reinforce growth mindset

Mission statements are wonderful things. You can’t argue with lofty values like growth, empowerment, or innovation. But what do they mean to employees if the company doesn’t implement policies that make them real and attainable? They just amount to lip service. 

Organizations that embody a growth mindset encourage appropriate risk-taking, knowing that some risks won’t work out. They reward employees for important and useful lessons learned, even if a project does not meet its original goals. They support collaboration across organizational boundaries rather than competition among employees or units. They are committed to the growth of every member, not just in words but in deeds, such as broadly available development and advancement opportunities. And they continually reinforce growth mindset values with concrete policies.

Carol Dweck

"What Having a “Growth Mindset” Actually Means". Harvard Business Review. January 13, 2016.

a growth mindset

Individuals who believe their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others) have a growth mindset. They tend to achieve more than those with a more fixed mindset (those who believe their talents are innate gifts). This is because they worry less about looking smart and they put more energy into learning. When entire companies embrace a growth mindset, their employees report feeling far more empowered and committed; they also receive far greater organizational support for collaboration and innovation. In contrast, people at primarily fixed-mindset companies report more of only one thing: cheating and deception among employees, presumably to gain an advantage in the talent race.

Carol Dweck

"What Having a “Growth Mindset” Actually Means". Harvard Business Review. January 13, 2016.

accept coaching

There’s an interesting duality to Suns rookie forward Josh Jackson.

He has a confidence in him that is unshakeable... Yet within that belief system, there’s also a willingness on Jackson’s part to listen, learn and admit his mistakes. It’s why, before the Suns played the Atlanta Hawks last Tuesday, Triano was comfortable in delivering a blunt message to Jackson.

“I said, ‘I’m losing confidence in keeping you on the floor,’ ” Triano told Jackson.

Triano followed up by benching Jackson for the entire game against Atlanta, the first time in Jackson’s career that he had been a DNP-CD.

“It was kind of hard to take in,” Jackson said. “I kind of really didn’t understand what he was saying.”

Then Jackson was given the raw numbers showing that the Suns were a better team when he wasn’t on the floor. Heading into the Atlanta game, Phoenix’s offensive rating was 97.4 with Jackson on the court and 106.7 without him. The defensive rating was 111.3 with Jackson and 106.6 without him.

“That definitely surprised me,” Jackson said.

Triano knew Jackson could handle the criticism – “I think all our guys can take it. That’s one of the things I like about our guys. They accept coaching,” he said – but just to make sure, he also moved the conversation forward, asking Jackson how the coaching staff could rebuild its confidence in him.

Jackson suggested he and Triano watch video together.

“Just to see what he sees,” Jackson said. “Sometimes, two people look at the same play and see two totally different things. He has a basketball mind and he’s really smart, so just trying to see what he sees and trying to pick his brain a little bit.”

Jackson said he wanted to approach Triano earlier in the season about spending quality time watching video, but, “I didn’t really think I could just go up to him and have that type of conversation with him.”

“Now we kind of have a schedule where, every week, I’ll come in and we’ll watch film or just talk about things that happened in the previous games and practices just for me to get better,” Jackson said.

The payoff has been immediate. In the three games since his benching, Jackson is averaging 14 points, 5.7 rebounds and three assists per game while shooting 48.6 percent from the field and 55.6 percent from 3-point range. He had his best game of the season in Phoenix’s victory over Oklahoma City on Sunday, finishing with 17 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and no turnovers.

“I feel like things are getting better for me,” Jackson said.

All because Triano had something he needed to say – “It eats me up if I don’t get it off my chest,” he said – and Jackson was willing to listen.

“It was just a conversation about where I thought he was in his rookie season and how we can work together better, me utilizing him and him fitting into what we’re trying to do,” Triano said. “His suggestion was that we watch more film and more tape, and we’ve done that on a consistent basis since then, and I think it’s helped him and I think it’s helped me understand him a little bit more.”


Scott Bordow
"Phoenix Suns rookie Josh Jackson responds well to Jay Triano's harsh criticism". azcentral.com. January 10, 2018.

ride the dragon

The Chinese have a saying that "change is a dragon." If you try to ignore him or control him, he will eat you. But if yon can ride the dragon of change, you can survive, even prosper.

Kenneth R Bergman

"A Ticket to Ride the Dragon". Marine Corps. Gazette. February 1996, Volume 80, Issue 2

roots and mission

While the young Springsteen honed his craft every night in bars on the Jersey Shore, he enjoyed his growing popularity but felt that something was missing. “Part of getting there,” the most elusive of all Springsteenian ideals, “is knowing what to do with what you have and knowing what to do with what you DON’T have,” he writes.

That Springsteen’s work never defines there might have helped fans give it the meaning they most wanted. For him, the book suggests, there is a combination of taking a stance, making it last, and having freedom to run. Holding on to what is precious without losing the open road. But if there is vague, one thing is clear: Getting there takes hard work. You can hone your craft and let purpose find you. But you can’t hone your purpose and hope that craft will find you.

And purpose is what he did not have, for many years — the drive that comes from knowing your work is meaningful to you and valuable to others. “By 1977,” he recalls, “in true American fashion, I’d escaped the shackles of birth, personal history and, finally, place, but something wasn’t right…. I sensed there was a great difference between personal license and real freedom…. I felt personal license was to freedom as masturbation was to sex.” It is a good reminder that purpose has a long gestation, and is borne of actions and encounters, not just ambition and doubts.

Within the next few years, a major shift in Springsteen’s relationship to his work occurred. “By the end of the River tour,” he writes, “I thought perhaps mapping…the distance between the American dream and American reality might be my service, one I could provide that would accompany the entertainment and the good times I brought my fans. I hoped it might give roots and mission to our band.”

That is what purpose does. It gives a craft its roots and mission, a story to remember and imagine, a place to go from. Springsteen grasps the distinction between the work his music has to do, getting people turned on in Jersey bars or big arenas around the world, and its purpose — keeping the American dream alive — and never lets it go.

Purpose gives sense and direction to a working life spent on the road but, Springsteen’s story cautions, does not spare you torment. There is plenty throughout his life and work: the torment of depression, a struggle with his inner demons; the torment of talent, a struggle with the sense that he could always do more; the torment of service, a struggle with shouldering others’ pain. If he often fails to make sense of that torment, at least he succeeds in making use of it.

Gianpiero Petriglieri

"Bruce Springsteen, Artful Leadership, and What Rock Star Bosses Do". Harvard Business Review. 9/27/2017