4 Ways To Be Open Minded At Work – A Critical Career Success Factor
Being open minded at work, in my view is a critical career success factor, for any professional or managerial role. You get a ton of fantastic personal benefits that will make you a lot more successful and a lot happier at work, some being:
- You’ll be a faster learner, which makes you more relevant and more valuable to any employer and it usually means faster career progress
- A better problem solver as you are more creative and flexible when designing solutions to overcome issues
- Better decision maker as you use a greater range of data, opinions and insights and be less influenced by your own biases
- Colleagues will enjoy working with you more as you are more empathetic and willing to listen to them
- You’ll find it easier to fit in with a greater range of teams, working environments and cultures, which makes your working life a lot more enjoyable
4 Ways To Be Open Minded At Work – A Critical Career Success Factor
- Being right is the enemy of learning
- Others have a lot to offer – an open mindset harnesses more of their value
- Stop, consider, evaluate and then decide
- Create the habit of asking and listening
Whether you consider yourself having an open mindset or not right now, with a little bit of effort you can create habits that will help you to become even more open minded. Do so and you gain more of the amazing personal and professional benefits that come with being open minded.
If you are aiming to be or are already managing others, being open minded is essential to being an effective and admired manager. When you are open minded, you listen more, value colleagues more, show a lot more empathy, create better solutions, work in a team better … in short you will have better more open relationships with more motivated and valued team members, which will massively help you drive higher team performance as a manager.
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Being right is the enemy of learning – critical to being open minded at work
Our brains love patterns because using patterns saves a lot of energy. We see a pattern based on what we have already experienced, our brains leap to the same conclusion it reached last time. While extremely useful in many situations, this natural tendency leads us to being closed-minded.
We see a pattern when think we know and believe we have the right answer. The first step to breaking this pattern is being aware when you are following established patterns – without challenging yourself to stay open minded.
Secondly, be aware of your own biases. Take time to reflect on how past experiences have shaped you as an individual and shaped your thinking. Get to know your own biases. Learn what they are and what events or actions trigger you jumping to conclusions. When you are in a situation you feel you recognise, make the time to dig a little deeper and check that what you have in front of you is really the same as past experiences.
Third, even when you are sure you know the right answer or right approach, make the time to understand what is really going on. Ask lots of questions. Listen to what you are being told. Seek opinions and views. Look at the facts.
Ask – how well do all these really fit the pattern I think I see. From my personal experience, I know that when you really start looking you will find differences. They might be small or large. When you find the differences, you can start learning. The more you learn, the better the outcome you and others create.
Remember, thinking “I am right” kills learning and finding an even better approach.
Believe others have a lot to offer – an open mindset harnesses more of their value
The best managers supercharge creativity and collaboration in their teams, which in turn results in great innovation and solution building.
A manager’s ability to get the best from others starts with an open mindset and attitude. Great managers know that each team member has a lot to offer and they proactively seek out how they can maximise team member strengths.
Rather than allowing themselves to have an attitude along the lines of “I know more than my team members” or “I am better” or “I am the manager therefore I am right” they constantly remind themselves of the strengths and positive aspects of each person. They keep asking themselves “What can I learn from this team member today?”
When you maintain a positive attitude and open mindset towards team members; you value their contribution at lot more. This open mindset comes out in your attitude, how enthusiastically you listen, how you act on what they tell you and how you praise them. The managers actions, behaviour and decisions all scream “I value what you have to teach or tell me!”. This is hugely motivating for team members. They feel valued, appreciated, and respected.
A Great Exercise
Our brains are brilliant filters. If we look for the great stuff our team members do, we will find it. If we don’t, our brain filters it out.
Take an empty notebook and spend 5 minutes at the end of each day noting down the great things your team members have done, the good ideas they have had, the good behaviours they have displayed and actions they have taken. Add your thoughts as to how you can get more of this greatness from them. The act of thinking of and writing the positives down, day in day out will focus you on all the good things they do. This is a brilliant way for how to be more open minded. Don’t forget to keep looking back over your notes and mentally appreciating each team member. This positive thinking is a powerful motivator for your team.
Don’t forget to, proactively and specifically, praise all the great stuff going on in your team.
Stop, consider, evaluate and then decide – the third way to develop an open mindset
It is so easy to make a decision too quickly. There are times when you need to make quick decisions. Usually, you have time to stop, consider and evaluate before making a decision or taking a course of action.
A critical discipline of open minded people is making time to understand different points of view and think through different solutions offered by others, even when you have a ready solution in mind. Equally important is keeping open the possibility that you could change your mind as you learn new or more about the circumstances, facts, or situation.
Jumping to conclusions based on what we already know is very easy to do. Confirmation bias is a cognitive tendency to only pay attention to what confirms our current beliefs and filter out what doesn’t fit. Being aware of our tendency to do this is one of the most important ways of combating this tendency and remaining open minded.
When You Catch Yourself Dismissing Information – Stop
When you catch yourself dismissing information or opinions, stop yourself. Consider the new information, insights or opinions and evaluate it in light of the situation you face. Delay making your mind up to give yourself time to consider other options.
It won’t be long before you create a habit of evaluating information that doesn’t fit established patterns. You might reconfirm your original solution as the best one, or you might find that thinking in a different way will create a much better solution. With practice, there is a lot that can be achieved with good self-awareness and a few minutes of thinking time.
Being open minded will give you a lot more insights, drive person and professional growth, increase your mental strength, increase your optimism and you will learn a lot more in the process. Being open minded opens a lot of doors for you personally and in terms of your relationships with your team.
create the habit of asking and listening – The fourth way to be open minded at work
Even after 25 years managing others, I continue to be amazed at the benefits of being curious, asking a lot of questions, and really listening to what you are told. Firstly, staff members really appreciate you being truly interested in their world and having the chance to show off what they are doing at more than a superficial level. The more you listen, the more they feel compelled to talk and the more you learn about what is really happening in the team and the business.
Better understanding means you are able to sidestep more issues, react more quickly to brewing problems before they really become an issue, respond intelligently to questions you are asked and manage expectations of all those around you a lot better.
Practice being open minded and stay interested in what is happening around you. You will receive a wealth of information, ideas, opinions, insights and solutions from those you work with. It all starts with asking questions and listening.
Chose a specific area a team member looks after and keep asking questions until you really feel you understand what is happening and why it is happening. Each day or week, chose another specific area and repeat. Staff love the opportunity to showcase what they are doing when you ask diplomatically and with their interests at heart.
Create the habit of asking questions and listening and you demonstrate the critical skill of being open minded to your team each day.
In Summary
In every job at every level, there is a ton of things you need to learn to enable you to perform well. The more open minded you are, the quicker and easier you will learn and understand what is really happening. The more open minded you keep yourself, the easier you will find getting great ideas and solutions to solve the toughest problems you and your team face.
I 100% believe that all successful managers and leaders have learnt how to be open minded at work and maintain their open mindedness. Given the increasing pace of change in businesses today, being open minded continues to increase in importance. When you have an open mindset, you learn and adapt a lot quicker and easier to the increasing pace of change.
Put in the time to create the habits to be open minded. The 4 ways to be open minded at work are:
- Being right is the enemy of learning
- Others have a lot to offer – proactively harness their value
- Stop, consider, evaluate and then decide
- Create the habit of asking and listening
If you have any questions about “4 Ways To Be Open Minded At Work – A Critical Career Success Factor”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
For more on being open minded read this additional article
Creating the mental attitude and behaviours to be, and remain, open minded at work is in my view a critical success factor for pretty much anyone. This applies doubly to those in manager and leadership roles.
Being open minded is a habit that you can create with a little bit of work and the rewards are huge. You learn a lot faster and are able to get on with a greater range of people who are different from you. To be successful, you need to learn quickly and get on well with others.
