‘Hope is the power of the powerless’.
The real quality of leadership, lies in its power to inspire hope and associate it with coherent actions designed to make progress.
Because hope is not a plan…
Product, Price, Place and Promotion – lessons for the entrepreneur from a virtuoso violinist
What happens when you take a £3m violin, a virtuoso violinist and a platform for them to perform?
Well, the answer is – it all depends. If the platform is the mass transport system of Washington DC or the Concert Hall with tickets going at $100 and more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myq8upzJDJc
At least two lessons to reflect on here:
The first is pretty prosaic and pertains to that classic of the 4 Ps of Marketing: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. You have to get all four right. A brilliant product is nowhere near enough.
The second is more metaphysical and probably best captured by Weingarten:
“If we can’t take the time out of our lives to stay a moment and listen to one of the best musicians on Earth play some of the best music ever written; if the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind to something like that — then what else are we missing?”
What People Say About Progress School…
Because I choose to let it, Progress School forces me to focus on what I need to do to develop my future plans. Attending the sessions makes me focus at least once a month [if I’m lucky enough to escape work to attend] and that focus is nudging me into taking actions that I might ordinarily push to one side ‘until later’.
The only negative side manifests itself in my frustration when my paid job is too demanding to allow that precious time for me to attend. Precious is what Progress School is to me at the present time. Now I need to find ways to ensure my escape in good time every 2nd Thurs of the month.
“I’ve always known personal development was important, but rarely actually made any time for it. Progress School changes that. It means that at least once a month I’m forced to think about my own development, and better still it gives me the tools, support and motivation for doing so.”
“Joining a group which is focused on self development has focused me on what I need to do. Knowing that I will be “reporting in” once a month has helped me to find the time to put in the effort to do something in readiness for the next session.”
Thank you very much for inviting me to Hull Progress School which I thoroughly enjoyed. I thought that Mike’s presentation /facilitation was excellent. Actually I was able to recall the model verbatim during a conversation over the weekend which either
a) had a lasting and meaningful impact, or
b) means that I am opening my mind as a consultant to new ideas, or
c) makes me sad and I should get out more !
Are we learning? Or just looking good?
Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck made a great distinction between performance goals and learning goals.
- Performance goals are about “winning positive judgements of your competence and avoiding negative ones. In other words, when students pursue performance goals they’re concerned with their level of intelligence: They want to look smart (to themselves or others) and avoid looking dumb.” A person usually does this by playing it safe.
- Learning goals are ones that are about increasing your competence. “It reflects a desire to learn new skills, master new tasks, or understand new things—a desire to get smarter.”
Both goals are common and can drive achievement. So there’s nothing wrong with either.
“In fact,” she says, “in the best of all possible worlds, students could achieve both goals at the same time.” Unfortunately, we don’t live in the best of all possible worlds. One is usually pitted against the other. “The tasks that are best for learning are often challenging ones that involve displaying ignorance and risking periods of confusion and errors. The tasks that are best for looking smart are often ones that students are already good at and won’t really learn as much from doing.”
What she has found is that an overemphasis on performance goals – wanting to look good – can foster a helpless response. In a 1988 study they found that “many of the students with performance goals showed a clear helpless pattern in response to difficulty. A number of them condemned their ability, and their problem solving deteriorated.
“In sharp contrast, most of the students with learning goals showed a clear mastery-oriented pattern. In the face of failure, they did not worry about their intellect, they remained focused on the task, and they maintained their effective problem-solving strategies.
“When children are focused on measuring themselves from their performance, failure is more likely to provoke a helpless response. When children are instead focused on learning, failure is likely to provoke continued effort.”
Another interesting tidbit came out of the study. “Some children were told at the start of the study that they had the ability to do really well at the task. Others were told (temporarily) that their level of ability at the task was not so high. For students with performance goals, this message made a real difference: Students who were certain of their high ability were more likely to hold on in the face of failure and remain mastery-oriented. But students who thought their ability was lower fell right into a helpless response.” It made no difference to the student with learning goals.
How are we structuring the environment in our schools and organizations? It seems to me, we foster environments that encourage and reward levels of achievement and not degrees of learning. In such a case, most people would opt out for performance goals. Who wants to take a chance of being criticized for looking dumb? Are we learning or looking good?
Incidentally, an important book by Carol Dweck has just been released in paperback. It covers some of this material. Check out Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.