John McGlinchey

Everything is possible with a Growth Mindset

I’m touring Asia at the moment and over the next couple of weeks, the CEO of CompTIA and I are personally meeting with hundreds of business and education leaders and government officials in India, China and Japan.

At CompTIA we are committed to reducing the IT skills gap and increasing the number of Certified IT professionals around the globe.

No matter where I travel, those who are eager to join us in this effort have at least one thing in common: The Growth Mindset.

“People with Growth Mindsets understand and believe that our abilities and skills and even intelligence can be improved over time through dedication, discipline and practice"

RESEARCH supports this point of view.

Crucially our MINDSET has everything to do with how we view our ABILITY TO LEARN. It is not just about our skills, but it is how much we BELIEVE we can learn, how much we believe we are adaptable, teachable and stretchable.

Fixed or Growth Mindset?

It is really worth challenging ourselves to see what mindset do we hold - be honest!

To determine whether you currently have a GROWTH mindset or a FIXED mindset, let’s examine four statements.

As you read them, think about how much you may agree – or disagree with each point.

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

Okay – what did you think??

Questions 1 & 2 are fixed mindsets. 3 & 4 reflect the growth mindset.

Which one did you agree with more? You can be a mixture but most people lean towards one or the other.

You can also have beliefs about core abilities.

So for instance, I could substitute the word “intelligence” with “artistic talent”, "sports ability" or business skill.

In a fixed mindset, for instance, you believe “She’s a natural born singer” or “I’m just no good at dancing.”

In a growth mindset, you believe “Anyone can be good at anything. Skill comes only from practice.”

And it’s not just about ABILITIES

There are FIXED and GROWTH Mindsets around your Personal Qualities too – like PERSONALITIES AND CHARACTER - do you consider these to be innate, an inherent part of who you are from an early age? It is interesting!

Your personality mindset comes into play in situations that involve your personal qualities. For example, how dependable, cooperative, caring, or socially skilled are you? Can this change or is it fixed?

The fixed mindset makes you concerned with how you’ll be judged

The growth mindset makes you concerned with improving.

Think about someone who is steeped in the fixed mindset. Think about how they are always trying to prove themselves, and how they’re super-sensitive about being wrong or making mistakes. Did you ever wonder why they were this way?

Are you this way? Now you can begin to understand why.

Universal language of learning

As I travel throughout Asia, I am noticing how many people from all cultures understand that important qualities can be cultivated. They are investing in IT education and in growing the Growth Mindset, which is the essential first step to maximising your learning.

Once you have a Growth Mindset then everything else is possible - do you have it?

John McGlinchey

John McGlinchey is the Senior Vice President of Global Business Development & Products for CompTIA

by John McGlinchey

CompTIA EMEA Member and Partner conference 2016

Every year I look forward to our CompTIA EMEA Member and Partner conference and this year in the UK (11th & 12th October) was bigger and better than ever before. Since my move to the United States, it gave me an opportunity to meet old friends and catch up on all of the gossip!!

It just seems like yesterday that I did a quick video for YouTube (see below) in preparation for the conference.

The conference is always one of the highlights of our year in the region bringing together over 500 attendees, from a diverse and unique audience across Europe and the Middle East.

This year’s two-day event gave IT executives, commercial training partners and academic partners, a forum to network and share resources; gain knowledge they can put into action in their businesses upon returning home and benefit from and enjoy sessions customized for their specific market.

At the event we had some great high-level panel discussions and exceptional networking experiences with key IT influencers. We were also delighted to use the event as an opportunity to educate our partners and members about the current trends in tech and tech education. The rate of change in our industry is phenomenal but yet all of the core basics and philosophy such as best practice will always remain the same.

All segments are presented by leading industry subject matter experts so it is no surprise that 9 in 10 attendees say it has a positive impact on their business.

At CompTIA we work hard to ensure that it is a truly collaborative and rewarding environment, where the connections made will be just as valuable as the lessons attendees take home.

Even in our fast paced technology world you can never beat the value of face to face meetings and connecting in person!

The event was hosted by a combination of CompTIA leadership and industry experts, offering insights into key trends, relevant business challenges and the most notable opportunities in today’s market.

As always I was really busy between conducting the official welcome for the Certs Partner Track and introducing a session on our latest certification, Cybersecurity Analyst (CSA+), sitting on a panel discussing "The Value of IT Training and Certification - An International Perspective", presenting on the topic of "Growth versus Fixed Mindset businesses" and finally providing the welcome address for the Canon meeting.

Once again I left full of excitement and enthusiasm with even more new ideas and some new challenges.

See you again next year!

John McGlinchey

John McGlinchey is the Senior Vice President of Global Business Development & Products for CompTIA

by John McGlinchey

Other people first

This YouTube clip of Simon Sinek presenting to graphic designers at a conference struck a chord with me.

He tells a story of plane experience that I could relate to. We can all relate to it - he spoke of a selfish "seatmate" and who put herself first for the whole flight, not engaging, not standing up when he tried to get into his seat and demanding the last cereal .."me, me me". Simon reciprocated and the journey was more unpleasant than it should have been for both of them.

We have all been on that flight!

If you do something for someone they tend to reciprocate.

Simon talks about the importance of trust between people, with our institutions, with companies, with brands and with the people we work with.

If we have common sets of values and beliefs we tend to form bonds together that build a mutual trust. When we have this trust between us then powerful groups can be formed with everyone working together, relying on each other, watching each other's backs.

If we are authentic and genuine and we live and behave true to our values and beliefs then we will build trust - if we don't then that trust will be broken. That trust is between people, our employers, our brands, our institutions and our teammates.

Groups that trust each other can achieve much more than the individuals in the groups - we all have different strengths and weaknesses and when we work together in a trusting, supportive environment than great things can happen.

In his talk he pokes fun at self-help books because they are too selfish - 5 Ways to make me succeed, 5 ways to get rich. Once again they are all about "me, me, me".

Instead Simon challenges us with the idea that life would be a lot more productive and fulfilling if we tried to help our neighbour and our work mates instead of having that focus on ourselves - without this mindset the power of the group will never be realised.

His big lesson is to forget about "me, me, me" and instead put other people first.

Let's start tomorrow!

John McGlinchey is the Senior Vice President of Global Business Development & Products for CompTIA

by John McGlinchey

Are you an exceptional employee?

Have you ever wondered why some people have more successful careers than others?

A recent study surveyed more than 500 business leaders and asked them what sets great employees apart. The researchers wanted to know why some people are more successful than others at work, and the number one reason may surprise you.

Topping the list over qualities you might expect like “experience,” “education,” or other more quantifiable “skills” is this single, powerful word: “personality.”

The difficulty with this word, according to an article about the study by author Travis Bradberry, is to understand what those surveyed really mean when they put “personality” at the top of the list.

Our personalities are developed from an early age and are fixed by the time we enter early adulthood. Many important things about you change over the course of your lifetime, but your core personality isn’t one of them.

What leaders are really looking for and what they are referring to, then, according to Bradberry, is really Emotional Intelligence (EQ) which, Bradberry maintains is completely different from personality and from intellect (or IQ). Employers and leaders can and have confused these three qualities on many occasions.

Unlike your personality, which is more internal – prompting particular thoughts in your mind, for example; how you choose to externally react to those thoughts and situations is how our EQ is exhibited. These external EQ responses can be learned, practiced and developed.

Some of the EQ skills that set exceptional employees apart are:

They forge ahead in their work, confident that they’ll be rewarded later but unconcerned if they’re not.
They’re willing to admit when they’re wrong and willing to do things someone else’s way,
They’re able to maintain their composure while presenting their positions calmly and logically.
They’re able to withstand personal attacks in pursuit of the greater goal and never use that tactic themselves.
They focus on what matters
They think before they speak and wisely choose the best time and place to do so.
Exceptional employees are driven to improve, without forgetting to give themselves a healthy pat on the back.
They recognize when things are broken and fix them
They’re accountable and they bring their mistakes to management’s attention rather than hoping no one will find out. They understand that managers aren’t out to assign blame; they’re out to get things done
Exceptional employees are well liked by co-workers. They have integrity and leadership skills (even if they’re not in an official leadership position) that people respond to
They neutralize toxic people. Exceptional employees control their interactions with toxic people by keeping their feelings in check. Even when things completely derail, emotionally intelligent people are able to take the toxic person with a grain of salt to avoid letting him or her bring them down

It’s important to notice that years of experience, coding skills, business degrees, etc. are not included in any of the key traits that leaders are looking for. For sure, these are required to succeed in your career but they won’t make you exceptional.

Bradberry and others explain that exceptional employees don’t possess God-given personality traits; they rely on simple, everyday EQ skills that anyone can incorporate into their repertoire.

by John McGlinchey

Stop SLURPING DATA! The BIGGEST Challenge for Educators.

If like me, you are bombarded with data and information from every imaginable source, you are at times probably feeling overwhelmed. You suddenly realize how much you don’t know about the world.

We now have sophisticated tools to filter through that data and find the pieces we are most interested in, however, we are still constantly being confronted with stories we know nothing about, in countries we weren’t even truly aware existed. We must accept our present condition: we will always be more ignorant than knowledgeable about the world.

Our societies are too complicated and the human lifespan is too short to ever hope to try to bridge that gulf. We need to accept ignorance and handle it graciously.

This doesn’t mean we should revel in our ignorance, but we shouldn’t be bothered when we don’t know the latest trend or some news story, nor should we judge others as “stupid” if they don’t know some factoid. There is a fear that we will enter a conversation not being completely up-to-date, but what is the point of a conversation if all we are exchanging are the facts we already know?

We can consume all the facts in the world and still not comprehend what is really going on. People can be incredibly smart, even brilliant sometimes, and yet still be bad at deep learning. The internet has given us this omniscience that we have never had before, and we suddenly have this ability to see all of the details that we didn’t know about before.

But the key question is: How can we become more purpose-driven learners?

Jonathan Drori a visiting professor at the University of Bristol, posed four questions to science teachers, TV producers, science audiences and seven-year-olds during a TED talk. Surprisingly he found that the seven-year-olds did better than the other audiences.

One of those questions was - Why is it hotter in summer than in winter? We can all agree that it is hotter in summer than winter, but why?

He goes on the say that children get their ideas not from teachers but from common sense from their experiences of the world around .

The challenge is that most of us aren’t actually that good at learning. Sure, we can seek out facts, read news articles and tweets, and even analyze some tough problems.

But we need to develop thinkers, not information processors.

Danny Crichton’s recent article, How Should We Learn explains data is everywhere, and knowledge is accessible on almost any subject imaginable with just a few clicks. Suddenly, we have gone from people ignorant of our own ignorance to content consumers struggling to keep up with the information all around us. We can learn about almost any subject imaginable today, and of course, get the details and data that the internet always offers.

With all this knowledge and data available to us on so many platforms, we wonder why academic institutions still exist. The answer comes down to their ability to teach students both knowledge and wisdom. So far, this combination is not being achieved online or through books. It remains one of the greatest challenges for entrepreneurs in the edtech learning space today.

Hopefully, aided by a new generation of education startups – we can learn how to better navigate in a world where the frontier of knowledge is rapidly expanding and dynamic.

We need to inculcate purpose-driven learning and move away from a model of slurping up all the data in the world.

by John McGlinchey

Sales: When the unexpected happens, will you be ready?

Those pleasant surprises, whether in our personal lives or our careers, when life presents an opportunity, why do they happen and what role does luck play? A Roman philosopher once said “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Being prepared is the key.

In almost all the sales job interviews I have conducted, I always ask the candidate, “Are you a lucky person?” Not the most common question in an interviewer’s question bank, however, the answer will tell me a lot about the prospective candidate. Do they go into a tailspin or they are confident in their answer? Either way it is always interesting.

Thomas Jefferson must have had a salesperson in mind when he said, “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” Work hard and the unexpected opportunities for success will find you.

Recent research carried out by Joël Le Bon, Why the Best Salespeople Get So Lucky , explores the notion of “provoked luck” and the unexpected events that come about when our behavior as sales people is maximized to react to potential opportunities.

Le Bon’s research found that the belief in luck seems to boost confidence and self-assurance, thereby helping experienced sales professionals remain optimistic in the face of setbacks. Belief in luck also helps the inexperienced salesperson in overcoming uncertainty and fear of failure. These factors are critical in helping salespeople maintain motivation and job satisfaction. Confidence and assurance are also critical when starting your career in sales. For sales managers it can reduce attrition and therefore decrease recruitment costs.

For the young or new salesperson, who may be struggling, the best advice for getting through the initial wave of despair is to have a firm belief in luck — not the luck of the random windfall, but the kind of provoked luck that truly helps increase the odds of success.

If you apply the theory about hard work to your selling, the “lucky” sales opportunities will present themselves. The important question is, will you be prepared to capitalize on your luck and turn the opportunity into an order?

It would be inconceivable to think that you would have done all the hard work, invest the time and effort to create some luck and then be unable to take advantage of it. Do you know your products, have you the expertise and the business insight to help the unexpected prospect, the one whose requirements are likely to be slightly outside your comfort zone? If you do, it will quickly allow the prospect to gather the information they need to make a fast and favorable decision.

Unfortunately we can’t account for luck in our sales pipeline or sales plans, but you can count on doing your job to the best of your ability. Build your well-defined sales process and consistently deliver day after day. Follow up your leads, know your customers, add value and good things will happen. Then embrace your luck when it appears.

Oh, and by the way, the best answer to my interview question is, “You create your own luck.”

by John McGlinchey