Thinking about my thinking … and yours

I’ve been thinking about my thinking (it’s called metacognition) and I’ve come up with a diagram to help me think about it.

The vertical axis is my mindset, whether it’s to improve (get better) or prove (that I’m good), and the horizontal locates my thinking in time, with future to the right and past to the left.

This sets up a classic matrix to help me consider where my thinking is mostly focused.

I’m wondering where to start on my diagram, so I look to my past, the bottom left-hand quadrant. That’s interesting!

When I was a teenager, things were difficult, particularly at school. I wanted to be good at something, to be respected, so I threw myself into golf because I had some talent for it.

I practiced and played all hours so I could win and prove I was good. That felt good. It did nothing for my schooling, but it did get me my first job in construction.

But somehow being good wasn’t enough because I knew I wasn’t the best and I suspected I never would be.

I also got my second job through my talent for golf, although that job was way above my knowledge and experience. I had to learn and improve fast to survive.

I made costly mistakes that I would dissect for hours, usually when I should have been sleeping, to work out what I did wrong and make sure I learned from it.

Thankfully, Taylor Woodrow, my employer at the time, saw something in me and put me on all available courses, even sponsoring me to go to university (polytechnic in those days). I improved.

Over time, education, hard work, reflection and learning became my proven formula, so, for many years, ‘more of the same’ – education and hard work – (bottom right-hand corner) was my strategy for success.

Growth vs Fixed Mindset

In my diagram there isn’t really a good or bad quadrant, for me at least, as I know I spend thinking time in all four.

Having said that, I am informed by American psychologist Carol Dweck’s work on ‘growth mindset’.

She distinguishes between growth mindset as a desire to get better and a ‘fixed mindset’ as wanting to be seen as being good.

When something doesn’t work out as expected for someone with a fixed mindset, it’s a failure, a disaster and further proof, to themselves, they aren’t very good. They tend to avoid challenges lest they be revealed as not very good.

Someone with a growth mindset, on the other hand, will see setbacks as having not succeeded this time, and will embrace the challenge of succeeding next time.

In my earlier career I was in it for respect, promotion and rewards. From mid-career onwards it has been more about getting better and moving forward while learning from my experiences and building on my past.

On the diagram, I think most of my thinking now is top right-hand corner – Improve/ Future.

My thinking about your thinking

Okay, this is not your thinking but what I observe in my work as a leadership team coach.

I work with brilliant people leading big projects that are strategically important to the UK. I notice in our conversations that their thinking is often south of the horizontal axis in my diagram. They are in ‘prove’ mode.

They have to prove they are good to win the project in the first place. They do that by showcasing their past projects and by proving they are good by beating the competition on price and value criteria. Then they have to constantly prove what they have done in order to get paid what they claim to be due, while those with opposing views look back and produce evidence to prove that what is in dispute was their fault and they are not good and not due payment.

And for those who are future-focused and intent on getting the project built, it’s often on the basis of what they have done in the past, methods that are proven to work so, more of the same: we are going to do it this way.

The prove mindset is partly about people’s comfort zones: it’s easier to withhold and prove others wrong than it is to truly collaborate and work it out together.

It’s also partly the sheer pressure of having to deliver to time and budget. That constant pressure leaves little time for improvement through reflecting on what we’ve learnt and how to get better.

You’re thinking about your thinking

In his fascinating book, Leadership is Language, L. David Marquet says that people who speak from the ‘be good’ self say things like the following (bottom left-hand corner in my diagram):

• “I didn’t do anything wrong”
• “We did the best we could”
• “I would do it the same next time”
• “I assumed that’s what you wanted”
• “We’ve always done it this way”
• “I’ve been doing this a long time”
• “You think you know better all of a sudden”
• “Well, you’re new here. You’ll learn why we do it like this”

And people speaking from the ‘get better’ self, sound like this (top right-hand corner in my diagram):

• “Tell me more about that”
• “How do you see it?”
• “What do you think came before this?”
• “How might we see it differently?”
• “What does this look like from your perspective?”
• “What could we do differently?”
• “How could I have done better?”

What do you think?

Which do you sound like?