Why Tonya‘s story still matters
Lessons from the life of the brilliant figure skater from ‘the wrong side of the tracks’ carry essential insights about the nature of talent and performance.
A new Storyville documentary about Tonya Harding on the BBC is reviving interest in the figure skater. I say reviving… Harding has remained in the public consciousness since her moment in the spotlight -as witnessed by the acclaimed film with Margaret Robbie, I, Tonya.
Thought experiment
Now, here’s an interesting thought experiment. Suppose you could delete from your mind anything you knew about Harding and her rival Olympian, Nancy Kerrigan.
All you have are these facts: Two Olympic figure skaters. One is raised in poverty in Portland, and endured an abusive, volatile childhood, domineering mother, absent father, early marriage, and domestic violence.
The other was raised in a stable, middle-class Massachusetts family, and benefited from supportive parents, steady coaching, and financial backing.
Now, have a guess, which competitor most likely arranged the kneecapping of the other.
If the answer is so obvious that it’s hardly worth stating, that fact alone should give us pause for thought.
While there may have been some sympathy for Harding, none of the details of her hard scrabble background protected her from public vilification. Or our very human tendency to indulge in what the writer Phillip Roth calls ‘the ecstasy of sanctimony’: That intense moral pleasure we get in feeling righteously superior to someone.
Situational factors
And here’s the point. Contrary to our instincts, the evidence repeatedly shows that most behaviour – and therefore, success or failure – comes down to situational factors rather than innate personality characteristics.
While the movie I Tonya is intentionally frank and gritty – and much of it in documentary style, I found myself being more sympathetic to the fictional portrayal, than the real life Harding in the documentary. (Hang on – wait a minute! I was more sympathetic to someone who looked like Margot Robbie?) You take the point. We have a tendency to attribute deeper qualities to better looking people.
The halo effect
The halo effect is well documented in psychology. It’s a cognitive bias where one positive trait (such as physical attractiveness, height, or fitness) spills over and shapes how we judge unrelated traits, like intelligence, competence, honesty, or moral character.
Research by Judge and Cable (2004) found that each additional inch of height is associated with higher earnings and greater leadership emergence, with CEOs of Fortune 500 firms averaging several inches taller than the population mean.
We excessively attribute success to personal qualities, and attribute too little to favourable conditions. And we are particularly biased when judging our own success.
First born advantage
The Harvard Professor and political philosopher Michael Sandel would do an interesting experiment among undergraduates in his lecture hall. Noting that most of them were typically keen meritocrats, convinced that they had earned that place among the elite by their sheer intellect, he would ask them to raise their hands if they were first born in their families. There would be an audible gasp at the sight of such a large majority of hands being raised. Sandel would point out that this comes down to a well-documented social phenomenon known as first born advantage. Excited new parents often lavish the most care and attention to their first child. As a result, oldest siblings tend to be significantly more likely to grow up as confident high achievers. Again, outcomes are situational.
Contextual factors
Just like those Harvard undergraduates, in business and in corporate life, we tend to be deluded. Not only are we very poor at understanding how much we are shaped by situational or contextual factors, we are equally poor at understanding how they shape the performance or achievements of others. And that matters, because corporate life works on a whole machinery of appraisals, evaluations, 360s, candidate assessments and promotions.
When we aim to evaluate others, we are invariably nobbled by a range of well documented cognitive biases. Put simply, we have an intuitive sense that we’re good at it, but the objective evidence tells us repeatedly that we are not.
Fundamental attribution error
At Threshold, we train leaders to give effective feedback. We start by addressing a common cognitive bias called the fundamental attribution error.
This is our tendency to explain other people’s behaviour by who they are. At the same time, we underestimate the impact of the situation they are in.
Humans seem to be almost permanently in the grip of a delusion, that success will come from the ability to pick winners rather than a focus on creating the right conditions for it to flourish.
Think of the decades of research into the efficacy of job interviews, that shows that they are dominated by overconfidence, halo effects, and first-impression bias. Interviewers feel certain, yet the hard evidence shows there is little or no basis for their confidence.
Cohesion, trust and low pressure
Football clubs fixate on changing managers, yet repeated studies show sackings rarely improve results beyond a brief bounce. What really predicts success is the wage bill. Managers who thrive at smaller clubs often struggle at big ones because the conditions that enabled success-cohesion, trust, and low pressure-disappear in the elite environments of bigger clubs. This explains why clubs like Brentford, Brighton and Bournemouth are currently riding high in the English Premier League. Success comes down to the right conditions not the genius of a single manager.
Similarly, in corporate life we frequently see good performers promoted into positions where they subsequently fail. Again, the impact of the conditions for success are underestimated.
The talent myth
Enron, before its descent into ignominy and eventual collapse was, arguably more than any corporation in history, in the grip of the talent myth. It was an organization built on the idea of picking winners. Meanwhile, its internal culture gave rise to conditions that would ultimately prove catastrophic – hubris, internal competitiveness and verbal dishonesty.
The evidence paints a remarkably consistent picture. As a route to success, creating the right conditions repeatedly beats picking winners.
Landmark study
Threshold’s landmark study with YouGov, 2025, shows that the right conditions for success can be brought about by relatively small shifts in the behaviours of line-managers. The result: better listening, involvement, recognition, open communication, trust and psychological safety. All factors that are readily achievable for most teams in most organizations. In short, an environment where most people fulfil their potential.
Harding was phenomenally gifted, and had a first-rate coach, but she could never shake off the conditions that hampered her. The real tragedy is that it’s a story that will repeat… and repeat
To find out how we can help leaders in your organisation to be more impactful, influential and persuasive visit www.threshold.co.uk
