Lessons from Columbia Business School

One of the best lessons I learned at Columbia Business School:

In a half-credit class in "organizational behavior" which no one took seriously, the instructor had us play a game called "find the spot on the wall." He took two kids out in the hall, by coincidence both were really smart, motivated etc... then the class picked a spot on the wall.

He instructed the class, when 'Jane" comes in, tell her "find the spot on the wall", and the closer she gets, cheer. The further away, go silent. For John, do the opposite. The closer he gets, say nothing, the further away, do whatever you want short of actually hurting him.

Jane comes in, we say find the spot. Jane starts looking, we cheer. She finds the spot in 30 seconds. Game over, that was easy!

Then 'John' comes in. (And for reference, John later spends the summer at McKinsey, gets the "good job" at Goldman investment banking and goes on to greater things. Just not in this next ten minutes.)

John walks right past the spot, and we start yelling at him, then he gets closer and we say nothing but he misses the spot anyway (twice). He starts to get aggravated, though some of the class are having a great time at his expense! After 2.5 minutes, John NEVER finds the spot. Prof ends the game.

Environment and encouragement matter. And as leaders we have a choice. Teaching the lesson about how not to fail is different then encouraging a path to success.