Mindsets for Lifelong Learning

1. Focus on growth

Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, who has studied learners intensively, has concluded that the type of mindset that a person has will have a significant impact on how much that person learns. In her 2006 book

Mindset, she differentiates between people with fixed mindsets and those with growth mindsets. These two models predict how much effort learners will expend, how much risk they will take, how they will perceive criticism, and whether they will be willing to accept and learn from failures. People with fixed mindsets believe their potential is finite, based on their genes, heritage, socioeconomic background, and / or opportunities. They might say “I’m bad at public speaking, so I should avoid it” or “I’m not a good learner, so I shouldn’t take the courses offered by my company.” In contrast, people with growth mindsets believe their true potential is unknown because they cannot foresee what they might achieve when they approach something with passion, effort, and practice. They perceive challenges as opportunities for personal growth.

Other studies also suggest that intelligence is not fixed at birth but can be developed over time. Many studies have confirmed that it is not just intelligence that creates expertise, but also effort and practice—that is, hard work.3 The most successful people devote the most hours to deliberate practice, tackling tasks beyond their current level of competence and comfort, observing the results, and adjusting. Such studies show that intelligence can be developed, and that there are much less limitations on what we can learn throughout our lives than conventionally assumed. Indeed, the brain is like a muscle that gets stronger with use, and learning prompts neurons in the brain to make new connections.4

One fascinating study illustrating this began in 1932, when the entire population of Scotland’s 11-year-olds—87,498 of them—took IQ tests. Sixty years later, the test was repeated, with 500 of the original individuals participating. The results showed a .66 positive correlation between advancing age and improved IQ. That is, it showed that the average individual IQ scores at age 80 were much higher than scores at age 11. A completely different perspective on IQ was introduced in 2008, when researchers administered tests to the ten best chess players in the world and discovered that three had below-average IQs (Mackintosh, 1998). How was this possible?

The most successful people practice for the greatest number of hours to push themselves beyond their current levels of competence and comfort (and also to build their Authentic Confidence). They also are lifelong learners who are committed to growth mindsets and believe they have an endless capacity to learn. It is that attitude that makes them valuable workers who can constantly master the new skills they need in the changing job market.

2. Become a serial master

To stay employable, workers will need to develop deep expertise in multiple areas over the lifespan of their careers. In her book The Shift (2011), London Business School professor Lynda Gratton argues that we have seen the end of the ‘shallow generalist’ who knows a little about a lot of different topics. In a world of Wikipedia and instantly accessible information, surface-level knowledge is useless. Workers in the 21st century will depend on their intellectual capital to bring value. For many years, people have followed a T-shaped profile of knowledge mastery, developing deep expertise in one discipline early in their careers and supplementing this with broad competencies gained on-the-job. But this model is no longer sustainable; today, they must develop M-shaped profiles of knowledge.

More specifically, as relevant skills become the currency of business and people stay in the workforce longer, workers will need to develop deep expertise in a number of different areas over the course of their careers. They will have to combine that deep expertise with broader knowledge they acquire on the job. For instance, a journalist might enter the workforce with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. As she specializes in business reporting, she might pursue a master’s degree in business economics. As economics becomes more complex over the next decade, she might enroll in classes on related topics such as digitization. She will need to constantly evaluate the sell-by date of her current skills and add new ones that might be more useful. That is the only way she—and workers like her—will continue to create value and stay employed.

In the past, a manager might develop a T-shaped profile of knowledge—a broad general business understanding complemented by deep expertise in one subject. But tomorrow’s workers will need to develop an M-shaped knowledge profile as they supplement their general knowledge with a series of deeper skill sets, as visualized in the figure below.

Source: Van Dam (2016)

3. Stretch

Many researchers, including Andy Molinsky (2017) of Brandeis International Business School, have suggested that learning only takes place when people move beyond their comfort zones and into learning zones where they acquire new knowledge and practice new skills. After they develop proficiency in these new areas, their learning zone becomes part of their comfort zone—and they can stretch themselves into a new learning zone once again. When people are engaged in tasks within their learning zone, they are exposed to risk and stress. Harvard psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dodson have proposed the Yerkes-Dodson Law, which describes a strong relationship between an increase in stress and the enhancement of performance—but only to a point. Beyond a certain level, an increase in stress can cause anxiety, having a negative impact on performance. Therefore, it is important for people to expand their comfort zones with the right new tasks and at the right pace, which varies by individual.

A tool to support reflection on this is the S-curve model of growth and development, which we presented as part of the Operating Model tool in Chapter 10. In business terms, the S-curve explains how ideas and products spread through society—slowly at first, until the adoption rate reaches a tipping point to then progress with mounting swiftness, to slow down later. The S-curve business model was developed in the 1960s, but in a September 3, 2012, Harvard Business Review article, Whitney Johnson and Juan Carlos Méndez-García explore how human learning follows a similar pattern. Whenever people start new jobs or take on new responsibilities, they launch their own S-curves. At the beginning—as they learn about colleagues, stakeholders, processes, information systems, and organizational cultures—progress is slow, implying they have limited impact in their jobs. Then they reach an inflection point, gaining competence and confidence in their new roles, quickly accelerating their abilities, and having a progressively greater impact on the business. After they have been in their roles for a certain period of time, they reach the upper flat part of the S-curve, losing the sense of excitement in the role, stalling out in their personal development, and reducing their impact on the business.

At McKinsey, for example, the well-known management consulting firm, the S-curve model is used to support the learning and development agenda, as well as the career progression of consultants and partners globally. It illustrates that if people continue to stay in roles where they are no longer emotionally charged and motivated, they might start to perform poorly, and their performance will stall. It also helps to identify the number of barriers that might hinder them from stretching, thus preventing them from unlocking their full potential. For instance, a low level of self-confidence can have a huge negative impact on a person’s ability to grow or learn. Reflecting on where you are on the S-curve can help you design support mechanisms to continue your learning and growth process.

4. Build your personal brand and network

We all create our own personal brands that differentiate us from co-workers and competitors. Key elements of a personal brand include a clear value proposition, a personal story, authenticity, expertise, consistency, visibility, and connections. Smallwood and Ulrich describe a number of steps people should take to shape their personal brand: Determine the results they want to achieve in the next year, decide what they wish to be known for, define their identities, construct and test their personal brand statements, and make their brand identities real. In the future, people will need to rebrand themselves multiple times during their careers as they develop different skill sets and play new professional roles. Many will earn additional credentials from online vendors such as Coursera, edX, Linda.com, and Udemy, which all offer digital badges that individuals can post on their social media sites. Thus, these badges become part of each individual’s brand, and social networks become a way for workers to extend their brand reach.

Social networks also can be useful when workers are looking for jobs. In an August 21, 2015, article in the Financial Times , John Gurskey of Melbourne Business School suggests that hiring managers often reach out to their professional networks before they even advertise a job opening, asking if anyone knows of someone who would be a good fit for the position. In addition, INSEAD’s Herminia Ibarra says the social networks are valuable because they help individuals stay informed, make them more innovative, encourage them to learn new things, and act as sounding boards. The most useful networks, write Karie Willyerd and Barbara Mistick in the book Stretch (2016), are diverse ones with people who can provide different connections, insights, and career opportunities.

5. Own your development

Because tomorrow’s workers are unlikely to stay at one job for their entire career, they can no longer expect a single employer to direct them along their career development paths. What is more, as the century wears on, more and more of workers will be self-employed. Currently, one-third of all U.S. workers—are freelancers or contractors. There are approximately 19.2 million self-employed people working in the European Union, as of 2020. (Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/946989/self-employed-persons-in-eu/.

Many U.S. employers have indicated that they plan to increase their numbers of contingent or part-time workers in the coming years. In 2012, Sociologist Richard Greenwald emphasized the growing and important role of freelancers in modern society.

This means that both company employees and contract workers will need to make their own investments in their development and education. To do so, they should follow the following critical steps: o Create and execute learning goals. They should ask themselves, “How can I ensure that I’m more valuable at the end of the year than I was at the beginning?” They should assess their competency gaps and focus relentlessly on their most important learning objectives, writes strategy consultant Dorie in Harvard Business Review. As she notes, too many people focus only on achieving quick wins instead of on gaining long-term competitive advantage. o Work with mentors and seek feedback. They should look inside and outside of their companies to find mentors who will offer guidance, and who will provide a model positive behaviors. They should also make it clear to various stakeholders—supervisors, peers, direct reports, and clients—that they are open to feedback that will help them improve performance. o Measure progress. They should use learning journals or logs to track what they have learned that has been particularly valuable and to assess the progress they have made. o Make personal investments of time and money. In their book Immunity to Change (2009), Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey suggest that people who take ownership of their development will be able to answer the question, “What is the one thing you are working on that will require that you grow to accomplish it?” They also will be able to explain how they are working on this, who else knows and cares about it, and why this competency matters to them.

6. Do what you love

Apple visionary Steve Jobs once said,

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. … Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

People will spend eight or more hours a day at work for the 40 or 50 years of their careers. It is essential that they do what they love, because work has such a huge impact on their health and well-being.

In his book What Makes Life Worth Living? (1996), Gordon Mathews of the Chinese University of Hong Kong describes the Japanese concept of ikigai, which translates to “a reason for being” or “a life worth living.” It encompasses all elements of life, including work, hobbies, relationships, and spiritual beliefs. Mathews believes that when people discover their ikigai, they find satisfaction and meaning in life. But ikigai can be even more powerful. In a 2008 article in ‘Psychosomatic Medicine’, Toshimasa Sone and co-authors studied more than 43,000 Japanese adults and found that the risk from all-cause mortality was significantly higher among those who did not find a sense of ikigai. The Japanese believe that people can achieve ikigai by answering four questions, which can be found in the book Ikigai by Héctor García and Francesc Miralles (2017): (1) What do you love?; (2) What does the world need?; (3) What can you be paid for?; and (4) What are you good at? Individuals will identify their ikigai at the intersection of these insights. Figure 47 visualizes the ikagi concept.

Source: Based on Garcia and Miralles (2017:9)

You will recognize this graphic from Chapter 5. Not everyone will find ikigai at the workplace. For instance, one person might see work simply as a job: s/he is motivated by financial rewards and has the goal of buying material objects. A second person is seeking a career: s/he is motivated by the desire for success, and her/his objective is to achieve tangible milestones. But the person who considers work a calling will find it brings her/him ikigai. This person is motivated by the work itself, because it serves a cause s/he believes in or it brings her/him deep personal satisfaction. Although organizations have a great responsibility to provide a context for meaning, those who want to be satisfied in their jobs need to take steps to create a calling for themselves. Lifelong learners will constantly refine their skills as they look for new ways to stay engaged in and passionate about their work.

7. Stay vital

Finally, the most successful individuals will be those who make it a priority to stay vital by paying attention to different dimension of their body, mind and purpose & meaning as showed the following illustration.

Source: Vitality Model (2020), Dr. Noémie Le Pertel and Dr. Nick van Dam

As explained before, healthy sleep is much more important for learning than many people realize. It has a huge impact on our ability to acquire and retain knowledge, and it also can affect attention, concentration, creativity, development of insight, pattern recognition, decision-making, emotional reactivity, socio-emotional procession, and the ability to develop relationships of trust. All of these abilities are necessary for workers who want to succeed in tomorrow’s workforce.

Your scores

Please find your scores on each mindset in the figure below. The maximum points for each dimension is 35.

About

Nick is an internationally recognized thought leader, advisor, keynote speaker, researcher, facilitator and best-selling (co) author of more than 25 books on Corporate Learning and Leadership Development. Dr. van Dam has over 25 years of business experience as a former Partner, Global Chief Learning Officer, HR-Executive, and Client Advisor at McKinsey & Company as well as at Deloitte. As an advisor, he has served more than 100 clients around the world.

Roles: L&D Scientist | Bestselling Author | Speaker & Lecturer | Advisor

Dr. van Dam serves on the IE University Board of Directors and is Chief Learning Officer. He is the Chief of the IE Center for Corporate Learning Innovation and a member of the IE Center for Health, Wellbeing and Happiness. Nick is Professor at IE University, Nyenrode University and the University of Pennsylvania. He is the Academic Director of a number of programs including the Global Master Program L&D Leadership and Master Program HR Leadership. He is affiliated with McKinsey & Company as an External Senior Advisor and Faculty member.

Nick has written numerous articles for various publications and has been quoted by Harvard Business Review, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and Business week, India Times, Information Week, Management Consulting, CLO Magazine and TD Magazine. Under the patronage of the European Parliament Federal Ministry of Education & Research, he received the 2013 Leonardo European Corporate Learning Award for “shaping the future of organizational learning and leadership development.¨

Nick is the founder of the e Learning for Kids Foundation, which has provided free digital lessons for more than 25 million underprivileged elementary school children.

https://www.e-learningforkids.org/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickvandam/

https://www.nickvandam.com/