A Mind Set for Success
Judith
E. Glaser, author of Creating WE: Change I-Thinking to We-Thinking and Build
a Healthy Thriving Organization, introduces a passage illuminating the
drivers of success from Leadership and the Art of Struggle: How Great
Leaders Grow through Challenge and Adversity, by Steven Snyder.
Often, we mistakenly attribute
business success to the innate abilities of those who achieve it. We assume
that the skills of a Henry Ford, a Steve Jobs, or a Jeff Bezos are somehow
hardwired into their DNA. But neuroscience research suggests that such an
assumption can become a major obstacle to high performance.
As Steven Snyder explains in the
excerpt below, the real secret of success resides in people’s mind-set. He shows
how a “fixed” mind-set that ascribes success to innate qualities is less
resilient and adaptable than a “growth” mind-set that connects achievement to
continuous learning and persistence.
Thus, neuroscience offers a valuable
strategy for leaders who are seeking to develop the talent base of their
organization: Attribute people’s success to what they did to achieve it. And
when they fall short of their goals, use it as an opportunity to encourage the
improvement of existing capabilities and the development of new ones. The
simple distinction between labeling a person as successful or unsuccessful and
labeling what that person did as successful or unsuccessful can make all the
difference as you strive to meet tomorrow’s challenges.
— Judith E. Glaser
An
excerpt from chapter 3 of Leadership and the Art of Struggle: How Great
Leaders Grow through Challenge and Adversity
Consider two leaders who set out on
a complex and difficult endeavor. Let’s call them FM and GM, for reasons that
will become clear in a minute. FM and GM are equally matched with respect to
their abilities and motivation, yet these two leaders approach a task very
differently. FM, a cyclone of unfocused energy, does not learn from feedback
opportunities and appears frenetic, chaotic, and haphazard overall. GM is more
organized and systematic and carefully considers all feedback. FM’s
counterproductive whirlwind is no match for GM’s logical and calibrated
approach, and GM easily outperforms FM by a significant margin. What can
account for such radical differences between two individuals so clearly
matched?
It turns out that FM and GM were
prototypical participants in a very clever psychological experiment. FM refers
to those who approached the task with a fixed mind-set—the assumption that
their abilities were innate and not subject to change. GM refers to those who
approached the task with a growth mind-set—the belief that their ability level
was nothing more than a snapshot in time and eminently changeable as they
continued to learn and develop.
Psychologist Carol Dweck argues that
conditioning, beginning at a very young age, implicitly imposes a fixed mind-set.
Virtually every adult has at some point told a youngster who did something
well, “You are so smart!” According to Dweck, such messages build a belief that
it is our inherent smartness that leads to good performance, not the effort
that is exerted.
Through the associative processes of
the automatic mind, these beliefs become forged with our identity. When things
go well, we think it’s because of how smart we are. When things don’t turn out
as we had hoped, we begin to doubt our ability. In other words, our mental
model implicitly attributes performance—good or bad—to innate capabilities. We
tend to think of capabilities such as problem solving, communication skills,
and leadership as fixed and stable over time, hardwired by our genes. So, what
is so wrong with that?
Quite a bit, actually. This mental
model is a proven recipe for suboptimal performance over the long term. It
becomes especially problematic when individuals with a fixed mind-set suffer a
setback or make a mistake. They automatically associate their disappointing
performance with an immutable deficit in abilities. This can diminish their
confidence and spark an escalating spiral of negative emotion as they compare
themselves unfavorably with others. More time spent in negative ideation means
less time thinking about creative ways to improve performance....
Surprisingly, research shows that a
fixed mind-set can also be detrimental when things are going well. When people
attribute their good performance to their innate ability, they tell
themselves that effort and learning don’t make much of a difference.
Consequently, they select safer, less challenging routes where they can be
assured of success, a pattern that further stagnates their growth.
A leader with a growth mind-set is
consciously aware that ability is not innate and unchangeable but instead a
malleable quality that can continuously be augmented through practice and
persistence. In a growth mind-set, you pay conscious attention to cultivating
abilities through continuous learning. You seek out new learning opportunities
by pursuing challenging assignments instead of taking safer and easier
routes....
Frank Gaudette, the chief financial
officer (CFO) at Microsoft when I was there...had a growth mind-set. Frank had
a favorite expression: “I reserve the right to wake up smarter every day.”
Unfortunately, Frank lost an untimely battle with cancer in the mid-1990s. Still
his witty and humble expression serves as an eloquent reminder that every human
being’s abilities can change: you can get smarter; you can get
better. Frank’s words still echo in my mind and, I am sure, in the minds of
everyone else who was privileged to know him.
There is compelling scientific
evidence that a growth mind-set can significantly improve performance. In the
experiment mentioned earlier, participants with a growth mind-set (GM)
performed significantly better on a difficult managerial decision-making task
than those whose mental models told them that their abilities were innate and
fixed (FM). Participants with a growth mind-set were also more optimistic about
their future performance, set higher personal goals, and used more-effective
strategies than their colleagues.
Another fascinating finding of the
study is that participants who carried a fixed mental model—that is, those who
believed that their performance on the task was a reflection of their innate
ability—actually had higher levels of activity than participants in the growth
mind-set group. They were, however, more likely to spend time on nonproductive
strategies rather than search for the effective strategies that would improve
their performance.
Given that this finding is crucial
to a deeper understanding of the differences between the two mind-sets, it may
be helpful to take a closer look at the different strategies that participants
used to complete the task. Those in the growth mind-set group productively used
the feedback they received and systematically altered each of the variables in
the task to understand and isolate its effect on the outcome. Tapping into
their reflective mind in this way allowed them to deploy wiser strategies in
the later stages as their knowledge of the task improved.
As noted, those in the fixed
mind-set group actually exerted more energy. They altered even more variables
in the simulation task, but did so in an undisciplined and unproductive manner.
In essence their busyness resembled futile thrashing more than effective
problem solving. Instead of incorporating negative feedback to improve
performance, the energy in the fixed mind-set group turned inward, consumed by
an escalating cycle of self-doubt that interfered with both learning and
performance.
Copyright 2013 by Steven Snyder.
Reprinted with permission of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco,
Calif.
No comments:
Post a Comment