The Journey Mindset
~1000 words. 4 minute read.
Instant gratification is the mantra of our time. The fact that it comes at great cost is conveniently hidden from us. ‘Arriving today’, a book by Christopher Mims, describes the modern retail supply chain, revealing a world that is equally fascinating and horrifying. Speed of delivery plays a dominating role in consumer decision-making and is at times more important than the product or service itself: If I can’t have it now, I don’t want it at all. Conversely, if I can have it now, I’ll take it, even if it’s not exactly what I wanted.
The consequences are clear: Wastefulness increases, the time for mindfulness is reduced. We’ve all become dopamine junkies chasing the next hit.
Learning
Speed plays a damaging role in other areas. Malcolm Gladwell took the LSATs, researching why the legal world wants him to rush in school (you have only minutes to answer questions in the test), when legal experts in the real world read and re-read texts countless times to catch all the minute details of legalese. Gladwell shares his experience in a revealing Revisionist History podcast episode titled ‘Puzzle Rush’.
I experienced the time crunch approach to test taking when I attended Passau University in Germany. Memorization and regurgitation was the name of the game. If I didn’t recognize the core of the question within seconds, I’d spent precious time on composing the wrong answer. Besides spiking my heart rate and blood pressure, the frustrating part of all this was that the results rarely stood in relation to the amount of studying and preparation I had put in.
I thrived academically once I was able to write papers for take-home finals in my MBA program at Western Michigan University. The topic kept me engaged for weeks at a time, day and night, but the final product was something to be proud of and many of these papers are still worth reading today. I learned more, the grade reflected my effort more closely, and this way of test-taking was much more in line with how I perform my professional duties today. You know, the journey way.
There are so many angles to this problem: From schools catering to a certain personality type, to training young professionals in a way of working in academia that is not desirable in practice or even relevant to the way work gets done (at least in my line of work and I suspect in many others as well).
Why are we doing this? Is this the only way to find and gauge talent? Are we even finding the right talent this way?
Relationships
I recently had the opportunity to be a Teaching Assistant for the ‘Complete Manager Sprint’ at Section 4. The material focuses, among other things, on building trusted relationships. Controlling your ‘advice-monster’ is a major obstacle on the path to becoming more ‘coach-like’. All this speed-training leads many of us to jump to giving advice as soon as we hear someone’s problem statement.
Hear, mind you, not understand.
When keeping the advice monster in check and staying curious just a little longer, the magic happens:
We understand the other person, their issue, and the context of it.
We give the relationship time to grow. Asking more questions and withholding advice is like watering a tree.
We allow ample opportunity for additional angles on the problem to emerge, thus uncovering additional solution approaches.
This takes time. You may not get to the solution within a single 1 on 1. That’s okay. That’s better. The space between this meeting and the next will be filled with deep thought, enabled by the questions you asked.
When asked for advice directly, withholding it and asking questions back (almost impossible) is putting these benefits in overdrive! And as one of the students in class remarked, this is applicable to all relationships in your life, not just the ones at work. Relationships are the best examples for journeys. Think about your most rewarding ones.
Golf
Finally, here’s a journey: The last three years of my golf scores, in relation to par, with a trendline. A game full of ups and downs to be sure, but mapped this way, I can see it for the journey that it is. It shows work, progress, history, patience, resilience, and joy. I can’t wait to add to it every year.
