On positive psychology and superpowers
The intersection of focusing on what matters, in one's life and at work, is less similar than we may prefer to believe
There is a common professional and personal growth ideology that suggests that people should invest in their superpowers, rather than address their weaknesses. The counter, of course, is that we all have strengths and weaknesses, and we should apply our strengths, work on weaknesses, and improve holistically. In other words, do you want to be an expert specialist or a well-rounded generalist? This is an evergreen debate at the intersection of personal ambition, societal values, and economic systems like capitalism that promote and benefit from specialization.
When I first learned about the superpower ideology, I was enthralled. How novel. How relieving. I can ignore my weaknesses? I have superpowers? It stroked the ego and alleviated insecurity, at once, with no apparent downsides. That is the dream. Moreover, everyone in the organization would do this, and we’d be capitalist superheroes together. This seemed like a clear path to maximize indulgence of the ego and maximize gross domestic product all at once.
But in truth, like most concepts that exit the private mind or initial application and move into the public domain, nuance was lost almost immediately. People were empowered to call the things they happened to be good at, superpowers. Strengths are not inherently superpowers. For example, a strength might be my ability to synthesize disparate views and lead a team ahead, which maybe 1 in 3 of my other peers could also do equally well. But a superpower, might be the ability to listen closely to anyone in the organization and coach them to address the unspoken risks or opportunities - that only someone who listens with empathy and responds with contextualized wisdom can do. Crudely put into simplistic quantitative terms, the superpower may be something that only 1 in 10 can do, or even 1 in 100 to the same caliber.
A superpower is not merely, “What am I good at?” Remember, the origin of superpowers comes from superheroes, who have abilities like superhuman strength, or x-ray vision, or telepathy, or even flight. Superpowers are usually associated with Wonder Woman and Superman -- not Bob in Marketing. “Good at writing” is not really a superpower. Calling such a mundane ability a superpower would be yet another victim of a culture that has embraced hyperbole in everyday language - the way we dub Bob’s weekend spent building a fence “Awesome” when the team regroups on Monday morning team Zoom, when “Awesome” is truly a term meant for things like majestic mountains. But I digress.
I thought about this because I am reading Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind by Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire. Candidly, I may not normally read this, but my wife gave it to me as a gift.
The book introduces “positive psychology” early in its exploration of creativity and the chronology of its science:
The growth of the field of positive psychology -- spearheaded by Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the late 1990s, and carried on by the numerous positive psychologists featured in this book -- has also contributed substantially to our understanding of creativity and has shed light on the many way that creativity contributes to psychological health and well-being. Indeed, the scientifically rigorous field of positive psychology, which focuses on “nurturing what is best within ourselves” grew out of the humanistic psychology of the mid-twentieth century, a field that emphasized the whole person, creative self-realization, and the many paths of personal growth.
This made me wonder about the intersection of positive psychology, a well-trodden but recent and not resolved field of science, and the unscientific but popular superpower ideology. Indeed, if positive psychology was focused on “nurturing what was best within ourselves”, it had a lot in common with the superpower theory / mythology. Upon further, cursory review, the aspect that felt less similar is the very core definition of positive psychology, which promotes the idea of a ‘good life’ lived through a focus on social ties, physical exercise, meditation, and limited materialism. What could this possibly have to do with the superpower theory? But I wanted to explore whether this could be reconciled.
I was lucky and exhilarated to find reconciliation.
How does focusing on social ties, exercise, and meditation connect to focusing on superpowers in the workplace? How does the promotion of mental well-being rather than a primary focus on rectifying mental illness connect to focusing on superpowers in the pursuit of personal growth? Well, it is quite obvious isn’t it? Positive psychology focuses on those facets of flourishing because its proponents assert that those are the qualities of life that matter, that contribute to happiness, which is selected as what matters in life, as a premise. Likewise, organizations and personal growth experts that advocate focusing on superpowers are impliciting saying, “Those are what matter.” Your weaknesses, if improved, will in all likelihood become neutral (from negative). While that may limit some downside, it won’t nearly pay the dividends that doubling down on a superpower will. A superpower like that mentioned above could be something so rare in the organization that cultivating it and spreading its impact widely will have outsized returns. Whereas a weakness, such as “Emails are not written as concisely as they could be” or “This person could provide the team with better documentation”, tends to be identified through subjective peer feedback, and may take time to correct if ever. Most professionals have anywhere from 10-50 years of experience and are unlikely to change, or at least sustainably so. Therefore, positive psychology and its tenet to focus on the core areas that matter in life - family, spouses, your health - and less on red herrings like materialism as well as trivialities that will not impact happiness - bolsters the superpower theory, although the latter promotes organizational output, not happiness.
Therefore, positive psychology supports, in a metaphorical parallel manner, the superpower theory. However, there is a separate question in the same vein as “Can does not mean should.” In other words, superpowers may maximize organizational output, or increase how high the highs in a personal life are, but it means ignoring real weaknesses. Unlike positive psychology, the superpower theory would mean that a person may not become well-rounded, or may not address weaknesses that the people around them need them to address even if it has limited output impact. As a result, positive psychology should be viewed as a supporting analog to the superpower theory with a lot in common in the idea that one should focus on what matters, not on the totality of what could consume one’s focus. However, in the context of corporate environments and personal growth, focusing on what matters is more subjective than it appears, and we must remember that positive psychology promotes individual happiness, whereas the superpower theory may promote organizational output at the expense of not only individual happiness, but also of cognitive, spiritual, and professional development.