Saturday morning breakfast discussions are usually pretty standard in our house. More often than not consisting of a conversation with our nine year old about his football match that morning. He will say “I hope I score today!” and we will say “We hope you try hard today!” and then he will say “I know but it would be great if I could score too, wouldn’t it?” and we will respond “We hope you try hard today!”. The repetition often met with a look of ‘I asked a different question and you gave me the same answer confusion…’.
This is obviously intentional on my part. The Coach in me knowing that through practice, praise and effort, he will get better and better, his resilience will get better and the longer term life skills he will gain will outweigh the potential short term pain of not scoring. Energy and effort are what impresses us and the willingness to risk failure in order to get better! With this said, you can imagine the delight I had when I overheard a conversation this week between my nine year old and his little brother in which he was advising him to look back at how he missed the penalty and what he needed to change so he scored next time but more importantly just keep trying hard!
One of our very own Microleadership habits is ‘Dare to Fail’, a habit which beautifully conceptualises this idea of Growth Mindset and our own willingness to risk failing in order to understand where our limits are. It takes courage to fail and once we understand where our current limits are we can set the goal posts higher and increase performance to get there. This two minute video summarises this habit well: https://mindsetleadership.co.uk/microleadership/
In an organisational context, adopting growth mindset or the Dare to Fail habit for themselves and the teams they lead can significantly contribute to higher performance and increased financial performance. Haydn describes four things a leader can do in order to heighten the creativity and growth of the teams they lead. This may be likened to Matthew Syed’s work on Growth Mindset and high organisational performance.
In Microleadership, Haydn advises leaders to:
1. Set the level of challenge that forces their team to step into the unknown and stretch themselves to their limits (and risk failure in doing so)
2. Allow for a culture where well-intentioned failure driven by pushing of limits is acceptable
3. Create a double loop review process that not only questions what was done but how and why it was done.
4. Encourage and give the teams confidence to take the learnings and try again – and keep trying until they succeed!
The last point makes me smile. It’s the lesson my nine year old unintentionally gave to his brother this week.
We are pleased to announce a Microleadership Workshop at a fabulous location in Central London. This workshop is for anyone who is interested in learning more about the habits of a Microleader and what it takes to unlock high performance for your teams.
There’s just one week to go to purchase your tickets at an Early Bird rate so don’t miss out!
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/microleadership-live-tickets-93249203879?discount=mindsetdeal