Secrets from the Science of Toddlers » Arcus Consulting Group

Young children have a lot to teach us, and this includes business leaders. From teamwork, to mentorship, to taking risks, young children are often the model of how we can improve our professional lives. Five topics about how toddlers interact with each other and some behavioral insights around their interactions.

Dr. Hasan Merali on the Secrets from the Science of Toddlers for a Happier, More Successful Way of Life. Why we should adopt habits from children to be better leaders ourselves.

Arcus: Tell me about yourself and the work that you do at McMaster

Dr. Merali: I’m a pediatric ER physician and researcher at the Master Children’s Hospital. My research focus is on global health, specifically injury prevention. Most recently, I wrote a book titled, Sleep Well, Take Risks, Squish the Peas: Secrets from the Science of Toddlers for a Happier, More Successful Way of Life. Young children have a lot to teach us, and this includes business leaders. From teamwork, to mentorship, to taking risks, young children are often the model of how we can improve our professional lives. This book, backed by adult leadership research, explains why we should adopt these habits from children to be better leaders ourselves.

Arcus: What motivated you to write the book?

Dr. Merali: I’ve been working in pediatrics for about 15 years now and over this time I’ve shared so many wonderful moments with young children that have inspired me. This is especially true in my work in the ER where I am constantly fixing fractures, suturing cuts, and removing peas and other objects from noses and ears. Young children have an incredible approach to life. They focus on learning (and they do it faster than anyone else) and relationship building through laughter, play, and asking questions. Over time, I saw how their approach to life could help adults and so I dove into the adult business and wellness literature and found that many toddler habits map perfectly onto how we can improve our personal and professional lives. Once I saw that, I knew I had to write this book.

Arcus: You identified five topics in your book about how toddlers interact with each other and some behavioral insights around their interactions. Could you talk the five topics: teamwork, mentorship, self-talk, asking questions and risk taking?

Dr. Merali: Yes, absolutely. Let’s start with teamwork as I think this exemplifies some of the best lessons we can learn from toddlers. It was also my favorite chapter to write as the evidence is so strong. Working with others is something we all do, and we know how important this is. But while adults focus on goals and outcomes, toddlers focus on working with the other person and prioritize this above all else. It’s a unique way to approach teamwork and what this does is build relationships, forms trust, and makes working together more enjoyable.

Let me give you a fun example. The way this is often tested is to give a toddler and an unfamiliar adult a task to work on that requires two people to do. Then, after less than a minute the adult stops working on the project. What do toddlers do? First, they focus on clear communication. They address the other person respectfully and explain what needs to be done in a non-judgmental manner. Next, they go over to their partner and show them what needs to be done. In their mind it is likely that that their partner did not understand the directions so it is their job to communicate clearly and then show their partner what needs to be done so they can complete the task. They are able to eliminate blame from the whole situation, which makes working with them pleasant and effective. A skill we could all improve on.

Arcus: Could we explore mentorship? It is an interesting facet of teamwork. How do you draw the conclusion of mentorship from toddler behaviour?

Dr. Merali: For mentorship, I take a slightly different approach. Toddlers always have caregivers in their lives, whether it be teachers, parents, or other family members. Now while the caregiver relationship is obviously different than a mentor, there are parallels and lessons to be learned.

The first point is that mentorship is important for everyone. One of my favorite studies from the Université de Montreal even demonstrated that“the presence of a criminal mentor is pivotal for achievement over one’s criminal career.” I say this just to drive home the point that mentorship has been shown to improve subjective and objective career success, job performance, and interpersonal relationships.

And there are two important points for mentorship. First, mentors can offer us guidance on the best project to choose to work on. They have the third-party perspective of knowing your skills and helping you choose something that will both challenge you, and that you will enjoy. This type of guidance is incredibly valuable as it helps us persist longer with new endeavours. The second point is that mentors are there to encourage you. Toddlers and preschoolers get an incredible amount of encouragement throughout the day. This is something adults miss out on, but research has shown that motivational language is positively related to innovation, creative idea generation in teams, worker performance, and job satisfaction.

Arcus: The third topic was self-talk and toddlers. For leaders, self-talk is probably about introspection and intellectual humility and to be good listeners?

Dr. Merali: Self talk is a superpower that young children possess, and we don’t use nearly enough. If you’re around any little kid, you will hear them talk out loud about what they need to do and how they are going to do it. They will also sprinkle in some self-encouragement along the way. My favorite example is Aubrin Sage, a 4-year-old whose father decided to put a mic on her as she snowboarded down a mountain. She guides herself through the process, like when to slow down or which path to take, and actually performs better because of this. This type of out loud speech is called private speech, which disappears after about age 5 or 6. However, we can utilize the benefits of this type of self-talk with one simple change: talking to ourselves in the second or third person. And it does not have to be out loud.

If we do this, first, we can become better problem solvers. Using self-talk and referring to ourselves in the second or third person has been shown to help us perform better on tasks, especially if they are more difficult. Furthermore, self-talk can help with emotional self-regulation. This is especially important for stressful situations like public speaking. This small shift in language can influence our ability to regulate thoughts, feelings and behavior in social situations making it easier for us to complete stressful tasks. One of my favorite practical uses of this technique came from a study where supervisors had to give feedback. The people providing feedback were instructed to either use “I” or “my” compared to “you” or their own name when reflecting on the other person’s performance. They found that those people who used second- or third-person speech in their reflection offered feedback that was more positive, warm, and helpful.

Arcus: Apart from empathy, is there a change in how information is received when framed in third person?

Dr. Merali: Yes, talking to ourselves in this way actually decreases reactivity in the emotional center of our brains. When you put people in an fMRI machine, for example, and show them aversive images like a dog bearing down, they have different responses. They can either say “What am I feeling,” or, “What is Hasan feeling.” The latter decreases the emotional reactivity we have, and therefore lets us make more rational, less emotional decisions.

Arcus: This brings us to the fourth topic about “asking questions”.

Dr. Merali: Asking questions is a place where toddlers and preschoolers truly shine! When left to themselves, they can ask 107 questions per hour! And this is important for us, and something we lose. We become more question shy as we get older because of how the questions might make us look. This is a mistake, and something we can certainly learn from toddlers. Not only does asking more questions get us information we need faster and accelerate our learning, what we often forget is that asking questions is an incredibly powerful relationship building tool. This is especially true when someone has answered a question and we ask follow-up questions. It shows the other person we care, are interested, and want to make that connection. Interestingly, research has also shown that this type of questioning makes us more likable to others.

Arcus: And the last topic is about risk taking and confidence.

Dr. Merali: Nobody even comes close to the amount of risk-taking toddlers/preschoolers undertake, and the confidence they demonstrate in everything. You are probably familiar with the classic card matching game where you need to match face down cards with identical ones. In a fascinating study they had adults, third graders and preschoolers guess how many they would get right and then actually perform the task. The adults were relatively accurate, 6% overconfident. The third graders were more overconfident, by 22 percent. And the preschoolers? They overestimated by 147%!

Now of course, they are extreme people, but this highlights the fact that as we age, we naturally take less risks, and often can get paradoxically less confident in our area of expertise. This is something to be aware of, and, taking toddlers as a model, risk taking helps us learn quickly. In the business world, this has been tested with CEOs from more than 1700 companies in 220 industries. CEO confidence and risk taking was measured by how they managed their personal stock portfolio based on the company stocks they had. The researchers found a strong positive effect between CEO overconfidence and firm performance.

Arcus: Risk management is often framed around three scenarios of known-knowns, known-unknowns and unknown-unknowns. Leaders encourage risk taking, but it’s usually designed to contain downside. How does this compare with the behaviour of toddlers?

Dr. Merali: I agree completely. As adults we have more information, and are able to analyze that information better so we should act accordingly. The toddler model is more of a “dive right in!” model. But the point remains that first, we do get less risk tolerant with age and this is something we need to know about, and hopefully act on. In business, study after study has shown there is far less downside to risk taking and failure, than not taking risks at all.

Arcus: Can you share a few insights from your research that surprised you the most, those that were counterintuitive and interesting?

Dr. Merali: One of the most fascinating things I learned about, similar to the simple shifts in language we can make with self-talk, was how easy it could be for us to give ourselves a confidence boost. First, and many of you have probably read the work of Amy Cuddy about power poses, was the fact that our posture does make a difference. While the initial part of this work was debated, what is clear is that avoiding contractive postures is important.

Secondly, the way we dress does make a difference. Young children are always dressing up, usually as superheroes, and they actually become those people in their minds, giving them the confidence to do anything. Similarly, when adults wear certain clothes, they can take on certain qualities, a phenomenon called “enclothed cognition.” This is the influence of the clothes we wear on our minds and so wearing business suits can actually make us better negotiators.

Arcus: Adults generally avoid conflict that can lead to a breakdown in communication because of disagreements. How do toddlers approach conflicts?

Dr. Merali: Having a less developed prefrontal cortex, as toddlers do, is incredibly helpful for them as they are truly able to live in the moment without worrying about the past or future very much. This helps them get over things quicker over time and not worry about what will happen to them next week based on decisions right now. While clearly it is important for us to think about the future, they are better able to deal with the here and now, and because they have such a strong sense of baseline empathy, they usually choose helping behavior over everything else. A wonderful way to live which garners them many friendships.

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