Mindset - Be sure you encourage kids toward 'growth' not 'born talent' with its fixed limits

In a recent article in Business Week, John Ryan states, "Recently I've enjoyed reading about the work of Stanford University psychology professor Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Her research explores and explains questions that have interested me for years as a leader. Essentially, she has found that people generally exhibit what she calls either "growth mindsets" or "fixed mindsets." Those with growth mindsets believe they can get better at what they do, that they have reservoirs of untapped potential. They realize that promise by working hard and making incremental improvements over time, whether they are athletes, or writers, or surgeons. Those with fixed mindsets, however, believe they can only go as far as their natural abilities will take them. They think talent, rather than hard work, is the fundamental component of success. They are often scared to challenge themselves because they are terribly afraid of failure—which, in their minds, is an indictment of their abilities rather than an opportunity to learn and do better next time"
 
Interestingly, a similar concept is covered in the Talent Code, quoting a study that showed that kids that were told, "Great work!" or "Wow, you really worked hard at this!" did much better than those told "You're so smart." for similar reasons. If the child told they are smart encounters more difficult challenges, they can easily jump to the conclusion that they are not smart after all, instead of improving like we do with any other skill using practice and working at it until we improve.

So to adults involved with teaching leadership to children, be sure to focus on how hard they worked and point out their progress. That is how we all improve. This approach can also help reduce the chance the child will feel they've peaked in their talent, and thus stop their growth. As we try to see the young person 10 years into the future, it may be easier to see their potential and to look beyond the foibles of their current age and abilities.

Then as we actively work to make the environment around them support their growth, they will grow.

Alumni looking for way to train new MBAs in leadership skills

I have a classmate from university that is an executive at a company and is now looking for ways to train newly minted MBAs in leadership.

This blog is not where I will talk about that, but I will say that if you start teaching them as children they will be more capable as adults with MBAs.

Coaching 12 to 13-year-olds how to run a leadership meeting

Today I coached a group of four boys ages 12 and 13 with one other adult, Mike. This group was not related to Boy Scouts. The names have been changed to avoid potential embarrassment. The purpose was to conduct a planning meeting and make assignments as needed in 15 minutes or so. Brad's role is to take the meeting minutes. He is13. Allen is the leader of the group and is 13 years old. Allen has two assistant leaders, Dan and David to help advise and make decisions. After the typical goofing around period, they got started. Allen called the group to order, paused, looked directly at me and asked, "What are we supposed to do?" I asked him, "Do you have the sample agendas I gave you last week?" He shook his head no (the meeting had not happened twice already for various reasons). I used the opportunity to point out that an agenda is simply a plan for a meeting to keep you on track. So Mike and I talked about the purposes of the group, and what they need to accomplish. After deciding they wanted to have all 10 boys follow a particular reading program, they were ready to move on. I asked, "Who's going to offer the challenge to the rest of the boys?" Allen looked at Mike and I quizzically and asked, "What you mean?" So we briefly talked about how if everybody thinks somebody will do it nobody will do it, and that making assignments are part of how you delegate responsibilities. They didn't seem to get that, so Mike asked, "Who will ask them to do the reading next week?" Dan asked "what do you mean?" So I told them I would do a role-play. "We'll pretend that Allen assigned me to offer the challenge," I said. Then I proceeded to demonstrate how I might do that. They all seemed to be shaking their heads like they understood better what we meant. So Mike asked, "Okay, so who are you going to assign to ask everybody next week to start the reading program?" Allen said "Oh!" as his body language indicated he got what we meant. Looking at the other three boys, Allen said, "Who would like to volunteer to tell everybody what to read next week?" David volunteered. I held up the reading program, and asked, "Do you think it might help the other boys to have copies of the reading program ready to hand out when you make the challenge?" Allen said, "Yeah." Mike prompted, "Who will you assign to do that?" With great enthusiasm, Allen pointed at me and said, "You will bring the reading program next week!" Mike patiently coached, "Instead of ordering others to do things, you could ask them by saying 'Will you...?'" Allen showing he understood better now turned to me and said more politely, "Will you bring copies of the reading program next week?" "Yes I will," I responded. Mike then followed up,"You see, now he just committed to the assignment." We then moved on to other parts of the meeting. Of course with this age there were the side conversations about sports or other unrelated topics, laughing and joking around. But they started to understand how to do this and had a little bit of practice. Then Mike turned to Brad and asked, "Did you write down the assignments?" Brad protested, "But I don't have a pen or paper!" I handed him both as Mike explained that to do his job he needs to bring paper and pencil or pen. Mike made sure that Brad wrote down the assignments as he explained to all of them, "This way next week, you can ask Brad to pull out the list of assignments so you can follow-up." Allen saw how that could help him and he checked to be sure Brad had the list written. By now 20 minutes were up, people were knocking on the door, and we had to close the meeting. They got some coaching. We'll see how this turns out next week to see if everyone follows through and how they will handle it if not. Keep in mind they are 12 and 13 years old. There's only so much attention span 12 and 13-year-olds are typically going to give to "leadership stuff."

Five Year Old Laments: My sister is making me mad!

Today, my five year old complained while pouting that his teenage sister was making him mad. After a few minutes of asking about situation, it provided opportunity for a hug and a brief conversation about the only one who can decide how you feel is you, not your sister. We also briefly talked about telling her that her actions caused him to feel bad--he was grumpy today.

This was a chance to address emotional intelligence and problem solving (of the conflict resolution variety). Given the ages involved and the normally pleasant disposition of the teen involved, the emotional agency concept was an initial and brief discussion that will need reinforcement later. Today was more on problem solving. Defining the problem is the first step in troubleshooting. Helping the child to state the problem helps them to see next steps in solving it. Of course at this age verbalizing their feelings may need some guiding from the adult.

Nonverbals: When the child knows you care and you stop what you are doing and kneel down to address them at their level, it helps build the trust needed to try to verbalize what they want or how they feel. Waiting while they find the right words can seem slow at times, but is worth it for their development.

Sometimes children this age also need help in coming up with ideas for how to solve the problem in a win-win way. We talked through all of this in less than five minutes (their attention span may be short too). Then after agreeing to a new way to resolve the situation, off he went. I later hear both of them talking nicely with each other. Another lesson discovered by the child.

So problem solving step-by-step in this instance looks like this:

1. The child's expectation was A, the situation provided B instead. The child attached upset emotions to the gap. The gap between expected and actual is the problem.

2. With young children it takes some time to gather the facts that might occur much faster with older children and teens. Gathering information helps to define the problem and understand the assumptions involved.

3. Identifying the root cause of the problem in this case is pretty easy. Teen sibling acted differently than expected. 5-year-old got frustrated with that outcome.

Since we cannot control the behavior of others, and can only control how we respond, the options to fix this are pretty straight forward.

4. He applied the intervention in this case by tell the sister that "I don't like it when you tickle me when I am trying to play with my toys. Please do not do that." If the child were older, perhaps they could negotiate a tickling session later when done with the toys. Ha ha. Teen sibling apologized, and agreed not to tickle during toy playing time, while suppressing a giggle.

5. Problem solved. Conflict resolved.

Socratic question-based discussions

How can we develop a series of questions to lead them in their own discovery of particular principles? I found a cool website that gave an example of this in teaching kids binary math. Rick's site is called The Socratic Method: Teaching by Asking Instead of by Telling
by Rick Garlikov

It has a fascinating example of  teaching elementary kids how to do base-2 math. How to read binary code is hard enough for most adults, and Rick teaches this class how to do it with some pre-planned questions that lead the children to the next conclusion. Great example.

This can be applied to leadership too, and I'd like to come up with a specific application.

Have the child report on what they saw that day

Have the child tell you about any examples of good character or leadership they saw today. Depending on their age and interest, you may have to give them an incentive initially.

This way you can monitor what they are aware of as they grow and see their capacity increasing.

Your consistent interest in this can make an impact on them too.

Kids are good at watching examples around them. This exercise helps focus their attention in a particular area.

Great question for the adults trying to teach kids

A guide to teachers states, “A skilled teacher doesn’t think, … ‘What will I teach today?’ but rather, ‘How will I help my students discover what they need to know?’”

So for adults trying to teach kids leadership, instead of "What will I teach them today?"

A better question is "How will I help my children discover what they need to know?"

Teach Kids How to Deal With Stress Effectively

Never take counsel of your fears. ~ Stonewall Jackson

Definition: Stress is an array of responses to change, challenge, or a perceived threat. The way the body attempts to adapt and cope with demands.

• Positive Stress energizes, invigorates, and motivates.
• Negative Stress tires, depresses, and demotivates. Negative stress is dysfunctional.

Interestingly, physiological stress response is the same for both positive and negative stress. Our bodies increase adrenaline, and increase blood pressure. Your perception of it can affect your level of stress reaction.

Sources of Stress: much of common everyday stress comes from the following.

• An accumulation of minor irritants
• The fast pace of life events
• The nature of the school or work environment

Which of the following affect you or your child?
• Time: deadlines, increased workload, insufficient resources
• Change: new position, new assignment, new demands, anticipation of change, uncertainty about abilities
• Relationships: lack of control, threat to status, loss of acceptance by peers/leaders
• Financial, family, social responsibilities or setbacks
• Life events: divorce, separation, birth/adoption, illness in family, death in family
• Physical: weather extremes, temperature extremes, excessive noise, sleep deprivation, chronic pain,
excessive travel
• Psychological: fear, worry, perfectionism, guilt, anger

Symptoms: stress manifests through physical, emotional, and behavioral symptoms.
• Physical: muscle tension, headaches, upset stomach, fatigue, rashes, teeth grinding, chest pain,
pounding heart
• Emotional: depression, anger, frustration, irritability, low self-esteem, apathy, impatience,
powerlessness
• Behavioral: change in the inhabitants, increased smoking, changes sleeping habits, inability to
concentrate, drug or alcohol abuse

Handling Stress Effectively
Recognizing symptoms in yourself and your people is the first step. Use your stress energy wisely. Safeguard your health from adverse effects of stress.
• Make better use of time and energy
• Clarify goals
• Make a plan
• Make a to-do list
• Break large tasks down into manageable sub-tasks
• Pace yourself
• Prioritize
• Improve relationships
• Develop networks with peers
• Use active listening
• Make a stand on important issues
• Respect yourself and others
• Practice being assertive
• Be gracious, but firm
• Accept, don't judge
• Ask for advice
• Find both a physical and psychological escape that you can use during the day
• Alter your outlook
• Use humor
• Try something creative
• Ask “Will this matter, a year from now?”
• Build stamina
• Exercise daily
• Stretch every muscle systematically each day
• Eat less
• Eat natural
• Eat nutritious
• Substitute fruit and vegetables for sugar
• Drink water in place of coffee alcohol
• Practice relaxation techniques daily
• Relax before going to bed
• Get enough sleep (kids need 8-10 hours)
• Develop a hobby that is relaxing and fun
• Eliminate stressors
• Develop resiliency
• Improve short-term coping
• One proactive way to reduce the performance impact to negative stress and overcome fear is to help your followers have confidence and believe in themselves. Ensure they have the know-how and skills
so they can regain their confidence.
• Constantly upgrade your self confidence and courage.
• Negative stress is fatiguing. Fatigue brings out the worst in people. Help people overcome fear by teaching them to visualize success.

Understand the human dimension and anticipate people’s reactions to stress, especially to the stress of change. However, if you think about stress and its effects on you and your followers ahead of time, you’ll be less surprised and better prepared to deal with and reduce its effects.

In particular with children, they often do not realize they are stressed, and act out subconsciously. The adult may have to identify or help identify the source and suggest effective countermeasures.

Teach Kids the Pareto Principle, the 80/20 Principle

The adult in the young leader's life should read Richard Koch's book on this subject. Look it up on Amazon.com. Here are the key questions I got from him. These questions can help a child learn to look for the imbalance in more situations.

Note: 80/20 is a snap-shot, a static breakdown of causes at any one time, not a movie, or changes over time. See systems thinking for behavior over time.

• What minority of (causes/inputs/efforts/insights) exert the majority of (effects/outputs/results/rewards)?
• Which vital few things are most important above the trivial many?
• Where is the predictable non-linearity or imbalance?
• Where are cause and effect not linked equally?
• Which 20% of causes produce 80% of the results?
• Is 80% of a phenomenon associated with only 20% of a related phenomenon?
• Rather than trying to address the whole range of issues, which are the most important? [crucial question for leaders]
• Focusing on results first, which are disproportionately large? Can we trace these back to the inputs?
• What are the relationships between outputs and inputs?
• When deciding where to apply mass versus economy of force, where is the situational 'center of gravity'? [This is an application of the principles of war as applied to leadership]
• How can we reallocate resources disproportionately towards the 20% of inputs that produce 80% of the results? Which of the 80% inputs can resources be taken from to increase the 20%?
• What can you do to improve the 80% of underperforming inputs that contribute only 20% of the results?
• What hypothesis about the imbalance of inputs and outputs do you have? Can we estimate this factors intuitively or impressionistically?
• How can we celebrate exceptional productivity?
• How can we be selective rather than exhaustive?
• Personally, are we doing the things we are best at and outsourcing the rest?
• How do we generate the most money with the least expenditure of assets and effort?
• How can we reduce the inequality of output and reward?
• How can we reinforce the parts of the organization (people, resources, etc.) that generate the highest results (surpluses for the organization)? [not really a kid question]
• Conversely, how can we facilitate dramatic improvements in the parts of the organization generating low or negative surpluses? If not forthcoming, stop expenditure on these resources.
• How can we isolate where we are really making profits?
• How can we simplify or reduce complexity in the organization (because complexity uses higher proportions of resources)? How can we reduce the cost of complexity?

Richard Koch notes that complexity slows down simple systems and requires the intervention of managers to deal with the new requirements. Complexity is interesting and rewarding to managers. It is often tolerated or encouraged until it can no longer be afforded. This is an interesting observation about leadership and helps reinforce the distinction between managing and leading.

Maslov Pyramid Perspective on Kids (if we don't meet their needs someone else will)

The Maslov Pyramid. I forgot where I originally got the basic descriptions of each level. I added the leadership perspective to each.

• Physiological Needs
• After getting food and water, remember that sufficient sleep is important for any age for best peformance an many arenas including leadership. West Point spent a good bit of time drumming into leaders in training that the leader has to have enough sleep to make good decisions.
• Safety Needs
• Security of their body, their family, their health, their property (their belongings) is the next level of need. Let's assume this is taken care of. 
• Martial arts can help provide a degree of control over safety.
• Security of morales is included here. Shelter from weather is also included. They should be safe to move on to bigger and better things. Sleeping exposed to the weather and other people changes the way you function. Besides, chattering teeth from cold rain prevents you from sleeping much anyway.
• Love/Belonging Needs
• This includes emotional intimacy, closeness, and caring for family, friends. It includes being a part of groups. We humans need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance, whether it comes from a large social group, such as clubs, school/office culture, religious groups, professional organizations, sports teams, or small social connections (family members, mentors, close friends, confidants).
• It can help to fill this need from home, so the child is not as needy for acceptance from other groups. 
• Effective leaders tend to have strong relationships with others.
• Esteem Needs
• All humans have a need to be respected, to have self-esteem, self respect, and to respect others. People need to engage themselves to gain recognition and have an activity or activities that give the person a sense of contribution, to feel accepted and self-valued, be it in a talent, hobby, or life's work. Imbalances at this level can result in low self-esteem or an inferiority complex. People with low self-esteem need respect from others. They may seek fame or glory, which again depends on others. It may be noted, however, that many people with low self-esteem will not be able to improve their view of themselves simply by receiving fame, respect, and glory externally, but must first accept themselves internally.
• People with low self esteem need to work on themselves first. Low self esteem makes effective leadership all the more difficult.
• Aesthetic Needs
• Goals can provide the motivation to realize your own best potential. This level includes creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, etc.
• Self-transcendence
• Near the end of his life, Maslow determined that there was another level on his hierarchy that was above self-actualization: self-transcendence. “...may be said to be much more often aware of the realm of Being, to be living at the level of Being… to have a “plateau experience” and to have or to have had peak experience with illuminations or insights or cognition which changed their view of the world and of themselves, perhaps occasionally, perhaps as a usual thing.” 
• He stated that the achievements and success of his offspring were more satisfying than the personal fulfillment and growth characterized in self-actualization.
• Service can do this too, which is why I recommend it for budding young leaders in other posts.