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How is your attitude about your abilities affecting your success?
你对自己能力的态度将影响你的成功
In the business world, we're schizophrenic about leadership. We instinctively prize innate leadership. And although companies are clearly in the leader-creation business, how far does the tolerance for believing that you can grow your skills go?
在商业世界里 , 人们对领导力的看法总是反复无常甚至有些自相矛盾。我们直觉地认为领导力是天生的。尽管企业确实是培养领导的好地方 , 但这要取决于公司对能通过工作增长领导力的看法的忍耐程度。
Bobby Fischer was playing chess at age 6. Mozart wrote his first symphony at 8. Could it be that Jack Welch was firing direct reports at 9? There's a long-standing debate about whether leaders are born or made.
Butlet'snotrevisitnatureversusnurture.Instead, let's ask a weirder question: Could it be that your point of view on this issue is what actually makes you a better or worse leader? And if so, is nature or nurture the more career-enhancing POV?
This psychological puzzle starts with the research of Stanford's Carol Dweck.Her latest book, Mind-set:The New Psychology of Success, should be on every business manager's bookshelf. Dweck has found that individuals succeed or fail based on how they think about intelligence. She says people have one of two mind-sets on the matter.
People with a fixed mind-set believe that intelligence is static. Your behavior provides a sample of your true underlying intelligence, like a taster spoon from a tub of ice cream. And because people will judge your intelligence by the samples you provide, you'll definitely scoop out an Oreo chunk whenever you havethechance.Theconsequence:You'llavoid challenges. (If you fail, others will see that as a taste of your true ability.) You'll be threatened by negative feedback. (Isn't your critic just claiming to be smarter than you?)You'll exert less effort.(Really smart people don't need to try hard.)
The second group, Dweck says, are those with a growth mind-set. These people believe intelligence canbedeveloped,likemuscles.If you're in this camp, her research shows, you'll test yourself more, despite the risk. (After all, if you try to bench-press more weight and fail, no one will mock you as a "born weakling.")You're more inclined to accept criticism-ultimately, it makes you better. You perceive hard work as the path to mastery, not as a sign of insufficient genius.
Tiger Woods is an athlete with a growth mind-set, someone who obsesses about his game and makes incremental improvements. Manny Ramirez of the Boston Red Sox appears to have a fixed mind-set, relying on his enormous natural gifts to succeed (but not as keen on things like attending spring training). All of us blend the mind-sets in our heads. We might say, "I can't draw." But few of us would say, "I was born without the ability to ride a bike."
Now the puzzle deepens: Dweck has begun to explore whether we can intervene and change people's mind-sets, and if so, will that make them more successful? Earlier this year, Dweck and two colleagues, Kali Trzes ‚niewsi of Stanford and Lisa S. Blackwell of Columbia, ran an experiment on junior high schoolers. If they trained the students to have a growth mind-set, would the kids' math grades improve? In less than two hours over eight weeks, they taught the students concepts such as: Your brain is like a muscle that can be developed with exercise; just as a baby gets smarter as it learns, so can you; everything is hard before it gets easy-never give up because you don't master something immediately.
How you think about your skills-as fixed or growing-affects your success, no matter whether it's in sports or business.
1 | Bob Nardelli
Hedidn'tadapthisGE-bredstyleforthe more laid-back Home Depot and ultimately paid the price.
2 | Manny Ramirez
He's a brilliant hitter, but his cavalier attitude about spring training and practice keep him from being an immortal.
3| Anne Mulcahy
She never intended to be a CEO, but her on-the-job learning helped her turn around Xerox quickly.
4| Tiger Woods
His obsessive approach to bettering his game makes him without peer on the golf course.
5 | David Neeleman
The JetBlue founder is a true learning leader, but he may have cost himself his CEOship when he admitted his mistakes.
The results were astonishing. The brain-is-a-muscle students significantly outperformed their peers in math, many showing dramatic turnarounds, such as the student who went from a failing grade to an 84 on her next exam. Dweck's work shows that a pure idea intervention can have a substantial effect. "The brain is a muscle" is an idea that stuck.
So, is leadership like intelligence? (Please, no oxymoron jokes.)No one has run a comparable study on corporate leaders. But the notion of born leaders still permeates the business world. Marty Linsky, a faculty member at the JFK School of Government at Harvard University, puts it well:"I've never met anyone who thinks that leadership is inherited who doesn't think they have it."Yet consider the military, another domain where leadership is critical. We might expect West Point to be focused on attracting born leaders. Not so. "The whole point is to develop leaders," says Colonel Tom Kolditz, head of behavioral sciences and leadership at the school and the author of In Extremis Leadership, a study of leadership in life- and-death situations. What West Point does is create leaders, over the course of a strenuous 47-month curriculum. Kolditz says the cadets are taught, "You weren't born a leader . . . I don't think that idea is a very American one."
In the business world, we're schizophrenic on this issue. We instinctively prize innate leadership. When Home Depot recruits a superstar like Bob Nardelli from GE, it creates the same sensation as when the Yankees nabbed Roger Clemens: We've landed the natural talent! Conversely, companies are also clearly in the leader-creation business-through rotation programs, training, and executive coaches.
But how far does the tolerance for the growth mind-set go in the business world? Our concept of a leader doesn't allow for them to say things such as, "I don't know," or "Man, did we screw that oneup."(Exhibit A, perhaps: David Neeleman's quick dethroning as CEO of JetBlue after such an admission.)
What if the leaders in your company were compeled to receive a few hours' training like those junior-high students? How would your business be different? You might put more dollars into training and less into selection. You might see more performance reviews that were really about coaching and development rather than sorting and evaluation. You might see leaders wiling to take on riskier projects, in the spirit of a heavier bench press.
It would be fascinating to see whether a few hours of training in a powerful idea might move the needle on corporate income statements. If nothing else, it might create leaders with better math scores.
Chip Heath and Dan Heath are the best-selling authors of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.
(C) 2007 MANSUETO VENTURES LLC, AS FIRST PUBLISHED IN FAST COMPANY MAGAZINE.
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES.
LANGUAGE TIPS
Schizophrenic 精神分裂的
Weirder 奇异的
Weakling 懦夫
Obsesses 常在 ( 某人 ) 脑海中萦绕
Dethrone 废立 ( 君王 )
Bobby Fischer ( 前国际象棋世界冠军)6岁开始接触象棋 , 莫扎特8岁时就写下了他的第一部交响乐作品。但这是否意味着杰克 · 韦尔奇在9岁就可以做出开除他直接下属的举止?
关于领导者是否是天生的争论由来已久。这次我们不再纠缠于这个老问题 , 而是换个角度。让我们来问问这样一个问题 , 到底是什么让你成为一个好的领导抑或是坏的领导?
斯坦福大学的教授 Carol Dweck 对此进行了专门的研究 ,并将结论写成了一本名为《思维定式 : 新成功心理学》的书。Dweck 教授发现个人的成功与否很大程度上取决于他们怎么看待自己的智力。一般来说 , 人们对他们的智力有不变派和发展派两种看法 , 而这两种看法决定了他们是否成功。
不变派往往是头脑僵化的人 , 他们认为智力是不变的。通常来说 , 我们会通过某人的行为举止来判断他 / 她的智力 , 因此保守的人常常选择逃避挑战 ( 因为如果失败了 , 别人会据此来判断他 / 她的能力 )。这样的人害怕潜在的负面反馈 , 他们宁愿少做努力 ( 不过聪明人往往不太用功倒是真的 )。
相反 , 另外一类人 , 发展派则对智力持变化的态度。这些人相信人的智力就像肌肉一样 , 是可以发展并加强的。这类人更愿意承受风险做出尝试。他们相信如果对批评持更开放的态度 , 会使他们变得更棒。这些人把勤奋看成是通向成功的路径而不是缺乏天才基因的信号。
泰格 · 伍兹就是一名发展派。他痴迷于高尔夫运动并持续改善。相反 , 波士顿红袜队的 Manny Ramirez 是保守派 , 他过分依赖于他的天赋取得成功。所有人的头脑都掺杂了保守和发展两种观念。比如 ,我们会说 , 我可不会画画。但很少有人会说我天生就没有骑自行车的能力。
Dweck 教授和她的两位同事想知道有没有办法来改变人们固有的思考模式 , 并且这种改变是否能帮助人们更加成功 ? 今年早期 , 他们在一所中学进行了一项试验 , 试验目的是想探究如果帮助学生拥有积极的发展派思维模式 , 那么他们的数学成绩是否能有所改善。
在总共 8 周的时间里 , 他们总共用了不到两个小时的时间 , 教给学生这样的概念 : 你的大脑就像肌肉一样 , 是可以通过练习加强的 , 就像婴儿就是通过不断学习变聪明的。
试验结果惊人。接受试验的学生们的数学成绩提高很快。有名学生居然还从第一次考试不及格提高到第二次的 84 分。这说明人的思维是可以被改变的。
现在的问题是领导力能不能像智力一样 , 通过练习而得到加强。目前还没有人做过类似的试验 , 但在商业世界里 , 领导者是天生似乎还是主流论调。 军队是我们观察领导力的最佳场所 , 行为科学和领导力的专家Colonel Tom Kolditz 研究了西点军校。他认为西点军校并不是依靠吸引天生的领导者 , 而是通过 47 个月的课程培养出真正的领导者。
商业社会对发展论观点能接受多少还不得而知 , 毕竟人们心目中的领袖不能说 :“我不知道 ; 或者 , 嘿 , 是我们把它搞砸了的。”
如果训练能提升领导力 , 也许企业将把资源更多投入在培训而不是挑选候选人上。关于绩效表现也更多地放在教练和发展而不是选择和打分上。在训练的帮助下 , 我们也许会看到领导者更愿意承担风险。
想想看 , 几个小时的培训也许能改变公司的收入报表 , 这将是一个多么有意思的话题。即使改变不了 , 至少领导们的数学成绩可以提高。
编译：马飞栏目编辑： 马飞[email protected]
Bob Nardelli
Fixed mind-set 不变派
Growth mind-set 发展派
Manny Ramirez
Fixed mind-set 不变派
Growth mind-set 发展派
Anne Mulcahy
Fixed mind-set 不变派
Growth mind-set 发展派
Tiger Woods
Fixed mind-set 不变派
Growth mind-set 发展派
David Neeleman
Fixed mind-set 不变派
Growth mind-set 发展派
你对自己能力的态度将影响你的成功
In the business world, we're schizophrenic about leadership. We instinctively prize innate leadership. And although companies are clearly in the leader-creation business, how far does the tolerance for believing that you can grow your skills go?
在商业世界里 , 人们对领导力的看法总是反复无常甚至有些自相矛盾。我们直觉地认为领导力是天生的。尽管企业确实是培养领导的好地方 , 但这要取决于公司对能通过工作增长领导力的看法的忍耐程度。
Bobby Fischer was playing chess at age 6. Mozart wrote his first symphony at 8. Could it be that Jack Welch was firing direct reports at 9? There's a long-standing debate about whether leaders are born or made.
Butlet'snotrevisitnatureversusnurture.Instead, let's ask a weirder question: Could it be that your point of view on this issue is what actually makes you a better or worse leader? And if so, is nature or nurture the more career-enhancing POV?
This psychological puzzle starts with the research of Stanford's Carol Dweck.Her latest book, Mind-set:The New Psychology of Success, should be on every business manager's bookshelf. Dweck has found that individuals succeed or fail based on how they think about intelligence. She says people have one of two mind-sets on the matter.
People with a fixed mind-set believe that intelligence is static. Your behavior provides a sample of your true underlying intelligence, like a taster spoon from a tub of ice cream. And because people will judge your intelligence by the samples you provide, you'll definitely scoop out an Oreo chunk whenever you havethechance.Theconsequence:You'llavoid challenges. (If you fail, others will see that as a taste of your true ability.) You'll be threatened by negative feedback. (Isn't your critic just claiming to be smarter than you?)You'll exert less effort.(Really smart people don't need to try hard.)
The second group, Dweck says, are those with a growth mind-set. These people believe intelligence canbedeveloped,likemuscles.If you're in this camp, her research shows, you'll test yourself more, despite the risk. (After all, if you try to bench-press more weight and fail, no one will mock you as a "born weakling.")You're more inclined to accept criticism-ultimately, it makes you better. You perceive hard work as the path to mastery, not as a sign of insufficient genius.
Tiger Woods is an athlete with a growth mind-set, someone who obsesses about his game and makes incremental improvements. Manny Ramirez of the Boston Red Sox appears to have a fixed mind-set, relying on his enormous natural gifts to succeed (but not as keen on things like attending spring training). All of us blend the mind-sets in our heads. We might say, "I can't draw." But few of us would say, "I was born without the ability to ride a bike."
Now the puzzle deepens: Dweck has begun to explore whether we can intervene and change people's mind-sets, and if so, will that make them more successful? Earlier this year, Dweck and two colleagues, Kali Trzes ‚niewsi of Stanford and Lisa S. Blackwell of Columbia, ran an experiment on junior high schoolers. If they trained the students to have a growth mind-set, would the kids' math grades improve? In less than two hours over eight weeks, they taught the students concepts such as: Your brain is like a muscle that can be developed with exercise; just as a baby gets smarter as it learns, so can you; everything is hard before it gets easy-never give up because you don't master something immediately.
How you think about your skills-as fixed or growing-affects your success, no matter whether it's in sports or business.
1 | Bob Nardelli
Hedidn'tadapthisGE-bredstyleforthe more laid-back Home Depot and ultimately paid the price.
2 | Manny Ramirez
He's a brilliant hitter, but his cavalier attitude about spring training and practice keep him from being an immortal.
3| Anne Mulcahy
She never intended to be a CEO, but her on-the-job learning helped her turn around Xerox quickly.
4| Tiger Woods
His obsessive approach to bettering his game makes him without peer on the golf course.
5 | David Neeleman
The JetBlue founder is a true learning leader, but he may have cost himself his CEOship when he admitted his mistakes.
The results were astonishing. The brain-is-a-muscle students significantly outperformed their peers in math, many showing dramatic turnarounds, such as the student who went from a failing grade to an 84 on her next exam. Dweck's work shows that a pure idea intervention can have a substantial effect. "The brain is a muscle" is an idea that stuck.
So, is leadership like intelligence? (Please, no oxymoron jokes.)No one has run a comparable study on corporate leaders. But the notion of born leaders still permeates the business world. Marty Linsky, a faculty member at the JFK School of Government at Harvard University, puts it well:"I've never met anyone who thinks that leadership is inherited who doesn't think they have it."Yet consider the military, another domain where leadership is critical. We might expect West Point to be focused on attracting born leaders. Not so. "The whole point is to develop leaders," says Colonel Tom Kolditz, head of behavioral sciences and leadership at the school and the author of In Extremis Leadership, a study of leadership in life- and-death situations. What West Point does is create leaders, over the course of a strenuous 47-month curriculum. Kolditz says the cadets are taught, "You weren't born a leader . . . I don't think that idea is a very American one."
In the business world, we're schizophrenic on this issue. We instinctively prize innate leadership. When Home Depot recruits a superstar like Bob Nardelli from GE, it creates the same sensation as when the Yankees nabbed Roger Clemens: We've landed the natural talent! Conversely, companies are also clearly in the leader-creation business-through rotation programs, training, and executive coaches.
But how far does the tolerance for the growth mind-set go in the business world? Our concept of a leader doesn't allow for them to say things such as, "I don't know," or "Man, did we screw that oneup."(Exhibit A, perhaps: David Neeleman's quick dethroning as CEO of JetBlue after such an admission.)
What if the leaders in your company were compeled to receive a few hours' training like those junior-high students? How would your business be different? You might put more dollars into training and less into selection. You might see more performance reviews that were really about coaching and development rather than sorting and evaluation. You might see leaders wiling to take on riskier projects, in the spirit of a heavier bench press.
It would be fascinating to see whether a few hours of training in a powerful idea might move the needle on corporate income statements. If nothing else, it might create leaders with better math scores.
Chip Heath and Dan Heath are the best-selling authors of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.
(C) 2007 MANSUETO VENTURES LLC, AS FIRST PUBLISHED IN FAST COMPANY MAGAZINE.
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES.
LANGUAGE TIPS
Schizophrenic 精神分裂的
Weirder 奇异的
Weakling 懦夫
Obsesses 常在 ( 某人 ) 脑海中萦绕
Dethrone 废立 ( 君王 )
Bobby Fischer ( 前国际象棋世界冠军)6岁开始接触象棋 , 莫扎特8岁时就写下了他的第一部交响乐作品。但这是否意味着杰克 · 韦尔奇在9岁就可以做出开除他直接下属的举止?
关于领导者是否是天生的争论由来已久。这次我们不再纠缠于这个老问题 , 而是换个角度。让我们来问问这样一个问题 , 到底是什么让你成为一个好的领导抑或是坏的领导?
斯坦福大学的教授 Carol Dweck 对此进行了专门的研究 ,并将结论写成了一本名为《思维定式 : 新成功心理学》的书。Dweck 教授发现个人的成功与否很大程度上取决于他们怎么看待自己的智力。一般来说 , 人们对他们的智力有不变派和发展派两种看法 , 而这两种看法决定了他们是否成功。
不变派往往是头脑僵化的人 , 他们认为智力是不变的。通常来说 , 我们会通过某人的行为举止来判断他 / 她的智力 , 因此保守的人常常选择逃避挑战 ( 因为如果失败了 , 别人会据此来判断他 / 她的能力 )。这样的人害怕潜在的负面反馈 , 他们宁愿少做努力 ( 不过聪明人往往不太用功倒是真的 )。
相反 , 另外一类人 , 发展派则对智力持变化的态度。这些人相信人的智力就像肌肉一样 , 是可以发展并加强的。这类人更愿意承受风险做出尝试。他们相信如果对批评持更开放的态度 , 会使他们变得更棒。这些人把勤奋看成是通向成功的路径而不是缺乏天才基因的信号。
泰格 · 伍兹就是一名发展派。他痴迷于高尔夫运动并持续改善。相反 , 波士顿红袜队的 Manny Ramirez 是保守派 , 他过分依赖于他的天赋取得成功。所有人的头脑都掺杂了保守和发展两种观念。比如 ,我们会说 , 我可不会画画。但很少有人会说我天生就没有骑自行车的能力。
Dweck 教授和她的两位同事想知道有没有办法来改变人们固有的思考模式 , 并且这种改变是否能帮助人们更加成功 ? 今年早期 , 他们在一所中学进行了一项试验 , 试验目的是想探究如果帮助学生拥有积极的发展派思维模式 , 那么他们的数学成绩是否能有所改善。
在总共 8 周的时间里 , 他们总共用了不到两个小时的时间 , 教给学生这样的概念 : 你的大脑就像肌肉一样 , 是可以通过练习加强的 , 就像婴儿就是通过不断学习变聪明的。
试验结果惊人。接受试验的学生们的数学成绩提高很快。有名学生居然还从第一次考试不及格提高到第二次的 84 分。这说明人的思维是可以被改变的。
现在的问题是领导力能不能像智力一样 , 通过练习而得到加强。目前还没有人做过类似的试验 , 但在商业世界里 , 领导者是天生似乎还是主流论调。 军队是我们观察领导力的最佳场所 , 行为科学和领导力的专家Colonel Tom Kolditz 研究了西点军校。他认为西点军校并不是依靠吸引天生的领导者 , 而是通过 47 个月的课程培养出真正的领导者。
商业社会对发展论观点能接受多少还不得而知 , 毕竟人们心目中的领袖不能说 :“我不知道 ; 或者 , 嘿 , 是我们把它搞砸了的。”
如果训练能提升领导力 , 也许企业将把资源更多投入在培训而不是挑选候选人上。关于绩效表现也更多地放在教练和发展而不是选择和打分上。在训练的帮助下 , 我们也许会看到领导者更愿意承担风险。
想想看 , 几个小时的培训也许能改变公司的收入报表 , 这将是一个多么有意思的话题。即使改变不了 , 至少领导们的数学成绩可以提高。
编译：马飞栏目编辑： 马飞[email protected]
Bob Nardelli
Fixed mind-set 不变派
Growth mind-set 发展派
Manny Ramirez
Fixed mind-set 不变派
Growth mind-set 发展派
Anne Mulcahy
Fixed mind-set 不变派
Growth mind-set 发展派
Tiger Woods
Fixed mind-set 不变派
Growth mind-set 发展派
David Neeleman
Fixed mind-set 不变派
Growth mind-set 发展派