The Marshmallow Test Revisited
Too Long, Didn’t Read: Increase success by doing instead of planning.
Teams : Masters of Business Administration Students (MBAs) vs Kindergartners
Challenge : Build the highest tower with the given materials
Winner : Kindergartners (if they did not eat everything first!)
Why did MBAs lose to 6-year-olds? Dharmesh Shah, HubSpot's Co-Founder explained his success as:
"A combination of dreaming really big and iterating really small and having tight feedback loops" - Dharmesh, My First Million Podcast
He gave an example of this approach: The Marshmallow Challenge
Teams get a marshmallow, spaghetti, tape, string, and 18 minutes. Highest tower wins. Simple.
Why do MBA graduates perform poorly? What did they do in 18 minutes?
Introductions
Study the problem
Assign everyone tasks
Plan a structure design
Build their structure carefully
Start to run out of time and rush
Place marshmallow as the build falls
Compare this to Team Kindergarten:
Start building
Pick up any fallen pieces
Figure out what did not work
Consider eating the marshmallow
Repeat steps 1-4 until the timer rings
One team plans. The other team does.
Team Kindergarten had a tight feedback loop. They would start building. Then fail. Then build again. Do. Fail. Learn. Repeat.
10 minutes into the challenge- Team MBA have built zero towers. How many times do you think Team Kindergarten failed before Team MBA finished introductions?
Stop planning. Stop thinking. Start doing.
There is value in thinking ahead. But what if your plan stinks? Do not wait until the 17th minute to figure this out! Do. Fail. Learn. Repeat.
I have fallen into the trap. Constantly thinking. Constantly planning. But never doing.
For example, I have re-read Buffett’s letters multiple times. But did I get more value from reading the letters for the 6th time or from reading about a random industry?
There is value in listening to others. But that learning means nothing if I spend zero time applying it to businesses. Do not fall for the same trap that I did!
"The person that turns over the most rocks wins the game" - Peter Lynch
Anyways, back to rock flipping.