Sustaining a Learning Mindset

It’s one thing to be humble enough to seek help in the areas we struggle with but are still required to produce great results - or at least stay in compliance - but practicing that same approach in areas isn’t always as simple. We can’t overcome a knowledge gap we don’t know we have. We’ve all seen organizations become stagnant because they’re locked in on doing something the way they’ve always done it, and the world moves on without them. While that may at times be based on a mandate from an owner or executive attempting to protect a proprietary process they believe is best-in-class, all too often this happens because breaking that rhythm is hard. We’ve all heard the saying, “If we always do what we’ve always done, we’ll always get what we’ve always got.” Unfortunately, that’s just not true.

Sustaining a learning mindset allows us to not only ask the right questions around the weak spots we deal with daily, it provides us with the opportunity to recognize limits we may have never known we had otherwise. Don’t misunderstand me here: I’m not suggesting this will ever be easy. And it will rarely happen organically. But to ensure it’s part of our routine, we must build time for it into our schedules, define the behaviors we’ll need to practice, and commit to execution.

As we’ve looked at each aspect of how leveraging leadership growth gives us a chance at capitalizing on great professional leaderships, I’ve shared repeatedly how blessed I am by the mentors in my life. While several of those have added value to me for decades, there have been some that only mentored me for short seasons. With several the need - and our relationship around that need - was very specific to a particular issue or time frame, but some of those relationships were shorter because the mentor’s expertise had a ceiling; a ceiling they weren’t working to go beyond.

At every stage of our careers, Cindy and I have actively searched for the people who were ahead of us so we could learn from their experience. In many cases, that was specific to the field we were in at the time, but just as often we looked for people who had done things we had never considered. As we started our business, we added to our collective toolbox by working through several certification processes. Through all that, we met some amazing people, many of whom we’re still very close with today. Early on, we were often starstruck by many of the folks we were developing friendships with. They were all extremely successful in their careers or businesses. That said, not all of them had sustained the learning mindset that got them to that point.

My vagueness here is very intentional. I love and respect each person who’s mentored me over the years, regardless of when that was or how long it lasted. With that in mind, and at the risk of conveying some arrogance, I’ll share that we’ve surpassed where many of those friends were when we met them, and even what they’re doing today; not because we’re better than them or smarter than them, but because we did something they didn’t. I’ve used some form of the word consistent around two dozen times to this point, none of which have been accidental. 

More than any other thing, Cindy and I have been incredibly consistent in how we’ve approached our personal and professional growth. That served us well in each job we held and it’s been the foundation for building our own business. That consistency applied to a continuous learning mindset has driven our leadership evolution more than we could have imagined. A key part of taking full advantage of what we learn, though, lies in sharing the wisdom we acquire so we’ll tie this look at knowing who knows what you don’t next by working through steps we can each take in doing that. Until then, I’ll challenge you to commit to identifying and learning from one new expert at least quarterly (maybe even monthly). With all the resources we have available today, this should be as simple as you making the decision to do it.