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One of the most often repeated stories to back up the importance of setting clear goals and targets is the “Yale 1953 Goals Study”. The story takes many forms – but essentially says that in 1953, researchers surveyed Yale’s graduating seniors to determine how many of them had specific, written goals for their future. Twenty years later, the researchers checked with the surviving class members and found that the 3% who had written goals had accumulated more personal financial wealth than the other 97% combined.
It’s a powerful story with a seductive message often told by consultants, coaches and self-help gurus. Unfortunately, it’s just not true. No such study exists.
I seem to be spending much of my time debunking management myths nowadays (see Debunking the myths of non-verbal communication and Challenging the 80:20 rule). This one has been brought back to my attention by a seminar I recently attended run by some business coaches from one of the world’s largest coaching organisations. In this case, the presenters even got the myth wrong – they said it was based on research at Harvard (a mistaken-retelling first done by Bill Phillips in his Body for Life book). They even went into great detail drawing pyramids and talking about how the researchers had gone back 10 years later again to confirm their findings. Now I don’t know if they were just making all this extra stuff up themselves, or if they themselves had been misled by their organisation – but either way, I was flabbergasted at how they were prepared to “educate” their seminar attendees so strongly on something which they hadn’t bothered to check out.
Fast Company magazine, however, did check out the story. They spoke to self-help guru after self-help guru – each passing them on to another guru as the source of their information – yet each happy to write and speak about the study as fact without checking it out. The original source was eventually tracked as far back as Zig Ziglar whose assistant told the magazine that Ziglar’s source was hard to track down as he “reads a lot”.
Thankfully, the researchers were rather more conscientious. They followed up with the secretary of the class of 1953 and a research associate at Yale who told them that from personal experience and an exhaustive search of the archives: there was no such study.
Now this doesn’t mean that written goals aren’t important. Logic and much anecdotal evidence tells us that writing down your (or your company’s) goals can be very helpful in “keeping you honest” and focusing on them. But they probably aren’t as important as the story implies.
Worse: the story also implies that all that was needed to achieve great wealth was to write down goals. Nothing about the persistence and pain needed to stick to them – or the thought and creativity needed to make the goals happen.
For me it also acts as a huge Caveat Emptor for buyers of consulting, training and coaching services. If the people you are considering to be your advisors can’t even take the time to check out whether one of their core assertions is actually true or not – how much can you trust their other advice?
And a message for fellow consultants: check your facts. You do our profession a great disservice by mindlessly repeating “facts” and advice that may not be true at all.
Ian
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{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
This study has been circulating for some many years and recently I heard the same story you have posted.
There was no study.
It’s interesting how we will take anything that sounds like it might be official as take it as gospel without first checking it out.
Great find, Ian
Jim Klein
http://www.fromtheheartsalestraining.com
The popular quote is “98% of all statistics are made up” which I think is appropriate in this case, but highlights our willingness to believe in something just because there is a percentage figure in it.
I have quite a lot of fun with friends making up useless facts and statistics with an almost unanimous response of incredulous awe until I debunk the erroneous fact. You would have thought they would have learned by now, but the power of the “%” still holds sway.
You’re right about the use of a % figure Nesh – things just seem more credible as a result. Wierd!
Ian
Ian
Another thought provoking post from the north of the country… however, I’m going to disagree with the sentiment of your post because I believe you are taking a too purist view on this subject.
I am sure you are right about the goal setting study and I know you are right about old Albert’s study on non verbal communication and how it gets quoted out of context… and I know people who use such studies to illustrate points… I’m one of them.
However, I don’t think it’s as simple as condemning everyone who do not check, or can’t check their information but portray these things as fact… if we did this then there will be a whole profession being condemned… you see, as far as I’m aware there is no scientific proof of the existence of god… so does that mean it’s wrong to preach god’s existence?
Now I don’t want to get into a debate on religion, I just use it to illustrate a point. It’s what I do with Albert’s statistics… it illustrates a point. In the communication sessions that I run, I refer to 7% content, 38% tone and 55% non verbal as a good illustration of the differences between what gets communicated. The reason why this is important is because too many sales people use their proposal as a selling document… proposals are reference documents, they are not sales documents… humans do the selling, or at least they should.
The written word is the weakest form of communication… writers may say it’s the strongest, but it’s not. You have to do an awful lot of work to get the meaning of the message across in the written form… that is why people like Shakespeare have done so well… he was a master of the words, but that’s because his vocabulary range far exceeds most peoples.
Words without tone have less meaning. Try this… write down a whole list of reflective verbs, say 10, and next to each reflective verb write the sentence… ‘I want you to listen to me’… now read out the sentence using the reflective verb as the intention. For example, if you chose ‘frighten’ as one of your reflective verbs then read out the sentence in a way that you want to frighten someone. Do it again, but this time use the reflective verb – ‘console’… same words, but entirely different meaning to the communication.
Now, if you did that exercise with someone on the receiving end but all they could do was hear you… I’m sure they would get the different meaning between the two examples… remember, same words are being used. Now, if you run the exercise again, but this time do in front of people so they could see and hear you, then you will naturally put a whole lot of non verbal communication into the exercise. The message becomes even stronger.
Let me provide another example of non verbal… if you put two people next to each other… they are to keep their collective mouths shut… no words and so no tone. One is totally depressed, the other totally happy. Could you tell which is which?… of course you could… body posture would tell you.
The point I’m trying to make here is that although the actual facts… in black and white… may be unproven… and just because Albert’s study did not prove it, and to the best of my knowledge there has been no other study to disprove it either… it does not mean the sentiment of the message is wrong. Communication is made up of words, tone and non verbal. Non verbal is probably larger than words and non verbal larger than tone… is it 7%, 38% and 55%… probably not, but the numbers are good to illustrate the point. So, does it really matter that such things are taken out of context from the original study if it illustrates the point?… if it does make a difference, then you need to condemn everyone who shares their beliefs, but can’t provide ultimate proof.
Hi Colin,
As you’d expect, I stand by my condemnation. Perhaps I need to expand to clarify though:
I have no problem at all with people believing and saying (for example) that non-verbal communication is important, maybe more important than verbal. There’s plenty of debate to be had there and there is no definitive answer (in fact what I would argue is that the phrase “more important” in this context is meaningless – it’s like saying the hydrogen is more important than the oxygen in making water).
My belief though is that if you use the Mehrabian study as “evidence” for your beliefs or opinions to try to prove the belief to be a “fact” then you are misleading people. Why do you need these numbers to prove a point? If you believe that non-verbal communication is far more important than verbal then use a guess of 80% or whatever and state it as a belief or estimate to illustrate your point. That will give your point the appropriate strength – it’s an opinion based on experience and some indicative but inconclusive studies (or whatever). But if you use exact figures like 7%, 38% and 55% and quote a scientific study (that didn’t in fact show what you’re claiming) then you are implying much more “fact” than is justified.
As an example, personally I believe passion is a key characteristic of a salesperson. I have personal experience and anecdotal evidence from others to back this up. If I wanted to put a figure on it I might say that I believe that 50% of a salespersons performance is driven by their passion for their products. That’s fine. But for me to say that a study by Mr XXX at university YYY proved that it was 53.2% would be wrong. It’s not true, and it gives undue weight to my opinion.
So as I say, I have no problem with the expression of opinions, beliefs, etc. But I believe that the language used to express those opinions and beliefs (especially when you’re teaching and training) must relect the evidence to support them. By using appropriate language (and, you could argue, using the appropriate non-verbal communication too), we convey the appropriate attitude to the “status” of the opinion.
So that’s my point – not that it’s wrong to state beliefs – just that you should use appropriate language (and non-verbal communications) when doing so.
By the way, on the non-verbal communications front – my follow-up post (Postscript to Debunking the Myths of Non-Verbal Communication) shows my expanded thoughts. In summary, I believe that any attempt to quantify the “importance” of each component of communication is a huge oversimplification which can actually distract us from real learnings about the different elements. For example, as Mehrabian showed, body language has a vital role in communicating emotion. But the words themselves are clearly more important for communicating facts and data – try explaining the offside rule using body language only for example. In fact, come to think of it, charades only works because you need words to communicate certain specifics – like the name of a film. So as I say – the idea that non-verbal communication is “more important” than verbal is not right or wrong – it’s far too simplistic.
Ian
Thank you for your further clarification… and on your further musings I would agree with you. If someone puts forward the 7%, 38% and 55% and then refers to the study as proof that these figures are correct, then they are wrong.
I mentioned that I use those figures… I do… I also refer to Albert and his study… and point out that his study does not in fact refer to the way the figures are portrayed… however, by mentioning the figures the audience have an appreciation for the differences in communication. I put forward that whatever the correct figures are… each element has a role to play… and when teaching sales people I don’t see a problem with making things simple… the simpler the better and my point is made… you can’t use words alone to sell… all buying is based on emotion (my theory… no scientific evidence… but it has to ‘feel’ right for someone to buy)… and as you say, body language portrays emotion, as does tonality.
So, I think we are in agreement… just using different words to explain… and that could be a whole different post… language… the barrier to communication!
I think you’re right about broad agreement Colin.
What annoys me – OK, I’ll be honest, what has anoyed me on 7 seperate occasions in the last 6 months – has been when I’ve seen so-called experts (us consultants) present the 7%, 38%, 55% numbers as absolute fact without any conception of where the numbers came from, how accurate they are, what they really mean, etc. They heard it from someone and didn’t bother to check it out. Unlike you, they wouldn’t know Mehrabian from Adam. They just heard a number and decided to use it to “make their point” without any thought as to their responsibility to their audiences to present a reasonably accurate picture.
Ian
Hi Ian,
I really enjoyed your post, I like to research facts and data behind studies too and like you, have read up a little on Mehrabian’s study. However, I haven’t read up on the goals study – in fact, I was trained by “the world’s largest business coaching organisation” and they do state a lot of figures as facts.
Another “fact” that’s often stated is that 90% of franchises are successful after 5 years and that 80% of other startup businesses go bust within 12 months. On the face of it, it appears to make sense. However, if you do a bit of digging the numbers simply don’t exist to back up the study. I know – I’ve done the digging.
The best figures I could find come from the International Franchise Research Centre, a part of the University of Westminster in London if I recall correctly. They suggest that a franchise is marginally less likely to succeed over 6 years than a non-franchise business with similar funding. Makes interesting reading, if somewhat dry.
I think part of the challenge is that there is so much written these days that we have to accept some of it at face value and, while it’s good to say “I believe this figures to be accurate”, it doesn’t always make good educational content if we’re always qualifying what we say.
The idea of having goals in life as a positive way of achieving more than you could without is a great example of this. I didn’t know that there was no such study, although I have read the “facts” of the story in various articles and papers, including one from a large consultancy based in London.
There’s a whole industry based on the idea of getting clear goals and keeping yourself focussed on them. The concept of The Law of Attraction is precisely this idea of having a goal and thinking about it, in a positive way, on a frequent basis.
For me, the goal when working with a client or classroom full of clients is to educate and inspire them in order to achieve the results they desire. In the same way that believing in Father Christmas is something that gets kids motivated and excited, belief in the power of goals can help people achieve extra-ordinary things.
I don’t quote the stats as per the non-existant Harvard study, but I do make sure that clients have clear goals that excite and inspire them. Otherwise, it’s just a case of getting out of bed every day and turning the handle for “another day at the office”.
Hmm, I’m possibly rambling a bit here! I suppose in summary, I’m agreeing with the sentiment of your comments, but I’m not so quick to condemn useful presentations that help people to get more out of their lives than they currently are doing. Obviously I’d prefer facts, but vaguely saying “I believe in this and it might help you to go along with it too” isn’t going to inspire the same level of confidence as quoting specific figures.
Of course, if you’re trying to educate clients about stats, that’s the right thing to do.
On the other hand, if your role is to lift your client’s performance to a whole new level, then using figures you believe to be accurate without hedging your words around it has a better chance of helping them to help themselves. Of course, that’s just a personal belief
Thanks for a thought provoking blog entry, excellent stuff.
Cheers,
Lee Duncan
“People don’t go into business just to survive, but that’s what so many end up doing”
Another great comment Lee. I wasn’t aware of those franchise figures – very interesting – and amazing ow much we’ll all “swallow” without checking up.
Regarding your last point, I’ve just started reading Karl Albrecht’s “Practical Intelligence”. Among many great points, he talks about how society has many more “sheep thinkers” than “deep thinkers” – and that, sadly, the “sheep thinkers” are eaily manipulated because “they like having clear and simple answers, value having firm opinions, an are utterly convinced they think for themselves.”
I think this highlights a huge dilemma for educators and consultants. Do we inspire more confidence by being firmer in our statements (which means most people are more likely to take positive action as a result) or do we be more circumspect, allow people to make their own conculsions, but risk a weaker message and less action.
My experience is like yours – a firmer message has more chance of helping them. But essentially it’s manipulative. There may even be a chance (slim for us, I know
) that we’re actually wrong, and we’re misleading them. Perhaps their’s a better way. One that doen’t oversimplify in order to inspire. I wish I had such a method!
Ian
Fact: I discredit people that spew facts
Fact: No one can say with 100% certainty that any survey provides statistics that are factual unless that survey includes the planet. Even if the Yale study were true, who is to say the in 1954 or at Cambridge, the people who did not write down goals did not put a whooping financial on the goal setters. What if someone wrote down the goal of curing the ill, would that effect the survey. You bet your northern soil.
Fact: Consultants, by and large, talk out of their backside. Why? Because they are used to people listening to them.
Fact: I am now spewing facts, therefore in accordance with fact #1, have been discredited.
Lol – I’m now trying to dig up some statistics on “how much has Karl had to drink before posting….”
I love that you are debunking myths! So many of us simply believe statistics and “facts” that have been quoted by credible sources. Not too long ago, there was a tornado in downtown Atlanta that damaged the GA Dome (a massive, enclosed stadium). A few days later, I was watching TV when some sports announcers made the statement that the GA Dome had sustained $150 million in damage! They said this as if it were fact but for it to be true the dome would have to be nearly leveled. Turns out the damage estimate was for the entirety of downtown Atlanta. Not an insignificant difference.
Hi Ian, a great reminder to all of us in the training and development field that what we teach really matters! I’m a naturally skeptical person, so your post makes me very happy!
Ian, I am having a great time watching you debunk myths. I have always thought it was silly that simply writing down goals would make you more likely to achieve them. In order to help at all you need to make sure you are actually monitoring those goals and actively taking steps to move towards them. I wrote a great post on goal setting the other day and while I did not quote the infamous Yale study I did support the idea of writing down your goals. Thankfully I am assuming that the purpose of this post was not to debunk the idea of writing down, tracking and monitoring goals but rather to make a excellent point on the need to check facts before quoting studies.
I am a big fan of checking out studies and reading the fine print. My favorite stats to make fun of are the ones in commercials. Take 9 out of 10 dentist prefer Crest. Its really only meaningful when you know what the other options are. Wood chips? ground cement? Ok, I’m being a bit extreme here, but like others have said there is a lot to be learned by reading the details of a study.
Ian:
Thanks for debunking this myth. I have been passing it on for years. Both embarrassed and relieved, I can now stop.
Ford
Ian,
Congrats on writing a thread that’s really got people engaged.
To Brad – the Crest study, and other similar ones for not-quite pharmaceutical products are promoted as if they’ve gone through huge studies.
The facts behind them are actually quite scary – often the sample they use is between 30-150 total respondents.
I can remember the facts behind one study, when you read the small print, said they’d asked something like 114 people. Not something I’d trust to base my judgement on.
The best advice for toothcare products? Ask your dentist!
Back on the topic of goals, early this week I decided to make my business 100% referral based by the end of the year.
To make it work in terms of keeping my diary full, I’d like this to build a large client bank plus a waiting list of clients for my services too.
I decided on the goal on Monday. On Tuesday, a client was asking me the best way to refer me.
Today, a client rang and told me that “I’ve got 3 3 clients for you, and I’m working on another one too.”
Meanwhile, at a new client today, just as I was leaving, I was told, “Oh, I’ve referred you to a friend in Oxford who could really use your help…”
I know on the face of it, that this may seem like coincidence. However, having done this for some time, I’ve never had so many referrals from so many people.
Clearly by having the goal on my mind, I’m oozing some kind of referral-magnet hormone that’s working!
I’ve seen this time and time again, in myself and especially in clients. I think it’s down to subconsciously positioning ourselves to achieve the goal if we’re really committed to it.
In psychology, they call it the Reticular Activating System. It’s the bit of our brains that guides us to see the things we’re looking for.
Interesting stuff,
Oh, and Sales Trainer – I’m surprised that your are so quick to dispel people who use facts when they talk. I like to make sure that some of their facts tie up with things I already know, then listen carefully to learn new stuff too.
It seems to me that an open mind is far more likely to learn and usefully apply new ideas than one that’s made it’s mind up based on a superficial rule with no real basis. Or have I misunderstood what you wrote (or perhaps over-reacted to a bit of sarcasm)?
Lee
Lee – I am certain “Sales Trainer” – my friend Karl Goldfield – was either being sarcastic, or was drunk for his first post!
Regarding the Reticular Activating System – another friend, Craig Elias talks about it in slightly different terms on his blog Shift Selling: http://www.shiftselling.com/2008/04/29/trigger-events-and-selective-perception/
All interesting stuff.
Ian
Really a great stuff & useful information. Fantastic post about training & development field that really was a needed factor for any business.