The Friday Mindset - Issue #43

March 04, 2022

Happy Friday everyone!

It's great you're clicking the link and having a quick browse at the end of a busy week. Not everyone who's subscribed has time to check out what we're doing - but you did. Yes, you. We really appreciate it, you. Thanks so much for taking the time!

Hopefully we've got some useful stuff this week. Brew up, swipe a biscuit, let's dive in.

Something to try...

Professor Katy Milkman (see our book recommendation, below) has studied how people respond to being given advice (alongside one of her grad students Lauren Eskreis-Winkler.) In this clip, she discusses what being advised/talked to can sometimes feel like; someone else guiding or persuading you, often not-so subtly, telling you things you already know... it can be demoralising. Instead, she suggests, if you want improved performance, ask the people you're working with to advise others.

Their thinking becomes clearer. They begin to action the very advice they've been giving to other people. There's a 'saying-is-believing' effect; their capacity to change improves.

This applies really strongly to students right now. Think about the endless haranguing many of them get at this time of year - and how we might turn that dynamic on its head. Here's the clip:

It struck us, listening to Milkman, how often we use this technique too. Here's an example. A great coaching question for your students at this time of year is:

"Advise a fellow student who's getting low grades in a subject and is feeling down about it."

Get students together to draw up a list of possible actions. Tell them it's for students in the year below. Ask for actionable tactics expressed really clearly so younger, less study-experienced kids can follow it: what to do, how to do it and when to do it.

Once your list is done, typed up, processed and re-presented in whatever way you want... make sure every student who contributed gets a copy for themselves.

And some of them might even want to run a session for students from the year group below; it's a win-win!

Something we've been reading...

So Katy Milkman - the woman in the clip - is a Professor at Penn State and has worked alongside Angela Duckworth. Milkman's How to Change has been a quick and easy half-term read. Every social scientist with a book deal is advised to write like Malcolm Gladwell nowadays so you know what to expect; short narrative passages, storytelling, then lots of research and a chapter conclusion called 'takeaways'. Milkman operates in the same space as Charles Duhigg and hers is similar to Gretchen Rubin's work but better, we think - more immediately actionable and with a stronger education context. This is quick, engaging and helpful stuff, ideal for reading in bursts during the busiest half term of the year...

Award-winning Wharton Professor and Choiceology podcast host Katy Milkman has devoted her career to the study of behaviour change. In this national bestseller, Milkman reveals a proven path that can take you from where you are to where you want to be, with a foreword from psychologist Angela Duckworth, the best-selling author of Grit.

Our latest offer(s)…

Our publishers, Crown House, are offering 25% off cover prices in celebration of their 25 years in the publishing business! All you have to do is enter the code ITL25 at checkout for a pretty decent discount. (The revised edition of the A Level Mindset - with 8000 new words - might be worth grabbing?)

Oh - and also this: we thought we’d try a Zoom-based Q&A to help anyone who’s running VESPA at the moment and would like any help. You might be wondering - how do I design a curriculum? Which sessions have you found work best in a Covid context? Have you seen organisations implement across different key stages? How might you measure impact? Why have I got a moany tutor who doesn’t want to take part? There’s lots of possibilities to go at, with no particular theme.

First we want to figure out how the session would look. We could either:

(i) run it live and people come along for a chat, or

(ii) record it, and people send in questions that we answer during the recording, which we then make available, or

(iii) a hybrid of the two.

Please let us know if you have any interest, or any preference for how it’s done. Get in touch at [email protected], or just hit the ‘thumbs up’ icon at the bottom of the letter so we can get a feel for the level of interest. We’ll be setting a date soon!

Have a fab weekend and we'll see you next Friday. All the best,

Steve and Martin