Delayed Rewards. A Marshmallow Test for Companies

Photo by Leah Kelley from Pexels

In the early 1970s, a Stanford professor named Walter Mischel conducted a series of studies on delayed gratification.

In one of these experiments, a research assistant offered a child a marshmallow, explaining that if they could only wait to eat the sweet treat until the researcher returned, they would receive an additional marshmallow. The researcher then left the room, leaving the child alone with their dilemma.

The researchers tracked the children decades after the experiment and discovered that those who had been able to resist temptation, had generally achieved greater health, education and professional success than the children who ate the marshmallows straight away.

In this post, I will argue that a similar marshmallow test can be performed on companies to predict their future market success.

From the Savannah to the Boardroom

The main point of Mischel’s study is that agency — in a psychological sense — is a…