Naiveté or Professionalism

Professionals know that things get better, when they get better (Mind-Set #3). That means the professional is constantly learning and improving…then learning and improving some more. The process  never stops. That mind-set, in part, is what makes them a professional.

Seth Godin, one of the world’s most respected marketers and the world’s most popular bloggers, recently wrote about this very thing.  Here’s a link to his post:  http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/07/naive-or-professional.html Seth, who received an Advanced Readers Copy of The Power of Professionalism, spoke passionately about how ‘professionals’ were making such a big difference in Kenyan farming practices. When Seth says ‘professionals’ he doesn’t mean a hired gun (think: professor) from a prestigious ag school that comes in to save the day.  He means that the real farmer—you know, the overall clad guy who works the fields from sun up to sun down.

Seth’s biggest take-away? It wasn’t about teaching the farmer the technical stuff.  Rather, it was about the importance of helping cultivate the farmers identity as a professional before teaching the technical stuff. He concluded that a lot of things naturally fall into place once you’re dealing with professionals.

This is precisely what we advocated in The Power of Professionalism. As Seth points out, it isn’t always  easy to help someone become a professional . Yet it is essential for changing the mind-set of (what Seth calls) the naïve—someone who fails to take responsibility and fails to learn.

This is an important lesson for managers and leaders to remember. Before the change initiative, before the new product development, before the reorganization, before the technical stuff…cultivating professionalism in your people will make a challenging process naturally go much better.

Mind-Sets Trump Skill-Sets – New Evidence, If You Needed Any

In the Power of Professionalism we advocate that skill-sets, as important as they are, were less important than one’s mind-set in the discharge of a professional’s responsibilities.  Employers overwhelmingly agree. According to Harvard lecturer Dr. Paul Stoltz, 98% of employers would pick the prospective candidate with the ideal mind-set (and lacking the desired skill-sets) over the person with the ideal skill-sets (and lacking the desired mind-set). The same principle applied to employee retention.  When deciding who to retain—someone with ideal mind-sets or someone with ideal skill-sets— 90 plus percent of employers would retain the employee with ideal mind-set. These results were based on a recently released five year study with thousands of top employers from all over the world.

This shouldn’t be surprising. Think of the important initiatives your organization has attempted:  the implementation of new (and critical) operating processes, the all-important new product launch, the execution of a critical strategy, the delicate integration necessitated by a merger or acquisition. Think of the difficulties, the exasperation involved—sometimes even to the point of the initiative failing. Chances are the difficulties weren’t a skill-set problem. More likely, the difficulties were a mind-set problem.  Is it any wonder employers are so attracted to those with desirable mind-sets?