by Walter Oden
How work ethic improves all psychology
Background:
One of my favorite movies of all time is Forrest Gump The first time I saw this movie, I was so drawn into “rooting” for Forrest. It seemed that with every turn, good fortune followed Forrest. The movie implies that a “feather” touched Forrest when he was young and that provided him with the “luck” he needed to overcome his cognitive challenges.
I have a completely different take on the movie. I have seen the movie over 10 times. I now see Forrest as a very talented human being. Forrest has a higher “work ethic” than all people around him. In fact, he was physically and mentally more capable of sticking to a process than other more cognitively capable peers. The ongoing “joke” in the movie was that Forrest just kept working and trying “not know any better”. His hard work and determination ALONE resulted in success in spite of what he knew or believed!
What is this all about?
During the fall of 2013, I attended a presentation at Laurel School of Shaker Heights, Ohio by Dr. Lisa Damour. She is a high profile school psychologist and specializes in learning styles. She is a colleague of Stanford psychologist Dr. Carol Dweck.
In the last year, the theory of Fixed versus Growth Mindsets has been published and touted as a positive approach to teaching students to be their best. Dr. Damour’s presentation was nice enough to summarize the theory as follows:
Fixed Mindset: How you are born is what you believe is your final place in the world. You are threatened by feedback. You are also threatened by others that are doing better than you.
Growth Mindset: Wherever you are born is the starting point of your journey. Your end game is after all the work has been done. You see feedback as a positive piece in the puzzle. You also look to others doing better than you as a model for your work pathway.
The link below goes directly to a site that summarizes the theory:
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/01/29/carol-dweck-mindset/
A theory leap that “feels good”
The Growth Mindset Theory makes a Utopian leap in that it implies that by changing psychology from Fixed to Growth, a person will naturally be willing to work hard. I think for some of the population this is potentially true. Yet, that population was likely on the “bubble” as a hard worker. I wish everyone was willing to work hard once they felt good about their prospects. As we explore below, that situation may not fit the whole population.
The unpopular truth:
No one feels comfortable having the “Nurture versus Nature” discussion. Yet, there are certain realities to genetics and traits. Although no one has successfully isolated the “work gene”, I would argue it exists. It doesn’t take a scientist to observe society and notice the difference between WORKERS and NON-WORKERS. This trait is generally unrelated to socioeconomic conditions. In fact, human resource studies have consistently shown that what a person is paid is unrelated to how good or bad an employee they are. Yes, a good environment and solid upbringing helps. Yet, we can all cite examples of people that are just darn “lazy” even if they are from solid families. Therefore, we have to realistically rate people by their inclination to DO WORK. This could be called a WORK INCLINATION CONTINUUM or WORK ETHIC INDEX.
I challenge you as a reader to rank your co-workers based on WORK ETHIC only. How about the students we teach?
How to score WORK ETHIC
There are two ways of looking at this continuum. First, how do you rate yourself? Clearly, few people will rate themselves as LAZY. On the other hand, you might rate yourself as a procrastinator. Procrastination does not always equate with LOW WORK ETHIC. It simply implies TIMING of WORK. Yet, perpetual procrastinators will be addressed in our analysis later.
The most important observations would be how am I perceived by others? Perception of others is an important aspect of reality.
The Work Ethic Index
A real work ethic index would be some combination a SELF rating and PERCEPTION of the PUBLIC rating. The highest index would be someone with a LOW SELF RATING and HIGH RATING from OTHERS. This person is always looking to work HARDER because they don’t believe they are working hard enough.
The worst rating would be where I rate myself as a HARD WORKER and others see me as a LAZY BUM!
Impact on Fixed versus Growth Mindset Theory
The “Mindset Theory” is a good one, but it may need to account for a WORK ETHIC INDEX to address certain realities. In an effort to include it, I have created a matrix that may attempt to merge the theories. The reason this matters is that addressing WORK ETHIC may be more important than addressing mindset!
You will note in my matrix below, you are much better off having a FIXED MINDSET and HIGH WORK ETHIC INDEX than both of the LOW WORK ETHIC INDEX quadrants. Since I am a full time tennis professional, I make some professional tennis player references.
The Oden Mindset Matrix
Fixed Mindset/High Work Ethic Index (Upper Left Quadrant – RED)
These people just work hard. They overcome any limitations created by their lack of belief. Often, this person is very error averse and hates mistakes. Yet, because of their HIGH WORK ETHIC marker, they address their belief limitations by simply “going to work every day”. The results simply come as a result of work.
Tennis Athletes: Chris Evert and Steffi Graf. Steffi was well known for her love practice much more than competition!
Fixed Mindset/Low Work Ethic Index (Lower Left Quadrant – BLUE)
This person says “I can’t because of” a lot. This person also claims to “try hard” with very little evidence of this reality. It is generally “someone else’s fault” for their plight.
This person simply sees their situation as stuck and there is no use in trying. Improvement is futile. Pushing this person into the GROWTH mindset might help. On the other hand, this plan will likely fail due to a lack of WORK ETHIC.
Growth Mindset/High Work Ethic Index (Upper Right Quadrant – GREEN)
This person is very END GAME oriented. They see the “what if” and are willing to “get to work” to achieve this vision. These people take mistakes in stride and see them as all a part of the “bigger picture”. They will likely take losses and immediately get back to work!
Tennis Athletes: Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. Listen to their post match interviews. You will immediately hear their approach. They are “learning” from their losses and have BIGGER goals to achieve!
Growth Mindset/Low Work Ethic Index (Lower Right Quadrant – YELLOW)
I like to call this quadrant the DREAMER. They like to talk about all their big plans, with little evidence of action. This person can have some great ideas and may appear to have a GOOD ATTITUDE. On the other hand, without an injection of good old fashioned WORK, there will never be any movement. This person is commonly called a PROCRASTINATOR!
Conclusions:
The Growth Mindset Theory is a really POSITIVE theory for learning. I am very drawn and committed to positive coaching as a philosophy. On the other hand, I have strong opinions on utilizing certain realities to improve results. Sometimes the “truth” is more powerful than a “theory”. As a final note, writing this article is an attempt to move myself out of the GROWTH MINDSET/LOW WORK ETHIC INDEX quadrant! At least, that is how I rate myself. Thank your so much for your time and energy reading this!
Copyright Walter Oden and “I Have and Idea”, August 2013, All Rights Reserved. Please see global copyright information on sidebar of this blog.
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