Stefan
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Since recent, it is pretty well understood that congratulating someones fixed traits – talent, intelligence, successes – leads to a decrease in performance. In this recent podcast episode Prof Andrew Huberman explains this in great detail.
What is an additional challenge I find in reflecting on my own battle withe a fixed mindset identity, is that it pushes one into a stable valley in terms of payout. This means there is a force which keeps me in place, requiring extra effort to climb out of the situation and improve. Like a stable Nash equilibrium with minimum payout for the parties. Or, simply put, it required double the effort to climb out of this hole.
Why? Well, once we are committed to the idea of us being smart, or intelligent, or being a ‘straight A student’, we become quite afraid of not meeting these expectations. So much so that we avoid tough challenges, which provide the opportunity to grow. Our progress can stagnate.
Praising performance labels is found to reduce performance, independent when the praise is given.
Dr Andrew Huberman, Applying a Growth Mindeset
We need to overcome not just one difficult aspect, like shaking our attachment to the fixed traits, but a whole battery of others, too. Like accepting that we were deeply wrong. Accepting the shame which comes with failure, and the shame which comes with being wrong. Both things typically much harder for individuals used to high performance and praise. In an environment which doesn’t male this easy, boy this can be a lot to deal with.
I remember when I had my first F on a test. It was a reading test. Something I could do in my sleep, normally. But I took down the page number of the section we needed to read in such a haste, that I read a 69, instead of 60. I cried my eyes out. The answer of my grandma was simple: “Well, you just need to practice more next time.” Smart woman. She didn’t say that I was smart in Math, but probably not good at reading and literature, which could have done some considerable damage.
Looking at company cultures, I find this equally interesting. Why are we constantly using the company brand to refer to the employees? Is it good to derive a sense of traits from working at a place, and making them part of our identity? Why are we ‘Googlers’ (for folks working at Google), or ‘Macies’ (for people working at McKinsey, the consulting company)? As we now know, if these traits are labels tied to outcomes, they might undermine the performance of these individuals in various ways.
Associating the wrong terms with your company brand might undermine performance of your teams
Let’s say being a ‘Googler’ is generally associated with being intelligent, it might prevent folks from taking on more challenging roles in the future. When it is tied to job competency it might prevent teams from speaking up when needed. If, however, it is tied to verbs, such as persistence, or not giving up, or doing the right thing, it might elevate the individuals performance.
One additional insight from the podcast is around our perception of stress. There is something about presenting stress as something negative, and this might also be an underrated challenge. Research suggests our actions are very much colored by our perception of stress. Which is incredible. If we perceive stress as something good, it’ll do good for us. If we perceive it as something negative, it’ll be negative. Quite incredible.
Providing information on the positive effects of stress is helping individuals to cope with stress better
So, maybe we should speak more around how our company brand stands for being humble, serve the users and deal with tough challenges. How we persevere in face of difficult situations, and choose leaders who do the same? Maybe a bit of stress is actually good.
As Product Managers, we are in charge of creating an environment where folks can grow, and thrive. It seems we might have underrated the ability to leverage stress as a positive motivator and driver toward progress. Both for our project, but also for individuals and their contributions.
I recently started building a more iterative mode of product discovery. To steer the volume of ‘bottoms up’ ideas, we created principles which we used to evaluate the general impact potential of each idea. A lot of folks brought forward ideas, and for some we moved forward. It was incredible to be part of this experiment, and one aspect I understand better now is how we saw folks increase performance as we started praising verbs over performance labels. Instead of praising the quality of the ideas, we are praising engagement with the process, the fact that folks didn’t give up, the idea that they are choosing to engage in a difficult challenge. Unbeknownst to us (at the time) we helped the teams performance by praising their activities over the outcomes.
Take Action 🎬
📅 Book a private coaching session with me to grow your PM career. I will share my 15+ years of experience as a Product Manager, all my learning and pitfalls, with actionable tips and concrete lessons to model after.
📚 To learn about the growth mindset, read Mindset, by Carol Dweck. The book is a foundational shift in how we perceive the development of motivation, and skills. It provides practical approaches you can apply every day with your team to increase their performance.
