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2016-03-03 09:36:43
Erika Andersen
From the March 2016 Issue
Organizations today are in constant flux. Industries are consolidating, new
business models are emerging, new technologies are being developed, and
consumer behaviors are evolving. For executives, the ever-increasing pace of
change can be especially demanding. It forces them to understand and quickly
respond to big shifts in the way companies operate and how work must get done.
In the words of Arie de Geus, a business theorist, The ability to learn faster
than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.
I m not talking about relaxed armchair or even structured classroom learning. I
m talking about resisting the bias against doing new things, scanning the
horizon for growth opportunities, and pushing yourself to acquire radically
different capabilities while still performing your job. That requires a
willingness to experiment and become a novice again and again: an extremely
discomforting notion for most of us.
Over decades of coaching and consulting to thousands of executives in a variety
of industries, however, my colleagues and I have come across people who succeed
at this kind of learning. We ve identified four attributes they have in spades:
aspiration, self-awareness, curiosity, and vulnerability. They truly want to
understand and master new skills; they see themselves very clearly; they
constantly think of and ask good questions; and they tolerate their own
mistakes as they move up the learning curve.
Of course, these things come more naturally to some people than to others. But,
drawing on research in psychology and management as well as our work with
clients, we have identified some fairly simple mental tools anyone can develop
to boost all four attributes even those that are often considered fixed
(aspiration, curiosity, and vulnerability).
Aspiration
It s easy to see aspiration as either there or not: You want to learn a new
skill or you don t; you have ambition and motivation or you lack them. But
great learners can raise their aspiration level and that s key, because
everyone is guilty of sometimes resisting development that is critical to
success.
Think about the last time your company adopted a new approach overhauled a
reporting system, replaced a CRM platform, revamped the supply chain. Were you
eager to go along? I doubt it. Your initial response was probably to justify
not learning. (It will take too long. The old way works just fine for me. I bet
it s just a flash in the pan.) When confronted with new learning, this is often
our first roadblock: We focus on the negative and unconsciously reinforce our
lack of aspiration.
When we do want to learn something, we focus on the positive what we ll gain
from learning it and envision a happy future in which we re reaping those
rewards. That propels us into action. Researchers have found that shifting your
focus from challenges to benefits is a good way to increase your aspiration to
do initially unappealing things. For example, when Nicole Detling, a
psychologist at the University of Utah, encouraged aerialists and speed skaters
to picture themselves benefiting from a particular skill, they were much more
motivated to practice it.
A few years ago I coached a CMO who was hesitant to learn about big data. Even
though most of his peers were becoming converts, he d convinced himself that he
didn t have the time to get into it and that it wouldn t be that important to
his industry. I finally realized that this was an aspiration problem and
encouraged him to think of ways that getting up to speed on data-driven
marketing could help him personally. He acknowledged that it would be useful to
know more about how various segments of his customer base were responding to
his team s online advertising and in-store marketing campaigns. I then invited
him to imagine the situation he d be in a year later if he was getting that
data. He started to show some excitement, saying, We would be testing
different approaches simultaneously, both in-store and online; we d have good,
solid information about which ones were working and for whom; and we could save
a lot of time and money by jettisoning the less effective approaches faster. I
could almost feel his aspiration rising. Within a few months he d hired a data
analytics expert, made a point of learning from her on a daily basis, and begun
to rethink key campaigns in light of his new perspective and skills.
Self-Awareness
Over the past decade or so, most leaders have grown familiar with the concept
of self-awareness. They understand that they need to solicit feedback and
recognize how others see them. But when it comes to the need for learning, our
assessments of ourselves what we know and don t know, skills we have and don t
have can still be woefully inaccurate. In one study conducted by David Dunning,
a Cornell University psychologist, 94% of college professors reported that they
were doing above average work. Clearly, almost half were wrong many extremely
so and their self-deception surely diminished any appetite for development.
Only 6% of respondents saw themselves as having a lot to learn about being an
effective teacher.
Focusing on benefits, not challenges, is a good way to increase your
aspiration.
In my work I ve found that the people who evaluate themselves most accurately
start the process inside their own heads: They accept that their perspective is
often biased or flawed and then strive for greater objectivity, which leaves
them much more open to hearing and acting on others opinions. The trick is to
pay attention to how you talk to yourself about yourself and then question the
validity of that self-talk.
Let s say your boss has told you that your team isn t strong enough and that
you need to get better at assessing and developing talent. Your initial
reaction might be something like What? She s wrong. My team is strong. Most of
us respond defensively to that sort of criticism. But as soon as you recognize
what you re thinking, ask yourself, Is that accurate? What facts do I have to
support it? In the process of reflection you may discover that you re wrong and
your boss is right, or that the truth lies somewhere in between you cover for
some of your reports by doing things yourself, and one of them is inconsistent
in meeting deadlines; however, two others are stars. Your inner voice is most
useful when it reports the facts of a situation in this balanced way. It should
serve as a fair witness so that you re open to seeing the areas in which you
could improve and how to do so.
One CEO I know was convinced that he was a great manager and leader. He did
have tremendous industry knowledge and great instincts about growing his
business, and his board acknowledged those strengths. But he listened only to
people who affirmed his view of himself and dismissed input about shortcomings;
his team didn t feel engaged or inspired. When he finally started to question
his assumptions (Is everyone on my team focused and productive? If not, is
there something I could be doing differently?), he became much more aware of
his developmental needs and open to feedback. He realized that it wasn t enough
to have strategic insights; he had to share them with his reports and invite
discussion, and then set clear priorities backed by quarterly team and
individual goals, regular progress checks, and troubleshooting sessions.
Curiosity
Kids are relentless in their urge to learn and master. As John Medina writes in
Brain Rules, This need for explanation is so powerfully stitched into their
experience that some scientists describe it as a drive, just as hunger and
thirst and sex are drives. Curiosity is what makes us try something until we
can do it, or think about something until we understand it. Great learners
retain this childhood drive, or regain it through another application of
self-talk. Instead of focusing on and reinforcing initial disinterest in a new
subject, they learn to ask themselves curious questions about it and follow
those questions up with actions. Carol Sansone, a psychology researcher, has
found, for example, that people can increase their willingness to tackle
necessary tasks by thinking about how they could do the work differently to
make it more interesting. In other words, they change their self-talk from This
is boring to I wonder if I could ?
You can employ the same strategy in your working life by noticing the language
you use in thinking about things that already interest you How ? Why ? I wonder
? and drawing on it when you need to become curious. Then take just one step
to answer a question you ve asked yourself: Read an article, query an expert,
find a teacher, join a group whatever feels easiest.
I recently worked with a corporate lawyer whose firm had offered her a bigger
job that required knowledge of employment law an area she regarded as the
single most boring aspect of the legal profession. Rather than trying to
persuade her otherwise, I asked her what she was curious about and why. Swing
dancing, she said. I m fascinated by the history of it. I wonder how it
developed, and whether it was a response to the Depression it s such a happy
art form. I watch great dancers and think about why they do certain things.
Changing Your Inner Narrative
UNSUPPORTIVE
SELF-TALK SUPPORTIVE
SELF-TALK
I don t need to
learn this.
What would my future look like if I did?
I m already fine at this.
Am I really? How do I compare with my peers?
This is boring.
I wonder why others find it interesting.
I m terrible at this.
I m making beginner mistakes but I ll get better.
I explained that her curious language could be applied to employment law. I
wonder how anyone could find it interesting? she said jokingly. I told her
that was actually an OK place to start. She began thinking out loud about
possible answers ( Maybe some lawyers see it as a way to protect both their
employees and their companies ) and then proposed a few other curious
questions ( How might knowing more about this make me a better lawyer? ).
Soon she was intrigued enough to connect with a colleague who was experienced
in employment law. She asked him what he found interesting about it and how he
had acquired his knowledge, and his answers prompted other questions. Over the
following months she learned what she needed to know for that aspect of her new
role.
The next time you re asked to learn something at the office, or sense that you
should because colleagues are doing so, encourage yourself to ask and answer a
few curious questions about it Why are others so excited about this? How might
this make my job easier? and then seek out the answers. You ll need to find
just one thing about a boring topic that sparks your curiosity.
Vulnerability
Once we become good or even excellent at some things, we rarely want to go back
to being not good at other things. Yes, we re now taught to embrace
experimentation and fast failure at work. But we re also taught to play to
our strengths. So the idea of being bad at something for weeks or months;
feeling awkward and slow; having to ask dumb, I-don t-know-what-you
re-talking-about questions; and needing step-by-step guidance again and again
is extremely scary. Great learners allow themselves to be vulnerable enough to
accept that beginner state. In fact, they become reasonably comfortable in it
by managing their self-talk.
Generally, when we re trying something new and doing badly at it, we think
terrible thoughts: I hate this. I m such an idiot. I ll never get this right.
This is so frustrating! That static in our brains leaves little bandwidth for
learning. The ideal mindset for a beginner is both vulnerable and balanced: I m
going to be bad at this to start with, because I ve never done it before. AND I
know I can learn to do it over time. In fact, the researchers Robert Wood and
Albert Bandura found in the late 1980s that when people are encouraged to
expect mistakes and learn from them early in the process of acquiring new
skills, the result is heightened interest, persistence, and better
performance.
I know a senior sales manager from the United States who was recently tapped to
run the Asia-Pacific region for his company. He was having a hard time
acclimating to living overseas and working with colleagues from other cultures,
and he responded by leaning on his sales expertise rather than acknowledging
his beginner status in the new environment. I helped him recognize his
resistance to being a cultural novice, and he was able to shift his self-talk
from This is so uncomfortable I ll just focus on what I already know to I have
a lot to learn about Asian cultures. I m a quick study, so I ll be able to pick
it up. He told me it was an immediate relief: Simply acknowledging his novice
status made him feel less foolish and more relaxed. He started asking the
necessary questions, and soon he was seen as open, interested, and beginning to
understand his new environment.
The ability to acquire new skills and knowledge quickly and continually is
crucial to success in a world of rapid change. If you don t currently have the
aspiration, self-awareness, curiosity, and vulnerability to be an effective
learner, these simple tools can help you get there.
A version of this article appeared in the March 2016 issue (pp.98 101) of
Harvard Business Review.
Erika Andersen is the founding partner of Proteus International and the author
of Growing Great Employees, Being Strategic, Leading So People Will Follow, and
the forthcoming Be Bad First.