easy solution, the known quantity and fast implementation has it short-comings when making a business decision regarding improved sales,  just as the shortsighted decision of a four year old that chooses one marshmallow now instead of two later.

In the business world, and in my last blog post, we speak of the concept of opportunity cost. We can use opportunity cost to talk about this dilemma as well. The topic comes up regularly for me, as I discussed previously, and because for Gimbal Systems Sales Success process to work we need time with the top sales people, which can take them away from production. The result is an opportunity conversation needs to happen, because leadership must make a choice between their top sales people’s production or their time to contribute to future learning’s and improved sales of others. Put another way, one marshmallow now or two later?

Most learning and development professionals are all too familiar with the classic opportunity cost analysis. The formula is to measure lost productivity due to being in the training and compare that to the projected results that come from the learned skills to try and decide what to do and determine how long it will take to make up for the lost results. A colleague of mine used to call it “the horns of a dilemma.” The trade off is between the results today or presumably better results tomorrow. This kind of analysis gets even harder when you start talking about leadership development training, which we at Gimbal Systems are also passionate about, instead of sales.

Ultimately, there is not an easy answer either way or a silver bullet when it comes to measuring the results. My goal again this month is to try and raise awareness and get people to make a more conscious choice. So as we finish up the crazy season of the holiday’s, year-end reviews and the new year planning, I hope those that are considering big purchases, especially sales training, will stop for just a moment and consider if they are falling for the same trick a four year old does. Ask yourself if you have seriously considered an alternative solution, one that may take a little longer and may cause some short-term pain or sacrifice but is ultimately built from within and provides a better and longer lasting payoff in the end.

Let me know what your choice would be and why.