Ducky's Dilemma: Strengths vs. Mindsets

Today I’d like to revisit the story of Ducky, the class participant I described about a year ago. Ducky was a project manager who wanted to become more spontaneous in his interactions with others, which prompted my suggestion that he enroll in an adult improv class.

Lately I’ve been wondering: What if Ducky had begun an improv class and initially found enjoyment in it – but then ran headlong into an improv exercise that left him lost for words, tongue-tied, uncomfortable?

What advice should he be given?

A Strengths-based-development guru such as Marcus Buckingham might ask him whether the experience was making him feel strong or weak. For, as Buckingham says in his book Go Put Your Strengths to Work:

“Your strengths are those activities that make you feel strong…. ‘An activity that makes you feel weak’ is the best definition of a weakness.’”

So if Ducky were made to feel weak by the activity, Buckingham would probably say: “Drop the improv! Instead, focus on developing and leveraging those activities that make you feel strong.”

But if you were Carol Dweck, you’d probably give Ducky some very different advice.

In her book Mindset, Dweck draws a distinction between the growth mindset and the fixed mindset. The growth mindset, says Dweck, is based on the belief that one’s basic qualities can be cultivated through effort, and that anyone can change and grow through application and experience. As Dweck notes:

“[People with a growth mindset] believe that a person’s true potential is unknown (and unknowable); that it’s impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, toil, and training.”

People with a growth mindset welcome challenges as learning experiences, as a way to find out their true capabilities. “The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well,” says Dweck, “is the hallmark of the growth mindset.”

By contrast, says Dweck, people with a fixed mindset believe that one’s intelligence, skills, and other traits are predetermined and cannot change greatly over time. To people with a fixed mindset, says Dweck:

“Either you have ability or you expend effort…. [Fixed mindset people believe that] effort is for those who don’t have the ability. People with the fixed mindset tell us, ‘If you have to work at something, you must not be very good at it.’”

Fixed mindset people thus become easily discouraged and frustrated when a task starts to require significant effort. The need to expend the extra energy immediately confirms (to their minds) their innate inability and the likelihood of being proven a failure if they continue striving.

Given all this, Dweck would probably advise Ducky: "Don’t stop doing improv just because it’s becoming more difficult! Instead, adopt a growth mindset and keep plugging away. It’s the only way to discover your true improv ability."

So we find Ducky the Daily Improviser at a fork in the road, with one way marked Buckingham Boulevard (“Don’t try to develop your weaknesses!”) and the other marked Dweck Drive (“Keep going! Don’t stop just because it’s getting difficult.”) What should he do?

Well, he should follow the advice of the great Daily Improviser sage Yogi Berra, who said:

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it!”

(I'll elaborate next time, when "Ducky's Dilemma" continues.)