When gears are engaged, the desired function is smooth and effortless.
Stop Trying Harder
When gears malfunction and spin separately, then accomplishing the desired outcome is questionable. The small gear may spin on its own but with no leverage from the larger gear, achieving a desired outcome is highly unlikely.
How does this relate to success?
The small gear represents your goals or desired success. The larger gear represents your Mindset or subconscious, the leverage or engine behind success.
We doubt that a well-intentioned, just-try-harder approach will fundamentally improve the quality of executives’ decision-making, training must be broadened to include what is now known about how our minds work and must expose managers directly to the unconscious mechanisms that underlie decision-making.
Banaji, Bazerman, & Chugh Harvard Business Review, December 2003