I’m a puzzler. Jigsaw puzzles exercise my brain in a fun way. I use an app on my trusty iPad because it’s convenient and I can choose an image that appeals to me from a diverse set of pictures. I also customise the size of the pieces and the rotation to make it easy or hard. It helps there are many free puzzles!
So, I hear you asking, what does a jigsaw puzzle have to do with strength-based coaching for financial advisers? The short answer is it’s a great example of how mindset works. My success with the jigsaw depends on my mindset and the ways I consciously use my strengths. Much like pulling together an advice solution for a client.
Professor Carol Dweck at Stanford University is one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of personality and social psychology. Her book on mindset was first published in 2006. Dr Dweck’s research shows “the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life”.
She argues there are two types of mindset: fixed and growth. A fixed mindset is the idea that you have a fixed amount of intelligence (IQ). This flows into your personality and as a result, you spend your time proving to yourself and others how you have a healthy dose of both. A growth mindset, however, suggests you can cultivate your IQ and therefore your personality. With purposeful “passion, toil, and training”, Dr Dweck says everyone can change.
A tried-and-true strategy to start a jigsaw is to study the picture then fill in the edges of the frame. The process is to find the corner pieces, group the rest into colours with the edges all the same way, and look for shapes and colours that match. The advice process has some important parallels. Work out the client’s current situation, establish the frame/scope for the advice and their goals, find the corner/milestones to be achieved, then fill in the strategies for the client’s desired outcome.
An adviser or paraplanner with a fixed mindset is unlikely to try any new strategies. They will generally stick to tried-and-true strategies and believe in the process. That is, based on past experience and knowledge “if at first I don’t succeed, I probably don’t have the ability to get the solution this way”.
An adviser or paraplanner with a growth mindset is willing to push the boundaries of strategies to test how they suit the client’s needs. Learn from the dead ends and let the iterations flow. That is, “if at first I don’t succeed, try and try again”.
So back to solving my jigsaw puzzle. There is a red building in the picture. If I have a fixed mindset, I will use a tried-and true-strategy of finding red pieces or ones with red edges that are building-like and attempting to match them. I will get excited when a piece goes in for first time because it proves just how good I am at doing jigsaws.
If, however, I have a growth mindset I am more willing to let my intuition help me learn. The red-piece strategy will still work for a plain red building, but what happens when I encounter the green Christmas tree with many pieces very similar in colour and texture? I invent another process of finding pairs of shapes, which gets me a bit further. But the real joy is when I find a piece that my intuition says will fit in a spot, but at first try it doesn’t. I move it sideways a couple of spots, rotate and voila, it fits.
My personality strengths include having a highly inquisitive mindset. I’ve learnt to trust my subconscious when looking for solutions, whether for coaching, solving advice problems or jigsaw puzzles. I have a growth mindset. BTW, I don’t always go to the edge first, this puzzle I started with that tree!
Do you have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset?
“You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and falling over.”
Sir Richard Branson, Founder Virgin Group, British entrepreneur
DWECK, Dr Carol. S (2017), Mindset – changing the way you think to fulfil your potential. Revised edition, Robinson Press London, first published in 2006 by Random House New York.
The author, Penny Armytage, is a former advice practice owner and financial adviser, now an accredited leadership coach specialising in growth mindset coaching for financial advice professionals. Learn more about Penny at https://www.eagleviewcoaching.com.au/