It is no surprise, but everything is changing faster and faster nowadays. In a report by McKinsey, the authors talk about there being four disruptions impacting the global economy, and one of them is the accelerating technological change.
I did a lot of recruitment interviews in my career and one of my favorite questions during a recruitment interview is: “How do you keep your knowledge up to date?”
Taking into account that everything is changing ever more rapidly and that you need to keep up to date with the relevant developments in your profession, learning is mandatory. Keep developing your skills is mandatory, but what if you believe that you can’t keep developing your skills? What if you believe that what you can learn is limited?
First, let’s take a look at some theory. Professor Carol Dweck did research about development. According to Dweck, individuals can be placed on a continuum according to their implicit views of where ability comes from. Some believe their success is based on innate ability: these people are said to have a “fixed” theory of intelligence (fixed mindset). Others, who believe their success is based on hard work, learning, training, and doggedness are said to have a “growth” or an “incremental” theory of intelligence (growth mindset). [source wikipedia]
As always, it depends on many factors what your belief will be. Do you believe you have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset? I think everyone will say they have a growth mindset.
It is the same with Theory X and Theory Y. Are you an X Person? Nobody is an X person. Still, organizations treat their employees like they are X people. Treating people like X people implies you don’t trust them, believe they are only motivated by money, etc. I believe if you don’t trust your team members, you can’t trust them. It will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. What if the same could happen with learning?
What if an organization believes that most of their people have a fixed mindset? Maybe they will not say it out loud or do it on purpose, but what if they treat their workforce as if they have a fixed mindset. If so, why would they invest in personal development more than needed? Why would they organize exploration days? Why would they give team members time off for personal development?
Organizations who believe in a fixed mindset also don’t appreciate failures. They don’t believe failure is a learning opportunity. It is a sign you don’t have the knowledge, it is a failure.
Let’s look at the growth mindset organization. What if an organization believes people have a growth mindset? Managers will stimulate people to learn, and employees want to grow themselves. Exploration Days are organized and people join because they like to learn and explore new stuff. The organization is not afraid of mistakes: nobody is perfect and mistakes are an opportunity to learn. People celebrate learning!
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Dweck believes that the growth mindset will allow a person to live a less stressful and more successful life. One of the 12 Steps of Happiness is also an experiment, and experimenting is equal to learning.
You can help people to develop a growth mindset. You can work to give your organization a growth mindset.
It is about providing feedback on their work and on the effort people put in a task. If you just focus on the result, tell them they are great, smart, etc. they will feel complimented for the knowledge they currently have. If you compliment people for the hard work, learning, and effort, you compliment them on the actual learning and development. You can also challenge people, not with assignments that are impossible but with assignments just outside their comfort zone. Help them, or provide help, to have them bridge the gap between being in their comfort zone and realizing the assignment. By doing this, these people will develop a growth mindset, step by step.
A growth mindset is not there because you just put a lot of effort into learning. It is also about how you learn: achieve something, talk about it, see where you have a further knowledge gap, and then make the next step.
Sounds almost like being Agile, right?
(This article first appeared on LinkedIn.)
Very indightful