Have you ever travelled with children? (Or maybe you were one once!) What do they say, usually just after you have left home? ‘Are we there yet?’ When the question is repeated multiple times, even you might begin to feel like it’s a never-ending journey.

Learning can be like that too. Do I know enough? Am I good enough?

When you have a learning mindset – as an individual, a team, a culture – you are NEVER ‘there’. There is always more to learn.

Last week I was with a group of facilitators and trainers – we were being trained to facilitate the ‘Case In Point’* approach by both using it and deconstructing it. It was a challenging week. We were all learners. Case In point can be confronting as it quickly takes participants to what Heifetz calls ‘the frontier of our competence’.

The frontier of our competence is where we learn. It’s also uncomfortable. It’s tempting to fool ourselves we ‘know’ – avoid the new learning – and draw back to minimize the discomfort we feel. What’s the cost of that as an often deployed strategy?

When leaders come from a learning mindset, this empowers other to experiment and learn too. Celebrate what you know. Then learn some more!

How is your learning mindset? How comfortable are you not knowing?

Go Fearlessly

* ‘Case In Point’ was developed at Harvard University by Marty Linsky and Ronald Heifetz.