Ep. 09 — 3 Ways to Take on a Learning Posture
I’ll be honest, with the current status of our nation, I put this podcast on hold because other things were more important as our communities address Racism in America. A few weeks have passed and my work in the leadership space is significant to me in the greater conversation about how we show up in the middle of major events in our world and I am still learning. I’ve taken a few weeks to educate myself, and reflect on the organizational spaces where I have impact to engage in conversations about diversity and inclusion and that’s why I’m back to meet with you today-- there are incredible people doing life-changing work who are actively moving the needle in anti-racism efforts, and my job is to show up and take on a learning posture, and keep showing up and keep educating myself.
And taking on a learning posture is not just for learning about racism, or privilege or power, although that is so very important and lives depend on it, but also the overall learning posture we take on in our work, our relationships, in raising our families, and participating in heavy and deep conversations with our communities. I want to embrace a learning posture in this life so that I can be open to the perspectives of others with radical authenticity and grow in what I know and believe--I hope you will too. Yesterday was also father’s day and one of the greatest things my dad taught me was to remain curious, so on today’s episode, I’m sharing three ways to embrace a learning posture and I’m so grateful you are joining.
Growing up, my dad used to ask my little brother and me, “What did you learn today?” every single night at the dinner table. And even when we were teenagers and gave an eye roll, he pressed until we found something-- he would remind us that there is something new to learn every single day. And because I sat with him for jeopardy in the evenings with my eyes wide as he knew ALL. THE. ANSWERS. I realized that if we have this attitude that there is always something to learn, then we could do just that and learn it. This set me on a path to find answers, to show up in classrooms and conversations, to research, and read, and uncover details until it made sense to me. And in the season we are in, don’t we need more people (and definitely more leaders) who are willing to take a learning posture, to listen, to be open, and to embrace the stories in front of us?
I have worked in an educational context for almost ten years, and the students who stand out are those who are willing to take on learning posture and to recognize they are fully in control of your learning process. In fact, I love the breakthrough moments when students realize the learning process is not linear, but a giant web. A light bulb goes on when they begin to see the integration points that connect a point from their general psychology class with an experience they had in their leadership role--it unlocks a new way to think about learning itself and their capacity for gaining knowledge and understanding.
So I want to give you three steps to a better learning posture:
1. Embrace a growth mindset
Remember how I told you my dad asked, “What did you learn today?” -- What I didn’t know until grad school is that he was instilling in me a growth mindset. Carol Dweck’s research out of Stanford on a fixed mindset vs. growth mindset perfectly sums up this idea that people with a growth mindset will thrive and learn and grow because they believe that they can learn. Alternatively, individuals with a fixed mindset believe that this is it-- failures are the boundary lines and my abilities stop there. But a person with a growth mindset would say, my failures reveal the spaces where I can grow. Instead of hating challenges and feedback, you embrace them fully and jump in, knowing it’s the necessary step to learn better.
2. Show up with curiosity
I had a staff member of my team who is now a dear friend and she is a question asker--she is that person who you want to grab coffee with because it’s honestly like meeting with a therapist. She listens and asks really meaningful questions that often leave you speechless and push you to think in a different direction. Dom is a question-asker because she is genuinely curious and an emotionally intelligent leader. I can remember being in the middle of one of my crucibles as a leader (you know one of those situations that changes the trajectory of how you lead?) and Dom knew I couldn’t speak to what was happening because of my role as her supervisor, but she asked me this: “How do you feel like this has challenged your leadership in light of the way you value authenticity and integrity?” Dom asked me that question because she was curious in 2012 and I have asked myself that question over and over in times of crisis and uncertainty ever since. “How do I feel this current situation is challenging my leadership in light of the way I value authenticity and integrity?”
That question may look a little different based on your values, “How do you feel this current situation is challenging your leadership in light of your values?” Here is the thing -- I never have the answer to that question when it comes to mind -- but it pushes me to get curious about how the current context is influencing or impact my leadership which is guided by my values. It’s a hard question that pushes me to unravel what I believe to be truth in that moment of time. It forces me to get curious about how I will begin the process of leading in that tension.
Staying curious actually goes against our instincts. As human beings, we want to find solutions and fix problems, but staying curious means we remain in a constant state of change. We push ourselves to find new problems and new problems, meaning we then have to get curious about our options for a solution, and to find the solution, we need to dream, and research, and prototype, and experiment, and test until we have our answer. And to be honest, by that point, it’s probably time to start over again.
3. Own your failure— and choose resilience
Remember when I said a person with a growth mindset would see failure as a way to reveal spaces to grow? When we begin to see failure as a mile marker on our way to new opportunities, we know that means we are getting closer to our destination. The act of getting back up after you’ve failed requires a trait we are seeing pop up a lot these days and that is resilience. Resilient people, by definition, have “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties.”
Do you know what the best way to uncover that capacity is? It’s practice. The most resilient people have been knocked down a lot. They get back up and use that opportunity to learn and grow and walk toward the next mile marker.
You’ve probably heard me say it in other spaces, but my favorite tenant of design thinking is that you “fail fast and fail forward” -- It’s close to Newton’s first law of physics: A body in motion tends to stay in motion. Similarly, a resilient leader who gets back up once, is more likely to get back up the next time, and again and again and again. A resilient leader chooses growth and tenacity. A resilient leader owns failures and finds comfort in a learning posture. A resilient leader with a learning posture knows there is more on the journey if they keep going.
Carol Dweck and her research team found that kids who had a growth mindset achieved more, so if you want to know what comes after you take on a learning posture--it’s that you then have the ability to DO more with that learning.
Embrace a growth mindset.
Show up with curiosity.
Own your failure and choose resilience.
Remember what my dad asked every night at the dinner table: “What is one thing you learned today?” Think about that. If you can’t think of something today, double down for tomorrow and show up with curiosity. We all have more to learn, more ways to grow, and more resilience than we realize.