Category: Self-management (Page 1 of 2)

How you can build skills and grow using your mindset: Mindset part 4

This is the last part in a four-part series of blogposts on mindset. In part 1 (Mindset – The book) Nicole and I summarized the book “Mindset”. In part 2 (Looking Back on Perfection and Burnout), we talked about how we suffered from our fixed mindsets. In part 3 (Dealing with mindsets), we shared stories on how we dealt with our mindsets. In this last blogpost we want to help others deal with their own mindset. We share how you can find out what mindset you have and how can you change a fixed mindset into a growth mindset.

We know that mindset is important. A growth mindset is the key to success and more happiness. Or as learner lab taught us “Skills are built, not born.” People are designed to continuously improve! Absolutely everyone has the capacity to be better at virtually everything!

Growth mindset makes you a better and happier person

Research shows that if you have a growth mindset you will be more self-confident, you will allow yourself to make mistakes, you will ask for help more and you will believe it’s okay not to know something. This helps you to be a better learner because you will actually be learning from the feedback and criticism you receive. You also learn to deal with setbacks and you will not give up as easily. This makes you more resilient, will reduce stress and will help to improve relationships because contact is deeper. All of this will make you a better and happier person.

So, what about you? We advise you to learn about mindset. After that, do an introspection to learn about your own mindset. With this knowledge you can deal with your mindset and take steps to change it.

Learn about mindset

First and most important: read the book (or our summary here). The book is easy to read and contains many examples that will give insight in how fixed and growth mindsets work. These visuals also give a bit of understanding about how fixed and growth mindsets work:

Graph by Nigel Holmes (http://nigelholmes.com/)

Graph by Learner Lab (https://thelearnerlab.com/growth-mindset/)

There are also many videos you can watch. On the website of Mindset Works you will find a page full of links to amazing videos.

One of the most important things to take away while learning about mindset is simply the fact that traits are not fixed and that you can, in fact, teach an old dog new tricks! We are not born with a finite amount of intelligence, a fixed personality, or a certain amount of artistic talent. Everyone can change and grow – and that opens up a world of possibilities.

Determine Your Mindset

After learning about mindset, it’s time to determine your own mindset. Which mindset do you have? Remember that mindset can differ in different situations. It is perfectly possible that you have a growth mindset in one situation and have a fixed one in other situations. Our mindsets are constantly shifting and changing. There are several tests online you can take to help you gain insight. On the website of Mindset Works, you can find this one. In the book you will find a test too:

Answer these questions about intelligence. Read each statement and decide whether you mostly agree with it or disagree with it.

  1. Your intelligence is something very basic about you that you can’t change very much.
  2. You can learn new things, but you can’t really change how intelligent you are.
  3. No matter how much intelligence you have, you can always change it quite a bit.
  4. You can always substantially change how intelligent you are.

Questions 1 and 2 are the fixed-mindset questions. Questions 3 and 4 reflect the growth mindset. Which mindset did you agree with more? You can be a mixture, but most people lean toward one or the other. Now look at these statements about personality and character and decide whether you mostly agree or mostly disagree with each one.

  1. You are a certain kind of person, and there is not much that can be done to really change that.
  2. No matter what kind of person you are, you can always change substantially.
  3. You can do things differently, but the important parts of who you are can’t really be changed.
  4. You can always change basic things about the kind of person you are.”

Here, questions 1 and 3 are the fixed-mindset questions and questions 2 and 4 reflect the growth mindset. Which did you agree with more?

(Source: Carol Dweck. “Mindset – Updated Edition: Changing The Way You think To Fulfil Your Potential)

Changing your mindset

“The key to changing your mindset lies first and foremost in self-awareness”, says Scott Jeffrey of CEOsage, who published a great self-help guide called “A Complete Guide to Changing Your Fixed Mindset into a Growth Mindset“. And we totally agree. We suggest you to begin writing things down on a regular basis, a process called journaling. In this blogpost written by Huib you find more information about reflection and journaling. How do you react in certain situations? What do you feel? What is the inner dialog going on inside your head when a particular situation arises? Write down your observations. It helped us to recognize patterns and feelings.

In our experience after finding out about the importance and influence of mindset, we dealt with our mindsets better. Also learning about neuroplasticity made us see that there is a way to change our mindsets. It is important to do an introspective to find out in which situations your mindset is fixed and not helping you. It opens up possibilities to change and grow.

Step 1: in the book Dweck advises us to accept that we all have both mindsets. The first step is to recognize and embrace your fixed mindset.

Dweck suggests to give the persona a name. And we think it is actually a good idea we had never thought of. Huib named his fixed mindset “Randall Flagg” after the villain from Stephen King’s book. Also as a pun to flag when his fixed mindset pops up. Nicole named hers “Marie”, which is her middle name. It helps remind her that her fixed mindset is always there, waiting to appear.

Step 2 is to learn what triggers our fixed mindset. Failures? Criticism? Deadlines? Disagreements? When is your fixed mindset a problem? Understand what happens to you when your persona shows up. Learn about yourself, your feelings and the fears that activate it. As you come to understand your triggers and get to know your fixed mindset persona, don’t judge it. Just observe it.

Step 3 is to recognize that you have a choice. Remind yourself that it is “just” fear. Your beliefs and your thinking are sabotaging your growth and giving you stress. When you recognize your fixed mindset, remember it is just a mindset. And mindsets can change. Accepting your fear will make it easier to deal with it.

Your brain can change due to neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to undergo changes. Research shows that many aspects of the brain can be altered (plasticity means changeable) even through adulthood! Actually, our brain is built to change. By practicing, you can change the pathways in your brain. Watch this video or read this article to learn more.

 Step 4: the last step is to switch to a growth mindset when those triggers occur. Here it is key to understand that it is all about how you think. Your belief is the most important factor. Focus on what you learned about mindsets. Hold the belief that you can change your mindset. Learner lab taught us: to build a growth mindset, focus on the belief, and the actions will follow. Challenge the fixed mindset persona by asking questions to guide your thoughts. Open yourself up to growth. Take small steps. Don’t expect too much and realize it will take time and effort to change your mindset. Experiment and try different approaches. Find a way that suits you.

Scott Jeffrey made a great list of questions that might help you activate a growth mindset:

  • What can I learn from this?
  • What steps can I take to help me succeed?
  • Do I know the outcome or goal I’m after?
  • What information can I gather? And from where?
  • Where can I get constructive feedback?
  • If I had a plan to be successful at [blank], what might it look like?
  • When will I follow through on my plan?
  • Where will I follow through on my plan?
  • How will I follow through on my plan?
  • What did I learn today?
  • What mistake did I make that taught me something?
  • Is my current learning strategy working? If not, how can I change it?
  • What did I try hard at today?
  • What habits must I develop to continue the gains I’ve achieved?

When you are facing a problem or situation that you are trying to apply a growth mindset solution to, Dweck suggests to make a concrete plan: “These concrete plans (plans you can visualize about when, where, and how you are going to do something) lead to really high levels of follow-through, which, of course, ups the chances of success.” Once you have that plan, stick to it.

Change is hard

Remember that change is hard. We make changing your mindset sound easy on paper but like any other change, it is a journey. It doesn’t happen overnight. You will have setbacks. The key is to approach these setbacks using your growth mindset: what can you learn from them? What will you change the next time you are in the same situation? Adjust your growth plan as needed. You will also have successes. Learn from them as well! What can you take away from them to continue to grow? Keeping setting goals for growth. If one approach doesn’t seem to work, readjust and try another.

Keep at it. As Dweck says, “Mindset change is not about picking up a few pointers here and there. It’s about seeing things in a new way.” Keep taking the growth-oriented action. Eventually with time and repetition, it becomes habit. Changing your mindset takes effort, but it will open up all sorts of doors to new opportunities.

We love to hear from you

Good luck working on your mindset. We are curious to learn how it goes for you. If you want to share your stories, need some help or just want to talk, let us know. We are happy to talk to you! Find us on Twitter (Huib and Nicole) or LinkedIn (Huib and Nicole). Start today, don’t think it will get better by itself. Because it won’t. It requires work. A lot of work. But it will make your life a whole lot easier. If you need some support in your journey, just reach out.

Resources:

Dealing with mindsets: Mindset – part 3

In our first blog post in this series on mindset Nicole and I summarized the book “Mindset” by Carol Dweck. In the second blog post “Looking Back on Perfection and Burnout” we shared our personal history with growth and fixed mindsets. This blog post we talk about how we dealt and currently deal with our mindsets. We also talk about how we changed the way we think. 

Nicole’s story:
When Huib suggested that in the third part of our blog post that we talk about how we started to change our mindset, I knew that it was going to take a bit of work and a lot of reflection. The shift in mindset for me was not necessarily a conscious effort until, of course, I read the book. For me, the shift started with a burnout…and with therapy.

As I mentioned in the previous blog post, I used to work in a forensic crime lab. The training I went through was intense – they make it harder than it really is because then you are prepared for everything that might come your way. But looking back, I think that training exacerbated my already perfectionistic tendencies. I had to do everything right or a case might get thrown out. I put a lot of pressure on myself to not make any mistakes. As you might imagine, this caused an intense amount of anxiety in my life. There were days I had to go down to my car in the parking lot to just get away from work for a bit. While I was in the car, I would break down and cry. At some point, I realized that this wasn’t healthy – I couldn’t go on living my life like this. I needed to make a change.

At the same time, I had started going to therapy. This was not the first time I had been in therapy – I had been in it in the past to deal with some issues with relationships in my life. But this time I was in to try to deal with my anxiety – I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and started medication in addition to the therapy. One of the most important things I discovered during therapy was my need for people’s approval. I held the belief that everyone should like me. The most profound insight and driver in the change in the way I thought was a simple question posed to me by my therapist: “Do you like everyone?” And of course, I said no. To which she said, “Of course not. And not everyone is going to like you.” That message struck a chord and has stuck with me. There’s no need to try to prove myself to people, or even to myself. Trying my best and doing the right things in life were all I needed to do. I won’t say that I don’t still think about people’s approval – as with anything, it is a life-long learning curve. But I sure care less about it now than I did back then. I think that was the first step on my journey of shifting away from a fixed mindset.

The second step goes back to that change I said I needed to make in my life. I decided to go back to what I originally wanted to do in life, my true passion: work with animals in some capacity. So, with the help and support of my partner, I changed my hours at the lab to part-time and spent the other half of my time volunteering at the local zoo. Soon that transitioned into a part-time zookeeping job that eventually led to the job I’m in now – a combination of computers and animals, two of my favorite things. I love my job. And I think part of the reason I am not afraid to fail and take on challenges in this job is because of how much I love it. I know I have room to grow and I want to continue learning. Instead of worrying about negative feedback, I seek out feedback so that I can learn what I need to improve upon. I think finding something I truly enjoy was instrumental in starting to move towards a growth mindset and leaving the negative parts of perfectionism behind.

The “last” step of course was reading the book Mindset. Learning about mindset – putting meaning to what it is, what it drives, where it comes from – brought everything together. This lead to the awareness of having a fixed mindset in certain situations, but a growth mindset in others. My mindset change is still very much a work in progress. But now I have the advantage of knowing that it exists and am learning what things tend to trigger my fixed mindset so I can work on taking on those situations with a growth mindset instead. I think at one point in time I would have said that there are certain things you can’t change about yourself – perfectionism being one of those things. But now I think while my perfectionism may never go away, I can change how it drives and affects me. I think you can strive to be your best, and even strive for perfection, as long as you realize perfection is impossible to achieve. But it can motivate you to work hard and aim high, as long as you can use your setbacks and failures as learning experiences on the path to get better. I think that is what having a growth mindset is all about – being willing to take risks and embracing challenges in order to learn, grow, and become better. I look forward to seeing where my growth mindset can take me. 

Huib’s Story:
Changing your mindset is hard! But it starts with recognizing that your mindset is getting you into trouble in the first place.

My journey in dealing with my fixed mindset started when I was 27. Before that, and especially in my teens, I had many depressions caused by low self-esteem and making myself crazy with thoughts. My father and his partner took me in their house when I had my burn-out in 1997. I stayed with them for 3 months and took my first steps in adult therapy and dealing with my mental issues. I got therapy from a nice psychologist who helped me recover from my burn-out. I didn’t let him too close because I was afraid of what would surface and thus, nothing really changed. After a while gradually my old thoughts and behavior came back.

When I grew in my career into lead roles and later into management positions, I ran into more problems. I became responsible for the work of more people and my perfectionism made me feel bad if they underperformed or did not succeed. I wanted others to not make mistakes and by mentoring and coaching them, I tried to help them – sometimes literally inflicting help upon others. I struggled with self-esteem and my mind was always busy. As a pretty emotional person, I had to deal with my emotions. But I felt that emotions were stupid: I told myself I shouldn’t be influenced by them. So I was hiding my emotions constantly. I fooled myself that it’ll go away on its own when I knew it wouldn’t. I’m good at making others believe that I’m okay.

Because I knew how to recognize my dips, I didn’t become as depressed as I used to before my burn-out; a sign that I was learning. I had a sort of periodic cycle of being too busy, stressed, and taking on too much work that caused me to not sleep very well. Because of not getting enough sleep, I wasn’t able to control my negative thoughts, which made it worse and got me even less sleep. After a couple of weeks, I would be drained. I often would call my doctor to get some sleeping pills. This would help me sleep well for a week or two and that was just enough to get my thoughts under control before sliding into another burn-out or depression.

This went on until I became manager at a bank, where I ran into trouble when things would get difficult. I couldn’t deal very well with resistance or situations where things didn’t go the way I wanted them. I had trouble dealing with feedback and I became defensive quite fast. If people would ask a lot of questions about my proposals, it felt like I wasn’t clear enough and I blamed myself for this. My manager recognized this was happening and he suggested coaching. My coach helped me a lot with dealing with resistance, reaching goals, dealing with emotions, being okay with not knowing stuff, and acting less defensive, amongst other things. My coach recommended me to take therapy and deal with my underlying problems. He was right, deep inside I knew that, but I got scared and stepped away. I told myself I didn’t need to work on my myself anymore since things at work had improved quite a lot.

In 2015, I got an assignment as an interim manager at a financial service company. I had a huge team of 100+ people with too many direct reports. It was a challenging organization with a toxic management culture. I worked extremely long days because I wanted to prove myself and at home, I was preparing meetings for the next day. After a two-week holiday, I came back to work with my battery not fully charged and a new burn-out was approaching fast. I hit the brakes just in time, so I recovered in a couple of weeks instead of months. In my recovery, I went to see a haptonomist. She helped me recover from the burnout and after that, I stopped seeing her. A year later I went back to her because I needed to get rest in my head. I was getting sick and tired of always being busy and not being able to turn my head off. I tried mindfulness, and of course people recommended things like meditation and yoga, but that didn’t feel like it was something for me. I told myself it was too vague and wooly for me. My haptonomist taught me to sit still and do nothing for a while. After working with her, I was able to just sit and not react to anything happening around me.

Being able to do that helped a lot and I felt strong. Until a while later the cycle started again: too much stress, bad sleep, etc. So finally in 2019, I took a big step in dealing with my issues (see: blogpost “mastering my mindset“). I finally was done with my mental issues and ready to face the underlying problem. So I decided to go for therapy. I wanted to learn how to deal with my insecurity, my fear of failing and to get rest in my head. Looking for a therapist, I wrote down my issues and the things I wanted to change. I also wrote my “mental resume” with the issues I dealt with in my life and what I had done to overcome them. This gave me a lot of insight into myself. I saw a pattern of dealing with symptoms instead of dealing with the real problems, running away when things got too hard, and a lot of fighting. Fighting with myself, but also fighting and pushing other people, which had brought me problems several times in my career.

My therapist made me work hard and I reflected on many things. I learned that mainly it was my (negative) thoughts that were getting me into trouble. Reading the mindset book helped me understand where my fear of failing came from. In therapy I learned where my problems come from and I got enough insight to work on them. I learned to accept myself as I am and to let go of the past. I know what I still have to work on in myself in the future to reduce my fear of failure.The most important lessons for me are: being authentic is important. It saves a lot of energy if you can just be yourself. Emotional intelligence is key to dealing with your mindset. It helps understanding, expressing and managing emotions. I had to change my thinking and behaviour and in doing this, I ultimately changed my mindset. I am working on being vulnerable more often and showing empathy to build trust and relations which helps me to be a better teacher and coach but also a better person.

These positive emotions help me to think more clearly and be more present. I became a better listener, showing more interest in others, asking better questions and being more open to learning about others’ experiences. I am more self-aware and that is a good starting point.

“You have to name things in so many words. Something must be allowed to exist first and then leave it behind.”
(Griet op de Beeck in Dreamschool)

How do you find out what mindset you have and how can you deal with a fixed mindset? In our next blog post we will talk about that.

Looking Back on Perfection and Burnout: Mindset – part 2

In our last blog post Nicole and I summarized the book “Mindset – Changing the way you think to fulfill your potential” by professor Dr. Carol Dweck. In this blog post we share our personal history with growth and fixed mindsets. How we currently deal with our mindset and how we changed the way we think, is the topic for our next blog post.

Nicole’s story:
Looking back to my school days, probably from early primary school all the way through undergraduate college, when it came to my education, I had a very fixed mindset. I think the same was true when I played sports, which was mainly in secondary school. It was about getting good grades and winning the game. While reading Mindset, I reflected on this and where my mindset might have come from. Was it my parents? Teachers? Coaches? Dweck talks about the types of praise we give children – she says “Praising children’s intelligence harms their motivation and it harms their performance.” Instead, we should praise effort, persistence, and good strategies.

I don’t know how my mindset exactly got formed, to be honest. My parents never pushed me to be perfect in school or sports, and if anything, they were constantly telling me to not be hard on myself. If I was upset at losing a game, they were the first to remind me how hard I played and that I gave it my best effort. Was it my teachers? Maybe some of them. Our educational system (speaking in my case about the United States) definitely rewards good grades and test scores. Want to get into a prestigious college program? Better get a high GPA and test score on your ACT/SAT. So I pushed, and I did it. And then I got to college and I thought, now you can’t expect to get straight A’s because it is so much harder. But then I got straight A’s my first semester, and the same mindset of “you have to keep doing that” set in. Only it WAS harder in college and took much more effort to keep it up. This lead to a large amount of stress and anxiety so bad that my stomach would flop as soon I came back into my college town after a break. Looking back, there was so much more I could have actually learned in college and certainly had more fun doing so had I not been so focused on perfection. 

I think my fixed mindset continued into my first job. Not to get straight A’s of course, but to maintain perfect. To make no mistakes. I worried about making the slightest mistake because I worked in a crime lab – a mistake could mean that a criminal might get away. It wasn’t until I burned out (surprise) and switched careers to something I loved that my mindset began to change. I finally realized that striving for perfection was not only impossible, it was causing me more harm than good. Now, I truly love both learning and my job. I don’t expect myself to know everything or to never make a mistake. I crave problems and figuring them out – I think I always did, but now there is only joy with no anxiety mixed in. Of course my fixed mindset is still here, lurking, and pops up in certain situations. Reading the book helped me realize that and now that I’m more aware of it, I want to embrace it and lean into those situations to encourage my growth mindset to take over. I still have a lot of growing left to do but I’m confident that embracing the growth mindset I have found will help me get there.

Huib’s story:
As a kid, I grew up in a pretty competitive environment. Both of my parents were very competitive and my brother and I were also always competing with each other. I was a smart kid and in school I was one of the top performers. I was also a very curious kid and I had a broad interest and read a lot. Unfortunately, I had too much energy and got distracted pretty fast. That made me not one of the most popular people in elementary school. I guess I had to prove myself in another way. Being the smartest or the best in class was important to me. I wanted to prove that I was smart all the time. It made me unhappy and it made that I was a sort of geek. I am not sure how I was praised back then. All I can remember is that I was a bad loser and I was focused on results and wanted to be seen.

I also developed a big “defensive” wall around me. Scaring away from things that I felt I could fail and over-shouting myself to show the world how invulnerable I was. I became good at talking myself out of dangerous situations where I could fail making a fool out of myself. I made other people believe I had it all under control. As said in my earlier blog post “mastering my mindset“, people perceive me as extremely confident and fearless and it started right after elementary school were I developed this incongruent behaviour. The results were that I got seriously depressed once or twice a year, dropping out of school for sometimes two or three weeks.

I remember doing central exams in High School. They made me super nervous and literally made me sick. Those weeks were horrible for me. Each morning I woke up not being able to eat or drink and anything that I would eat or drink would come out not long after. My fear of failing in combination with a fixed mindset telling me I had to get good grades was killing me. I graduated without taking any re-exams, but only because my grades were very good before taking the central exams.

In sports, I had the same mindset. I had to be the best in everything I did. My father taught me and my brother to play chess. But after a few years, my brother became way better than me and I quit playing because it was not fun anymore. I was a keeper at (field) hockey and here my “not wanting to lose mentality” kicked in driving me to be better. I became keeper in the first place because that way I could not be compared to other people on the field, a safe choice. I remember standing in the goal with tears in my eyes because the opposing party scored a goal. I told myself that I had to be perfect. No ball should pass me, which of course is a crazy thought.

Asking for help has often been a thing for me during my career. When I started working, I had to be good at what I did. Asking for help I considered to be a sign of weakness. This caused a severe burn-out when I was 27. I was developing software and I was responsible for everything: design, coding and testing. There was no team, I was the team, and the customer wanted a lot of new things. In stead of asking for help, I started doing overtime. This resulted in a lot stress, which made me sleep worse. After a couple of months, I couldn’t go on anymore and I collapsed.

Even recently when I took guitar lessons for a year in 2018/2019, my fixed mindset kept showing up. I kept asking questions to my teacher to keep him talking and playing instead me playing for him. I used excuses not to record my playing (which was a regular part of what he did with other students) and I didn’t really enjoyed practicing. Playing a musical instrument makes mistakes very easy to spot, you hear them instantly. My perfectionism and fixed mindset concerning playing guitar made me eventually stop playing. I will pick it up later, because I like playing music, but back then it just didn’t really work for me.

Currently I think I have a combination of a growth and a fixed mindset. My growth mindset is getting more and more dominant and I like that. I worked hard on my mindset and it’s paying off now. Because of my learning about mindset, I am able to recognise when my fixed mindset shows itself. When that happens I take a step back and reflect on why this mindset is there and what caused it. Often it is system 1 (ref: Daniel Kahneman  Thinking Fast vs. Thinking Slow), a learned habit possibly linked to a fear deep inside myself. But eventually I am learning how to deal with it.

In our next blog post we will talk about how we currently deal with our mindset and how we changed the way we think.

Mindset – The book: Mindset – part 1

I am fascinated by mindset. As a lifelong learner I have read piles of books, done many courses and been to over a 100 conferences. When I started coaching people I learned about the power of thoughts. I took a learning pathway in coaching that consisted of 15 days training in a two year period and I learned about how to be a good coach. But I learned even more about myself. In 2019 I started working with bureau Idee and learned how to work on my own mindset. Until then I never fully realised the impact of my thoughts and inner beliefs on my behaviour and mental health. You can read more about that journey here on my blog.

One of the most interesting books I have read is “Mindset – Changing the way you think to fulfil your potential” by Professor dr. Carol Dweck. Me and my learning buddy Nicole Errante read the book together as part of our learning pact. This blog post is our summary of the book. In our next blog post we will discuss our personal experiences with growth and fixed mindsets.

Summary Mindset

Mindset is a way of thinking, a mental attitude and self-conception that you carry with you through your life. People are all born with a love of learning, but somehow, somewhere in our lives it gets undone for some. Some people love challenges, others hate them. This is caused by their mindset. Carol Dweck researched human motivation. Why do people succeed? She found out that mindset plays a big role in creating the love for learning and resilience. Our conscious and unconscious thoughts and beliefs affect how we perform. Changing our beliefs can have a powerful impact.

Dweck talks about mindset being a belief about yourself. Through her research, she discovered there are two types of mindsets: the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. In the fixed mindset, people believe that the qualities they possess (such as intelligence or personality) are set in stone. But in the growth mindset, people believe that their qualities are capable of changing through effort, strategy, and help from others. Why is this important? Your mindset affects how you deal with life and the challenges that come along with it. When you are in a fixed mindset, you want to look smart, you are trying to prove yourself over and over. Taking on risks means being vulnerable to failure, and that is not acceptable. Any perceived deficiencies in yourself must be hidden. So you simply avoid risks and stick to easy tasks you know that you can accomplish. You give up easy and get defensive often. But with a growth mindset, you welcome challenges as an opportunity to grow and learn, even if you fail. Inadequacies are seen as something that you can work on and overcome. Even in the growth mindset, failure can be a painful experience. But it doesn’t define you. It’s a problem to be faced, dealt with, and learned from, which makes you more anti-fragile.

In business, leaders with a fixed mindset don’t listen to others and they make subordinates feel bad. They want to feel powerful by highlighting their own superiority. So instead of trying to make good products or services, employees want to please the leader. This can result in the whole company having a fixed mindset. This kills creativity and innovation. It will cause groupthink; group members conforming to group values. Everyone in a group starts thinking alike. Nobody disagrees with the leader. In personal relations, mindset is also important. People with a fixed mindset think that good relations do not need work; they expect their partners to know what they need without talking or asking. They perceive feedback or rejections as proof of their bad personality, where people with a growth mindset work on the relation based on the feedback they get. When people in a growth mindset have a fight, no partner gets full blame in the dispute. They work together to solve the problem.

The beautiful part is that you can change your mindset. It is, after all, just a belief and beliefs can be changed. Dweck does remind us that changing your mindset is not like a knee replacement – you don’t just swap the bad knee (fixed mindset) for the good one (growth mindset). “Instead, the new beliefs take their place alongside the old ones, and as they become stronger, they give you a different way to think, feel, and act.”

How do you build a growth mindset? It starts with accepting that we all have both mindsets! Learn to recognise what triggers our fixed mindset. Failures? Criticism? Deadlines? Disagreements? As you come to understand your triggers and get to know your fixed mindset persona, don’t judge it. Just observe it. Give the persona a name. Then understand what happens to us when our fixed mindset persona is triggered. This will provide insight in the feelings the fixed mindset triggers and the fears that activate it. The next step is to learn to remain in a growth mindset when those triggers occur. Then continue to find opportunities to learn and grow.

Also her TED talk “The power of believing that you can improve” is very inspiring:

How do you build a growth mindset? This video “Developing a Growth Mindset with Carol Dweck” gives some clues:

In our next blog post we will discuss our personal experiences with growth and fixed mindsets.

Mastering my mindset

Dutch version is here

People perceive me as extremely confident. One of my personal mentors once said: “you are fearless”. That is only the outside. Inside I am soft and insecure like most people are. I have fears, quite a few to be honest. My behavior and my inside weren’t congruent.

In my life, I like challenges and when I want something, I go for it. In those cases my determination and will to learn or to achieve something are just bigger than the fear of failing. Personal leadership is important in my life. I am trying to become a better version of myself every day. I want to be an even better person. My passion and energy in combination with being a fighter brought me where I am today. But it had a lot of “collateral damage”. Since my youth I have been struggling with depression, low self esteem and restlessness. Over time I got much better in dealing with them. But I still suffer from burn-out and depression complaints and mental health issues once in a while. My pitfalls are: fighting all the time, pushing people too much, going in debates to win, not able to turn myself off. In September 2019 I started a new episode in my life: I started working with Bureau Idee in Haarlem after an anxiety attack. Working with Peter Spelbos was like coming home. He helped me reflect and made me aware of aspects of myself that I have known for long, but never realized the impact of my thoughts and inner beliefs on my behavior and mental health.

On one hand, I am someone who is always ready to help others. A good and dear friend who is very good at his job. On the other hand I am afraid of many things because of my fear of failure in combination with perfectionism. Having a low self-esteem drains energy because you have to deal with the fact that you care about what others think of you. I see patterns where I put on a mask and hide my real self. Another personal mentor told me that “I am good at breaking down the walls of others and with those stones making my own wall higher and stronger”. I find it difficult to make myself vulnerable. I also see a pattern of running away from problems when it gets too difficult. My head is full of negative thoughts, all the time.

But I am dealing with them. Together with my therapist I gained deeper knowledge about myself, my inner beliefs and he helped me reflect on what to work on. He helped me to take matters into my own hands. By writing this, I feel strong and confident that I will overcome my issues and become a better version of myself. I am already reaping the fruits of my efforts.

As a coach, I teach people that vulnerability and self-reflection is important. By sharing this, I want to be a role model and show that having mental issues is okay as long as you work on them. Being vulnerable is nothing to be ashamed of; it is a super power. I believe that personal leadership and collaboration ultimately makes the difference in work and in your personal life. Mindset is the most important thing to become the best version of yourself. Vitality is key in that! To do the best work and to live the best life, physical and mental health are important and they are directly related! I learned that I need to become mentally strong by being less aggressive and more assertive (have a look at this awesome video). I started guarding my limits and borders, reasoning from my position and being less judgemental, becoming a better listener, being more humble and thankful, started meditating and practicing tolerance. I found a lot of inspiration in the Dutch book “Master your mindset” by Michael Pilarczyk.

I am mastering my mindset. I am dealing with it! It feels good and it makes me feel strong.

Watch your thoughts, they become your words
Watch your words, they become your actions
Watch your actions, they become your habits
Watch your habits, they become your character
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny
― Lao Tzu


Meester over je gedachten (Master your Mindset)

Mensen ervaren mij als extreem zelfverzekerd. Een van mijn persoonlijke mentoren zei ooit: “je bent onbevreesd”. Dat is alleen de buitenkant. Binnen ben ik zacht en onzeker zoals de meeste mensen. Ik heb angsten, nogal wat om eerlijk te zijn. Mijn gedrag en mijn binnenkant waren niet congruent.

In mijn leven houd ik van uitdagingen en als ik iets wil, ga ik ervoor. In die gevallen zijn mijn vastberadenheid en wil om iets te leren of te bereiken gewoon groter dan de angst om te falen. Persoonlijk leiderschap is belangrijk in mijn leven. Ik probeer elke dag een betere versie van mezelf te worden. Ik wil een nog beter persoon zijn. Mijn passie en energie in combinatie met de straatvechter in mij, brachten me waar ik nu ben. Maar het had veel “bijkomende schade”. Sinds mijn jeugd heb ik te kampen met depressies, een laag zelfbeeld en rusteloosheid. Na verloop van tijd wist daar ik steeds beter mee te dealen. Maar ik heb nog steeds af en toe last van burn-out en depressie klachten en daardoor psychische problemen. Mijn valkuilen zijn: de hele tijd vechten, mensen te veel pushen, debatten aangaan om te winnen, mezelf (mentaal en lichamelijk) niet kunnen uitschakelen. In september 2019 begon ik een nieuw tijdperk in mijn leven: ik begon te werken met Bureau Idee in Haarlem na een angstaanval. Werken met Peter Spelbos was als thuiskomen. Hij hielp me nadenken en maakte me bewust van aspecten van mezelf die ik al lang ken, maar nooit de impact van mijn gedachten en innerlijke overtuigingen op mijn gedrag en mentale gezondheid besefte.

Aan de ene kant ben ik iemand die altijd klaar staat om anderen te helpen. Een goede en dierbare vriend die heel goed is in zijn werk. Aan de andere kant ben ik bang voor veel dingen vanwege mijn faalangst in combinatie met perfectionisme. Het hebben van een laag zelfbeeld verspilt energie omdat je je druk maakt om wat anderen van je denken. Ik zie patronen waar ik een masker op zet en mijn echte zelf verberg. Een andere persoonlijke mentor vertelde me dat “ik goed ben in het afbreken van de muren van anderen en met die stenen mijn eigen muur hoger en sterker maak”. Ik vind het moeilijk om mezelf kwetsbaar op te stellen. Ik zie ook een patroon van weglopen van problemen wanneer het te moeilijk wordt. Mijn hoofd is altijd vol met negatieve gedachten.

Maar ik ben ermee aan de slag gegaan. Samen met mijn therapeut heb ik diepgaande kennis over mezelf en mijn innerlijke overtuigingen ontdekt. Hij heeft me geholpen na te denken over waar ik aan moest werken. Hij hielp me het heft in eigen handen te nemen. Door dit te schrijven, voel ik me sterk en zelfverzekerd dat ik mijn problemen zal overwinnen en een betere versie van mezelf zal worden. Ik pluk nu de vruchten van mijn inspanningen.

Als coach leer ik mensen dat kwetsbaarheid en zelfreflectie belangrijk zijn. Door dit te delen, wil ik een rolmodel zijn en laten zien dat het hebben van mentale problemen prima is zolang je eraan werkt. Kwetsbaar zijn is niet iets om je voor te schamen; het is een superkracht. Ik geloof dat persoonlijk leiderschap en samenwerking uiteindelijk het verschil maakt in werk en in je persoonlijke leven. Mindset is het belangrijkste om de beste versie van jezelf te worden. Vitaliteit staat daarbij centraal! Om het beste werk te doen en het beste leven te leiden, is fysieke en mentale gezondheid belangrijk en die zijn direct aan elkaar gerelateerd! Ik heb geleerd dat ik mentaal sterk kan worden door minder agressief en meer assertief te zijn (bekijk deze geweldige video). Ik begon mijn grenzen te bewaken en aan te geven aan anderen, vanuit mijn eigen positie te redeneren en minder oordelend te zijn, een betere luisteraar te worden, nederiger en dankbaar te zijn, begon te mediteren en tolerantie te oefenen. Ik vond veel inspiratie in het Nederlandse boek ‘Master your mindset‘ van Michael Pilarczyk.

Ik ben bezig om mijn mindset te trainen. Ik werk aan mijn manier van denken! Het voelt goed en ik voel me sterk.

Let op je gedachten, ze worden je woorden
Let op je woorden, ze worden je acties
Let op je acties, ze worden je gewoontes
Let op je gewoonten, ze worden je karakter
Let op je karakter, het wordt je bestemming
- Lao Tzu

The art of reflection

“Once is coincidence
Twice is striking
Three times is pattern”

October 19-21 2018 DEWT held their 8th annual peer conference with “Developing expertise in software testing” as theme. I had the honour to open the conference with my experience report called “Mentoring and coaching to develop skills”. In the open season after my experience report and during the rest of the peer conference we talked about reflection on several occasions. I think one of the most important skills in learning is reflection.

My vision on learning
Learning is the process of acquiring new or adapting existing knowledge, behaviours, skills, values ​​or preferences. Learning is much more than knowing: putting the learned into practice and gaining experience with it is important to truly internalise real knowledge and to gain skill. Learning must be linked to experiences from daily practice. By reflecting on knowledge and skills, so-called learning loops are created.

Learning is an ongoing process: the world is changing fast and to be excellent in your role requires many skills. So it is important to keep up! To learn effectively, learning should come from yourself, with intrinsic motivation and personal responsibility.

Learning requires a positive and open learning environment in which you can safely come out of your comfort zone to try new things. The safe environment gives confidence to make mistakes and to experiment with new knowledge and skills. It also demands a certain degree of challenge. How big the challenge is, is different for everyone. It is not that you always have to come out of your comfort zone radically. Right outside of your comfort zone, in your stretch zone,  you learn best.

Effective learning requires focused learning with clear learning objectives and preferably evaluation criteria. It should be clear what you want to learn and how you can measure that. Where do you want to grow? And how do you know that you have made a step? By setting clear learning objectives, you focus on learning.

Levels of learning
There are different levels of learning: (ref: Joris van de Griendt)

  1. In single-loop learning (improvement, behavioural improvement), it is about the visible and concrete behavioural level (what): you do something and that has a certain effect. This effect may be desirable or not, and based on that assessment, you can adjust your behaviour or not.
  2. Double loop (reframing, behavioural renewal) If you want to change your behaviour permanently, there is double-loop learning: researching which patterns the behaviour involves (how). Which patterns and mechanisms are behind the behaviour? Which helpful or obstructing thoughts are involved? Insight into this can provide a more well-founded choice to change behaviour.
  3. Triple-loop learning (transformation, behavioural development) goes even deeper. You involve your values, your purpose, the why question: why do I really want to change this behaviour? What important values ​​in me support this and what stops me?

What is reflection?
Reflection is a process of exploring and examining ourselves, our perspectives, attributes, experiences and actions / interactions. It helps us gain insight and see how to move forward. (ref: University of Edinburgh).

When we reflect, we deeply consider something that we might not otherwise have given much thought to. This helps us to learn. Reflection is concerned with consciously looking at and thinking about our experiences, actions, feelings, and responses, and then interpreting or analysing them in order to learn from them. (ref: The Open University).

Reflection is looking back at your behaviour in a certain situation. You reflect on that situation by asking yourself meaningful questions to make you think about the situation. The difference between just thinking and reflection is the intention to learn. There is a difference between evaluation and reflection. Evaluation means making a judgement about something you did. For example: did you reach your goal? Did I do the right thing? While reflecting means creating a safe space to investigate behaviour without making a judgement with the intention to grow.

Like learning, there are different levels of reflecting:

  1. Single-loop reflection focuses on behaviour and actions and is very close to evaluation.
  2. Double-loop reflection means trying to get hold of underlying convictions that interfere with the adjustment of interaction and behaviour.
  3. Triple-loop reflection is about motives and matters that touch on their own identity. There is often a relationship with issues at a higher level, that of the organisation or even of an entire system.

Iceberg

(image credit: Dutch Vision Institute)

Above the waterline behaviour is perceptible and statements are audible. But opinions, beliefs, feelings and emotions are not visible; they are below the waterline. These invisible elements, however, are often the motives for visible behaviour. An important part of the reflection will therefore consist of researching these deeper layers of the Iceberg.

By not addressing all layers within one’s competence management, you allow the coachee to act for incongruously (say A and do B, or vent a belief that contradicts his own motivation); just like external fragmentation (non-integration in the context), internal fragmentation (in the context of do-thinking motives) also leads to a real risk of energy loss.

Korthagen

(ref: How do I use the Korthagen reflection circle diagram?)

Korthagen’s reflection cycle is a tool or a strategy to be followed for learners to gain insight into their educational performance and to improve this. By applying this cycle step-by-step, one learns to systematically reflect a skill to be learned.

Phase 1: Describe the experience/situation you wish to reflect upon. What was the actual situation? You can do this by using the STARR(S) method: Situation-Task-Action-Result-Reflection-Strengthen (see appendix).

  • What did I have to do in this situation?
  • What action did I actually take?
  • What was the outcome of this action?

Phase 2: Looking back: What exactly happened?

  • What did I see?
  • What did I do?
  • What did I think?
  • What did I feel?

Phase 3: Awareness of essential aspects

  • What does that mean to me now?
  • What is the problem (or the positive discovery)?
  • What has all that caused? What does it involve?

Phase 4: Alternative methods

  • What alternative methods do I see (solutions or ways of making use of what I have discovered)?
  • What are their advantages and disadvantages?
  • What will I remember for next time?

Phase 5: Trial/action

  • What do I want to achieve?
  • What should I watch out for?
  • What do I want to try out?

Danger of thinking too much

Reflecting is an active activity that demands skills. It often happens that professionals think they reflect, while they are actually worrying.

This points out the important differences:

Worry

  • Involved in itself, looking from our own perspective, alone
  • Focused on mistakes
  • Focused on judging and condemning
  • Global approach
  • Mono causal approach

Reflection

  • Involved in the problem, also looking at a perspective outside of oneself, in contact with others
  • Focused on solutions
  • Focused on understanding
  • Analytical approach
  • Multi causal approach

Tips for reflecting

You can reflect on every situation and every problem that concerns you. You can learn a lot from that, but the pitfall is that you will be overwhelmed by the information and will keep looking back endlessly. Another danger is that you may feel that you are actually doing a good job – the work is going well, there is no criticism from colleagues or your supervisor – and so you see no reason to reflect. Yet it can also be very instructive to reflect on yourself and your way of acting.

The following tips can help you reflect:

  • Choose a concrete situation and look back on that specific moment and your course of action
  • Reflect regularly and ‘schedule’ at least once a week a reflection moment, preferably at a fixed time
  • Ask yourself open questions
  • Explain judgments about yourself; first see what really happened before judging yourself
  • Reflect in a methodical way, for example by going through a list of questions or use a reflection model
  • Reflect not only on problem situations but also on success experiences
  • Use feedback from others to reflect from that point of view
  • Read more about reflection to get inspired. This is a nice blogpost about reflection: How Self-Reflection Gives You a Happier and More Successful Life. For more inspiration read this: Tools to help you with self-reflection

Together you learn even more

It is already very instructive to consider your own functioning in this way, but it can be even more profitable if you do this together with others. Do not try to judge here either. Not about others, nor about yourself: you feel free to tell everything. For example, start doing intervision with peers or colleagues. More about intervision here: Intervision: what is it about?

Start a journal

Writing in a journal regularly (preferably daily on a specific time) helps to analyse your professional and personal growth. Journaling can give you a different perspective on things. Writing in your journal is a very useful tool to help you understand yourself and the world around you. Write down activities, thoughts, ideas, reasons, actions, techniques and reflections on specific topics or skills you want to improve. By writing in a journal you get an overview of your thoughts in which you can identify patterns. Journaling helps you to get thoughts and ideas out of your head but more important it enables making sense of things that happened. After doing something related to your learning goal, take notes on your observations, summarise facts and experiences. Also write down how it makes you feel.

More about reflective journaling in this article: Reflective Journals and Learning Logs.

 

Here are two helpful checklists to help you reflect:

Refusing to do bad work…

I talked at TestBash about context-driven testing in agile. I my talk I said that I refuse to do bad work. Adam Knight wrote a great blog post “Knuckling Down” about this: “One of the messages that came up in more than one of the talks during the day, most strongly in Huib Schoots talk on Context Driven in Agile, was the need to stick to the principle of refusing to do bad work. The consequential suggestion was that a tester should leave any position where you are asked to compromise this principle.

Adam also writes: “What was missing for me in the sentiments presented at TestBash was any suggestion that testers should attempt to tackle the challenges faced on a poor or misguided project before leaving. In the examples I noted from the day there was no suggestion of any effort to resolve the situation, or alter the approach being taken. There was no implication of leaving only ‘if all else fails’. I’d like to see an attitude more around attempting to tackle a bad situation head on rather than looking at moving on as the only option. Of course we should consider moving if a situation in untenable, but I’d like to think that this decision be made only after knuckling down and putting your best effort in to make the best of a bad lot.

Interesting because I think I said exactly that: “if anything else fails, leave!” But maybe I only thought that and forgot to speak it out loud, I am not sure. Let’s wait for the video that will give us the answer. But in the meanwhile: of course Adam is right and I am happy that he wrote his blog post. Because if I was too firm or too distinct, he gave me a chance to explain. Because looking back, I have done many projects where, if I hadn’t tried to change stuff, I would have left many of them in the first couple of days. There is a lot of bad testing around. So what did I try to say?

Ethics again.

This topic touches very closely to ethics in your work! Refusing to do bad work is an ethical statement. Ethics are very important for me and I hope more testers will recognize that only being ethical will change our craft. Ethics help us decide what is right and what is wrong. Have a look at the ethics James Bach summed up in this blog post “Thoughts Toward The Ethics of Testing“. Nathalie pointed to an article she wrote on ethics in a reply to my last post.

Ethics and integrity go hand in hand. Ethics are the external “rules and laws” and integrity is your internal system of principles that guides your behaviour. Integrity is a choice rather than an obligation and will help you do what is right even if no one is watching.

I refuse to do bad work!

Bad work is any work that is deliberately bad. I think along the lines of restrictions in a context, demands placed on them that they don’t know how to handle. Or even worse: intentionally doing stuff you know can be done better, but it is faster, easier or because others ask you to do it like that. Of course there are novices in the field and they do work that can be done better. I do not call that bad work since they are still learning. Still there is a limit to that as well. If you have been tester for several years and you still do not know how to do more than 3 test techniques without having to look them up, I will call that bad work as well. I expect continuing professional development from everybody in the field. Simply because working in IT (but in any profession) we need to develop ourselves to become better.

ethicsLying is always bad work. And I have seen many people lie in their work. Lying to managers to get off the hook, making messages sound just a little better by leaving out essential stuff. Also telling people what they what to hear to make them happy is bad work. What do you do when your project manager asks you to change your test report because it will harm his reputation? Or what do you tell the hiring manager in a job interview when he asks you if you are willing to learn? Many people tell that they are very willing to learn, but are they really?

Bad work is claiming things you can’t accomplish: like assuring quality or testing everything. It is also bad work when you do not admit your mistakes and hide them from your colleagues. Bad work is accepting an assignment when you know you do not have the right skills or the right knowledge. In secondment assignments this is an issue sometimes. I have taken on a project once where the customer wanted something I couldn’t deliver but because my boss wanted me on the position I accepted. That was wrong and the assignment didn’t work out. I felt very bad about it: not because I failed, but because I knew upfront I would fail! I won’t do that again, ever.

So how do I handle this?

I push back! Of course I do not run away from a project when I see or smell bad work. I do try to tackle the challenges I am faced with. I use three important ways trying to change the situation: my courage, asking questions and my ethics. Some examples: when a managers start telling me what I should do and explicitly tell me how I should do that, I often ask how much testing experience the manager has. When given the answer I friendly tell him that I am very willing to help him achieve his goals, but that I think I am the expert and I will decide on how I do my work. Surely there is more to it and I need to be able to explain why I want it to be done differently.

I also ask a lot of questions that start with “why”. Why do you want me to write test cases? What problem will that solve? I found out that often people ask for things like test cases or metrics because it is “common practice” or folklore not because it will serve a certain purpose. Also when I know the reasons behind the requests, it makes it easier to discuss them and to push back. A great example of this is the last blog post “Variable Testers” by James Bach.

Adam talks about changing peoples minds: “One of the most difficult skills I’ve found to learn as a tester is the ability to justify your approach and your reasons for taking it, and being able to argue your case to someone else who has a misguided perspective on what testing does or should involve. Having these discussions, and changing peoples minds, is a big part of what good testing is.

I fully agree. In my last on blog post “heuristics for recognizing professional testers” my first heuristic was: “They have a paradigm of what testing is and they can explain their approach in any given situation. Professional testers can explain what testing is, what value they add and how they would test in a specific situation.” To become better as testers and to advance our craft, we should train the skills Adam mentions: justify approach and being able to argue our case.

It will make you better and happier!

Jerry Weinberg listed his set of principles in a blog post “A Code of Work Rules for Consultants“. In this blog post he says: “Over the years, I’ve found that people who ask these questions and set those conditions don’t wind up in jobs that make them miserable. Sometimes, when they ask them honestly they leave their present position for something else that makes them happier, even at a lower fee scale. Sometimes, a client manager is outraged at one of these conditions, which is a sure indication of trouble later, if not sooner.

It will make you a happier person when you know what your limits are and you are able to clearly remind people you work with. It will prevent you from getting into situations that make you miserable. “That’s the way things are” doesn’t exist in my professional vocabulary. There is always something you can do about it. And if the situation you end up in, after you tried the best you can, isn’t satisfying to you: leave! Believe me, it will make you feel good. I have got the t-shirt! And… being clear about your values also will make you better in your work. Maybe not directly, but indirectly it will.

Daniel Pink speaks about the self-determination theory in his book “Drive“. The three keywords in his book are: Autonomy, Mastery and purpose: “human beings have an innate drive to be autonomous, self-determined and connected to one another, and that when that drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives” (source: http://checkside.wordpress.com)

But but but….

Of course I know there is the mortgage and the family to support. Maybe it is easy for me to refuse bad work. Maybe I am lucky to be in the position I am. But think again… Are you really sure you can’t change anything? And if your ethics are violated every day do you resign yourself? Your ethics will act as heuristics signalling you that there is a problem and you need to do something. I didn’t say you have to leave immediately and if you are more patient than I am, maybe you do not have to leave at all… But remember: for people who are good in what they do, who are confident in what they will and will not do and speak up for themselves, there will always be a place to work.

Now you!

Have you even thought about integrity? What are your guiding principles, values or ethics? What would you call bad work? And what will you do next time when somebody asks you something that conflicts with your ethics?

 


 

While reading stuff online about (refusing) bad work I ran into this blog post by Cal Newport about being bad at work: “Knowledge Workers are Bad at Working (and Here’s What to Do About It…)“Interesting enough Cal Newport wrote a book called “So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love” about the passion hypothesis in which he questions the validity of the hypothesis that occupational happiness has to match per-existing passion. In several recent talks and blog posts I did I talk about passion. Also in the talk discussed in this blog post I claim that passion is very important and I show a fragment of the Stanford 2005 commencement speech by Steve Jobs. Exactly the passage I showed in my talk, Cal uses in the first chapter of his book. “You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.” Anyway. Interesting stuff to be researched. I bought the book and started reading it. To be continued…

 

 

 

Happy New Year! Busy New Year!

I know, I am way too late to wish you a happy new year. But I wish you a very happy new year anyway! This year will be a very busy one for me. To create some overview for myself, I created a mindmap of my testing ambitions for 2012…

This truely will become a magnifiant year! Busy but awesome for sure. Some highlights:

And another DEWT peer conference to look forward to! A lot of testing, conferencing, meeting and learning to do!

How to become a software testing expert?

This blog post was originally written as an column for www.testnewsonline.com (English) and www.testnieuws.nl (Dutch).

This is the third and last part on the theme “how to become a software testing expert.” Part 1 “You can learn testing!” can be found here and Part 2 “What makes a good tester?” is here.

In part one I said that if you want to be an expert software tester, you must qualify yourself in many skills. That through feedback, actively seeking and making mistakes, helps you find out where you can improve. And that coaching is a great way to learn faster. In part two I stated that passion and attitude are most important. Then the skills, competencies and qualities such as proactivity, communication, social / emotional development, collaboration, fast learning, curiosity, but also the ability to apply test techniques. Knowledge to me is the least important. A good tester has test, technical and domain knowledge (in that order of importance).

Passion and attitude
Without passion no change and no progress” said Ferry Bezem of Twynstra Gudde in this Dutch Article. “How passion for your job can lead to success” is one of the other many articles I found when I googled “passion in your work”. To become succesfull, you need to find out who you are and where you get energy. To become good, you need to have passion for your profession. This article explains how to “develop” passion. In addition attitude or mentality are important as well. With the right attitude, you will be successful for sure! And don’t forget: you can change your attitude!

Critical thinking
Testing for me is questioning a product in order to evaluate it. A tester does this by learning everything there is to learn about the product and analyze this information. Critical thinking is an essential competency of a tester. But how many testers train it? On a well known Dutch book site I searched for books on critical thinking. What struck me was that there are several books on critical thinking for medical personal to find. And that sounds actually quite logical: medics diagnose patients, testers do the same for their “patients”: the test object!

Waste

We write comprehensive test plans that are never read. We use extensive templates to make sure nothing is forgotten (and we do not have to think too much). We do product risk assessments but subsequently we don’t do anything with the risks identified. We often do not use any test techniques. Why?! I think because many people simply don’t know how. I often ask why test techniques are not used. The most common answer is: because there is not enough time!? But these techniques should make our testing more effective and efficient, don’t they? As a tester you should be dreaming these techniques. You should OWN them!

Adaptive?
Every novice tester in the Netherlands starts with TMap or ISTQB. With that fact in itself is nothing wrong. A three-day class where the basics of software testing are taught is a good start. But too often that’s it. We like to guide our testing with process models: ISTQB and TMAP are full of them. But the reality is often more complex and testers get in trouble when the situation is slightly different as they are used to. The choice of a particular tool, technique or method depends on the context. TMap Next claims to be an adaptive method, but do you remember how much time was spent on this topic in your class? And how adaptive are you yourself? Do you use the same template over and over? Do you simply copy the test plan for the next release using a search and replace?

Learn, practice and training
I learned very much by critical reading. There are many free software test magazines and there are many great books on software testing. The internet is an excellent source of (often free) information. There are many videos available of presentations at meetings and conferences. On my blog I keep a list of great resources for testers. Lynn McKee has a similar list. Or start reading blogs, twitter can inform you about new interesting blogs and other things worth reading.

Try weekend testing or a testing dojo to practice your skills. Join a local software test community or organize your own gathering with a group of testers who want to meet and learn. At several employers I introduced intervision meetings for testers. I also founded DEWT with a group of passionate colleagues: like-minded people who like to challenge and inspire each other. We spend many hours discussing our profession and we certainly do not always agree. We discuss and practice in a safe environment and learn from each other.

Try something different
Have you been a software tester for years and are you planning to spice up your resume with another certificate? Then maybe the BBST training is something for you. Let me warn you in advance: this training will give you no certificate and it requires you to study and do exercises almost daily for a month. If you really want to learn, you need to invest a lot of time. Malcolm Gladwell claims in his book Outliers that the key to success in any field is practicing 10,000 hours. Try a training that changes your view on testing: rapid software testing for example. This training has changed my view of my profession and inspired me tremendously. Visiting conferences can be very inspiring and instructive. Join TestNet or another (online) testing community like The Software Testing Club and get inspired. You have plenty of choice!

Learning from others
I enjoy working with others. As I observe, I ask questions or explain my view on the situation. We still can learn a lot from our colleagues in projects … and vice versa! And I’m not just talking about fellow testers. A programmer can build a tool or script in only a few hours that can save testers days of work. By doing unit tests together, we gain insight in what developers test and how they do it. Try working together: pair programming or pair testing can be a powerful tool. Unfortunately, it has a negative image, because it seems to double the effort. But I think it can be beneficial. The added value is mastering the details of a job easier, fewer mistakes, faster learning, team building, cooperation and fun.

Writing and presenting
Blogging, writing columns or giving presentations forces you to structure your thoughts. In addition, your stories or presentations will trigger reactions by others. By taking this feedback seriously, can you sharpen your thoughts and learn again.

Finally
Ask yourself what you can do better often. Evaluate! Ask for reviews on your products regulary. Also ask for feedback from your colleagues on the process, your skills and your performance proactively. Furthermore, my advice is simple: you need a lot of practice to become an expert. So what are you going to do tomorrow?

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Huib Schoots sees himself as a context-driven tester. Currently he works as team manager testing at Rabobank International and he is board member of TestNet. He is a member of DEWT (Dutch Workshop on Exploratory Testing), student in the Miagi-Do School of Software Testing and maintains a blog on www.magnifiant.com

What makes a good tester?

This blog post was originally written as an column for www.testnewsonline.com (English) and www.testnieuws.nl (Dutch).

What makes a good tester?
This is the second of a series of three columns. The central themes of the columns is “how do I become a software testing expert?” Part 1 can be found here.

The question “what makes a good tester?” keeps us busy. This was demonstrated by the attention this subject received at different conferences. At EuroSTAR Susan Windsor gave a well attended presentation about this topic called “How to Create Good Testers”. During the Agile Testing Days, a group of passionate and renowned agilist and testers got together to discuss various test subjects while enjoying beer and pizza. After an inventory and a “dot-vote” the topic “Great Testers” received the most votes. That gave great input for this column, thanks guys!

In this Dutch article on talent, personal qualities, skills and competencies, Patrick Schriel says: “A skill is the ability to be able to perform an act or solve a problem. Competencies are knowledge and skills, they are not innate, but are caused by intense and deliberate practice “. With skills I think of being able to apply a particular test technique, or being able to work with certain systems, etc. But for a tester key qualities and characteristics are important and these are much harder to train. Think of pro-activity and creativity. In addition, attitude (and / or mindset) is important. What is your feeling about change, what are your beliefs, how open minded are you?

Attitude
What makes a good tester? It depends on the context. Every project is different, every team has its own dynamics and each test has different requirements. Lisa Crispin said during the meeting in Potsdam: “Most important is attitude, we will teach them the skills”. And I totally agree. Passion for the job to me is vital. In the attitude of a tester, I find curiosity also very important. Or as Richard Feynman put it: “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out“. A tester is always looking for information, how does this work? He constantly is asking questions to understand. I remember the following quotes from the rapid software testing training: “A tester’s responsibility to remain unsure when everybody is sure” and “Testing is about questioning and learning under conditions of fundamental uncertainty”. A tester knows that things can be different (Jerry Weinberg). And in Potsdam Michael Bolton added “a good tester is able to see the complexity of things that seem simple and the simplicity of things that appear complex.”

Passion
Passion provides drive for commitment and enjoyment. I think passion and skills enhance each other: the more joy you find in something, the more time you’ll spend, the more exercise and practice you get, the better you become. The better you get, the easier things are, the more you discover, it becomes more fun. The snowball starts rolling!

Competencies
A good tester is proactive and able to work together and knows that software development is a team sport. Something you do with a team and you as a tester are actively looking for opportunities to work together with your team. A good tester knows that he is even more effective when he works with developers for example. A developer can help him test faster and smarter. Obviously communication is important. But what is communication anyway? In Potsdam Michael Bolton shared his list with 27 (!) items that have to do with communication: conversation, presentation, argumentation, rhetoric and visualization are some of them. In addition to all above social and emotional development is important to collaborate effectively.

Knowledge
Of course knowledge is important. But curiosity and the ability to learn quickly, makes that a tester can quickly attain knowledge and therefore makes it less important. A good tester has knowledge of the following (in order of importance) testing, IT and domain. But attitude, skills and qualities for a tester are far more important! It was Lasse Koskela who talked about the “Least qualified implementer” in his keynote at the Agile Testing Days. This is the principle that in an agile team someone with the right skills but the least knowledge picks up the work item in order to get the whole team as much as possible at the same level of knowledge. Interesting! I want to read more about this.

When I recruit testers, the behavior and attitude of the individual is most important: his competencies, motivation and attitude. Knowledge is also important for me, but is more easy to learn quickly … that is, if that tester is eager enough to make his work a success.

Note: in a reaction on the Dutch version of this column Derk-Jan de Grood mentioned that in the examples I cited I was limiting the tester to a error seeker, a developer and a critical questioner. It is certainly not my intention to confine the tester an error finder, developer and critical questioner. So if that is the message which you took away from my story, then I need to be clearer. Testing to me is: “questioning a product in order to evaluate it”. A tester is someone who provides information about the product. He does this by learning everything there is to learn about the product . It is possible that a tester does not find any errors (although we all know that they are in there for sure). While I was writing my reply to Derk-Jan I realized that I forgot a very important skill / attitude in my story: the ability to THINK! A good tester thinks! Systems thinking and critical thinking are skills that every tester should have and train.

The last part of this series looks at where and how you can improve your knowledge and experience.

Huib Schoots sees himself as a context-driven tester. Currently he works as team manager testing at Rabobank International and is board member of TestNet. He is a member of DEWT (Dutch Workshop on Exploratory Testing), student in the Miagi-Do School of Software Testing and maintains a blog on www.magnifiant.com

Part 3: How to become a software testing expert?

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