HBR Special Issue
FROM THE EDITORS
Stay Ahead of
the Curve
leaders coach their teams on everything
from how to run a meeting to fundamen-
tal life lessons. They take charge when
the team needs to adopt a new technol-
ogy or process. Employees don’t always
respond well to these learning inter-
ventions, though. Chris Argyris shows
managers how to move beyond the
psychological barriers of high perform-
ers in his classic article “Teaching Smart
People How to Learn.”
Companies pursuing continuous
learning have the opportunity to scale
these efforts—if they can overcome
a number of obstacles. Biases against
failure and inaction are endemic to
organizations, and most lack effective
measures of employees’ skill develop-
ment. To build a learning organization,
Francesca Gino and Bradley Staats write,
leaders must change both culture and
tactics: destigmatizing failure, using
data to understand its causes, and
believing that their people can adapt and
grow (“Why Organizations Don’t Learn”).
Our companies and jobs will change
radically in the coming years. Building
learning muscles now is the best way to
prepare.
THE MOST COMPETITIVE companies
have mastered the challenges of a
fast-changing business environment.
New technologies and business models
continually place ever-evolving de-
mands on every employee. The most
important skill for the future? The ability
to learn.
Begin your own transformation
by developing the right mentality
In “What Having a ‘Growth Mindset’
Actually Means,” Carol Dweck corrects
common— and pernicious—myths about
her popular concept. Understanding
your own beliefs about whether you can
improve can show you what stands in
the way of all your self-development
efforts. To master more-specific skills, a
clear process can help: Partner with oth-
ers to observe and practice what they do,
as Dorothy Leonard and her coauthors
explain in “Make Yourself an Expert.”
If it feels like you don’t have time for
learning, know that research has shown
that developing a new skill or taking on
an intellectual challenge actually makes
people feel less overwhelmed, according
to Chen Zhang and her coauthors (“To
Cope with Stress, Try Learning Some-
thing New”).
Great managers play a central role in
their employees’ development. The best
