Collaborative Intelligence: Thinking with People Who Think Differently by Dawna Markova & Angie Mcarthur

Author:Dawna Markova & Angie Mcarthur
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780812994919
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2015-08-10T14:00:00+00:00

INQUIRING FROM THE INSIDE OUT

To develop mastery with the strategy of inquiry, it’s necessary to embrace what Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck calls a “growth mindset.” She has conducted groundbreaking research with subjects around the world, showing that people navigate through life using one of two mindsets: fixed or growth. In a fixed mindset, you believe everyone has been born with a certain unchanging level of intelligence. This results in hiding what you don’t know so people won’t think you’re not “smart.” Thus you avoid challenges and negative feedback because it could reveal what you don’t know. You consider every setback or obstacle a personal failure rather than a learning opportunity. A fixed mindset limits artful inquiry, because you expect yourself to have all the answers.

When you shift to a growth mindset, on the other hand, you see intelligence as something that can evolve. Obstacles and negative feedback become learning opportunities. You approach challenges by asking yourself three simple questions:

• What can I learn from this?

• How can I grow my capacity?

• How can I do this better?

According to Dweck’s research, people who use a growth mindset go on to ever-increasing levels of achievement, because they harvest each and every experience they have for what they can learn. Thomas Edison, arguably the greatest inventor of the late nineteenth century, exhibited a growth mindset in his famous quote when he was criticized for failing seven hundred times to invent the incandescent lightbulb. He said, “I have not failed seven hundred times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those seven hundred ways will not work. When I have eliminated all the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.” It took him one thousand tries. He thought of each one as a learning opportunity.

A growth mindset makes collaboration possible because it enables you to seek out both inspiration and help from others rather than be threatened by what others know. And it allows you to use the strategy of inquiry, because you understand that revealing what you don’t know will enable you to grow your capacity.

In working with Dweck’s model, we realized two things. First, most people have certain areas of their life where they use a growth mindset and other areas where they use a fixed mindset. For example, someone may strive to grow his sales capacity any way he can while at the same time limiting himself in the physical domain by thinking of himself as uncoordinated or a “klutz.”

Our second realization was that you can have a fixed mindset with certain people and a growth mindset with others. When you have a fixed mindset about someone, you feel as if you have to perform up to his expectations or make him perform up to yours. Your opinions about him seem to be set in stone. On the other hand, when you have a growth mindset about him, you are consistently wondering how to grow your own capacity with that person.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.