Steve Case on What the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs Needs to Be Successful

http://www.inc.com/will-yakowicz/steve-case-georgetown-commencement-speech.html?cid=em01011week21day19a

Praise Effort--Not Achievement

Praise motivates. Praise encourages. Praise inspires.
Sometimes.
Depending on the approach you take, praising an employee can actually have the opposite effect. The difference lies in whether we assume skill is based on innate ability or on hard work and effort.
Put another way, are people born with certain talents, or can talent be developed? (I think talent can definitely be developed, but that's just me.)
According to research on achievement and success by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, people tend to embrace one of two mental approaches to talent:
Fixed mindset: The belief that intelligence, ability, and skill are inborn and relatively fixed--we "have" what we were born with. People with a fixed mindset typically say things like "I'm just not that smart" or "Math is not my thing."
Growth mindset: The belief that intelligence, ability, and skill can be developed through effort--we are what we work to become. People with a growth mindset typically say things like "With a little more time, I'll get it" or "That's OK. I'll give it another try."
That difference in perspective can be molded by the kind of praise we receive, and that often starts when we're kids. For example, say you are praised in one of these ways:

• "Wow, you figured that out so fast--you are so smart!"
• "Wow, you are amazing--you got an A without even cracking a book!"

Sounds great, right? The problem is that other messages are lurking within those statements:

• "If I don't figure things out fast, I must not be very smart."
• "If I do have to study, I'm not amazing."

The result can be a fixed mindset. We start to assume we are what we are. Then, when the going gets tough and we struggle, we feel helpless because we think what we "are" isn't good enough.
And when we think that, we stop trying.
When you praise employees only for achievements--or criticize employees for short-term failures--you help create a fixed mindset environment. In time, employees see every mistake as a failure. They see a lack of immediate results as a failure. In time, they can lose motivation and even stop trying.
After all, why try when trying won't matter?
Fortunately, there's another way: Make sure you focus on praising effort and application, too:

• "That didn't go perfectly, but you're definitely on the right track. Let's see what we can do to make it go even better next time."
• "Hey, you finished that project much more quickly this time. You must have worked really hard."
• "Great job! I can tell you put a lot of time into that."

The difference? You still praise results, but you praise results that are based on the premise of effort and not on an assumption of innate talent or skill. By praising effort, you help create an environment where employees feel anything is possible.
The same principle applies to how you encourage employees. Don't say, "I know you'll get this; you're really smart." "You're really smart" assumes an innate quality the employee either has or does not have.
Instead, say, "I have faith in you. You're a hard worker. I've never seen you give up. I know you'll get this."
To consistently improve employee performance, build a work environment with a growth mindset. Not only will your team's skills improve, but your employees will also be more willing to take more risks.
When failure is seen as a step on the road to eventual achievement, risks are no longer something to avoid.
Risk, and occasional failure, will simply be an expected step along the way toward success.

 

Last updated: May 21, 2014

JEFF HADEN learned much of what he knows about business and technology as he worked his way up in the manufacturing industry. Everything else he picks up from ghostwriting books for some of the smartest leaders he knows in business.
@jeff_haden

 

 

This Entrepreneur Has One Simple Goal: Improve a Billion People's Lives

When David Gorodyansky and his co-founder Eugene Malobrodsky launched AnchorFree in 2005, it was a cloud-based company offering a way to keep your personal information secure when you surf the Web. The duo had loftier goals in mind, however: they wanted to positively impact a billion people. Unfortunately, they hadn't yet worked out how to accomplish that.
Then in 2011, during the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt, one million people downloaded the company's free app HotSpot Shield in 24 hours to bypass government censorship of the Internet. The app enabled the protestors to use Twitter to organize. Once the founders realized their company was achieving such widespread social good, they "added freedom to the business model."
"I always tell entrepreneurs that what you have in your heart often happens to you and you don't know how," says Gorodyansky, a 2011 Inc. 30 Under 30 honoree. "You don't always have to have a business plan, but you have to have an idea to impact a billion people. There's no company in the world that has impacted a billion people and isn't a multimillion-dollar company."
With 200 million users around the world and 250,000 new users signing up every day, HotSpot Shield is the reason protesters from Egypt, Turkey, Thailand, China, and now Venezuela have been able to access Twitter. The virtual private network app works anywhere and protects against 3 million different types of malware threats, phishing attacks, and spam. AnchorFree generated $35 million in revenue last year--not too shabby for a company with such a heavy emphasis on making a positive impact on the world.
Gorodyansky tells Inc. that three people inspired him to start a company committed to social good. Read below about those who pushed him toward that goal, and the lessons he learned.

Have a vision

Gorodyansky's grandfather instilled a vision in him to do something big--the desire to help a billion people. "My grandfather fought in World War II for Russia. He flew with the Russian air force as a photographer to take pictures of German bases and then bomb them. But he also took part in freeing concentration camps. When I was growing up hearing these stories over the dinner table, I'd wonder what I would do when I grew up to save thousands of lives," Gorodyansky says. "That was always an inspiration--my grandfather helped save the world, basically. What was I going to do to save the world?"

Be practical

In college, Gorodyansky came across Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus's books
Banker to the Poor and Creating a World Without Poverty. Yunus, who found Grameen Bank to provide microcredit loans to the poor in Bangladesh, created the idea of microlending, and has helped 100 million people raise themselves out of poverty. "Muhammad Yunus influenced me in a very practical way. His books taught me that yes, it is possible to take 100 million people out of poverty with an unconventional idea, and it can be profitable," Gorodyansky says.

Figure out the logistics

Bert Roberts, former chairman of the telecom company MCI, was a major business influence on Gorodyansky. Roberts, who was AnchorFree's first investor, helped Gorodyansky and Malobrodsky build their board and get smart investments. "At least three days a month he would come out and we'd spend time together in person, and I'd talk to him every other day on the phone," Gorodyansky says. "He was very involved in helping us through all the details of the business, the technology, the patents, the partners we should make, but it was never like he was running the business. He was a mentor and a huge inspiration. He always believed in me, especially in the hardest moments. I'd think, if I don't succeed I'd be letting him down."

What Differentiates Social Entrepreneurs

If the goal of your business is to improve the world, you're ultimately trying to put yourself out of a job.

IMAGE: Getty Images

Last updated: May 8, 2014

WILL YAKOWICZ is a reporter at Inc. magazine. He has covered business, crime, and politics at Patch.com, and his work has been published in Tablet Magazine and The Brooklyn Paper. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
@WillYakowicz

Letter of the day: The value of charter schools goes way beyond test scores

Thank you for caring a lot about schools and their quality. As a teacher, I have been working hard to improve that quality for over 30 years. That is why I work at a charter school, where we are working every day to find new ways to appeal to students who have been discarded by the traditional system. However, the screeching about test scores as if they are all-important or all-knowing is very frustrating. We now have whole school systems that are mainly geared to teaching to the tests. There are students out there who feel like they are entering a racetrack each time they read -- they believe that reading is all about speed timings and answering questions. We have long since made mathematics about mindless problem-solving; now we are reducing reading and writing to timed, automaton-like skills also. This is because the testing industry has misled us into thinking it can accurately portray the sum total of what a student knows through a three-minute (or three-hour) test. Unfortunately, this comes precisely at a time when we have learned a lot about the many variations of skills and talent among students. Some are good with people skills, or musical talents, or can visualize scientific breakthroughs like Einstein (who also did poorly in school). There are teachers throughout the country who know a lot more than they are able to carry out, but their districts have them mainly working on rote learning because that is what is tested. America has gained wealth and prestige because it has always been the leader in innovation. Many of the most innovative schools we have are charter schools. I hope we begin to appreciate them and not just pressure them to become exactly like mainstream schools. They may be our last, best chance to recover some of the creativity and ingenuity that we have lost over these past few years of Back to Basics mentality.

KAREN LOCKE, BLOOMINGTON

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