(Credit: U.S. Army Directorate of Prevention, Resilience, and Readiness)
Closing Argument
The Courage to Grow through Mistakes, Failures, and Setbacks
By Brigadier General Alison C. Martin with Major Sara J. Nicholson
Common experience tells us that most people endure challenges and failures. With each challenge and failure, we have the opportunity to decide how that experience will shape us. Within this general context, we consider how to hone our ability to face challenges and how we can develop resilience that helps us endure and grow despite the ever-present risk of failure.1
In a rapidly changing environment, we are not immune to the struggles of maneuvering through obstacles. The truth is, successful professionals from all walks of life fail throughout their careers, and they find ways to endure and carry on. Before becoming the sixteenth U.S. President, Abraham Lincoln lost races for the Illinois state legislature and the U.S. Senate. Acclaimed director and producer Steven Spielberg applied to film school three times before being accepted. Stephen Curry, one of the best NBA players in history, did not receive a scholarship to play basketball at his preferred college because of his physical frame. He then leaned into his strengths and led his underdog team from a small liberal arts college through a shocking run to the NCAA’s Elite Eight in 2008.2 All examples of people who persisted in their craft despite failure and rejection, these notable achievers demonstrated that failure can be a steppingstone to success, and they were greatly rewarded for their grit. As legal practitioners serving the Department of Defense, we too need such determination and resilience to steadfastly serve our part in the defense of our Nation.
Military professionals readily subscribe to the value of getting-it-done. While moving diligently from one task to the next, it is not always easy to pause and lean into the aftermath of failure. In fact, sometimes, the resulting negative emotional impact can be hard to understand and can overwhelm one’s sense of worth. It takes habitual courage to process the risk, perception, and actual outcome of failure in a positive way such that when a new issue arrives, we are ready to figuratively tighten our bootlaces and charge forward with hope and confidence. It also takes empathy to recognize that no one is alone in their failures. Above all, it requires a deliberate intent to transform our self-awareness and shape how we react to challenges, anticipating the risk that sometimes things will not go to plan.
The Importance of a Growth Mindset
In a hierarchical organization like ours, it can be easy to fall into the common thinking trap that promotion requires perfection: a steady stream of successes, awards, and excellent evaluations. Linear connections between our inherent value as teammates and our merit as professionals seem to make sense; achieving perfect results bolsters our sense of confidence. However, no one can achieve success by avoiding failure. Instead, we should accept that failure is unavoidable and can be one of the best ways to build resiliency. Indeed, learning to embrace failure and grow from it is a far better professional and leadership trait than perfectionism.
This is the premise behind Dr. Carol Dweck’s concept of maintaining a growth mindset.3 A growth mindset is not merely a positive attitude; it is a way to reframe challenges and setbacks. Individuals with a growth mindset believe they can develop their abilities through determination and practice.4 The inverse of this is a fixed mindset, in which individuals view their abilities as innate and static. Fixed-mindset individuals see failure as not just permanent but also as a personal indictment. They think, “I am a failure.” Thus, they tend to take fewer risks, avoid challenges, and choose easier paths. To the contrary, people with a growth mindset know how to separate their worth, character, and abilities from the experience, thinking, “Well, that failed, but I learned from it. I’m ready for the next challenge.” Not surprisingly, people with a growth mindset are more likely to persist in the face of obstacles by seeking out constructive criticism to adapt, improve their performance, and overcome the failure. If you want to be someone with a growth mindset, you must be willing to set aside your fears and face situations where you may fail.
Army legal professionals, like many high-achieving individuals, might bristle at embracing failure, believing that a growth mindset runs counter to mission accomplishment in our most consequential practice.5 However, a growth mindset is crucial to achieving success and fulfilling professional potential. Without resiliency, and the ability to drive on in the face of adversity, setbacks can lead to a crushing loss of self-worth. Relatedly, a loss of confidence in one’s sense of professional respectability may hinder the appreciation of the same in others.
A growth mindset is a vital tool in a professional’s arsenal to continually develop and sustain resilience. The Army’s unique structure and vast roles mean many legal professionals will inevitably find themselves in assignments outside of their comfort zone. With a growth mindset, we can approach challenges with resilience, view failures as opportunities to learn and improve, and embrace continuous learning and growth. Furthermore, in our competitive, often high-stakes, and constantly evolving field, a growth mindset may be the difference between burnout and breakthrough.
As legal professionals and leaders, it is not enough to be content with one’s own growth.6 We are called upon to develop our teams and maximize their potential. As a leader, it is imperative that you communicate your belief in your people’s ability to grow and improve.7 Luckily, building one’s own resilience via a growth mindset and actively reflecting upon and embracing one’s own failures helps leaders better empathize with those they lead. An empathetic leader more ably enhances trust within the team, and greater trust between teammates further promotes individual and teamwide resilience.8
Our command philosophy at The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School (TJAGLCS) is guided by twelve principles we call the “TJAGLCS 12,” and our people are the very first item on that list.9 We acknowledge that when we take care of our people, they will take care of the mission. One of the best ways to take care of people is to foster a growth-mindset environment. We recommend five practical ways to implement a growth mindset in your own office.
1) Praise the Process, Not the Result
The most important thing supervisors can do to cultivate a growth mindset and build resiliency in legal professionals is to focus praise or attention on the processes and efforts of counsel and not the outcome of their endeavors. For example, instead of congratulating counsel on the verdict of the court-martial, supervisors should instead comment on counsel’s efforts to prepare their witnesses to testify, or the thoroughness of their case law research that resulted in the admission of key pieces of evidence. Consider conducting the after-action review (AAR) before the verdicts come in. Sometimes achieving the desired result clouds self-assessment on performance. Instead of praising paralegals for the number of Article 15 packets they completed in a week, supervisors should praise the attention they paid to assure the quality of those packets.
2) Provide Constructive Criticism to Grow Your Team
In our “phenomenal performance!” culture, giving constructive criticism to subordinates can be difficult. However, providing honest feedback when subordinates did not perform to standard is as important as giving praise. In those tough cases, supervisors must be forthright, encourage a different approach, and be willing to help. Effective criticism identifies the process, behavior, or strategy that was ineffective and offers a solution.10 Ineffective criticism fails to provide direction on how to improve.11 Here are two examples to illustrate the difference.
Imagine you are a chief of administrative and civil law and your new administrative law attorney or paralegal barely got through a briefing with the staff judge advocate (SJA): they lacked confidence and were unable to anticipate or answer most of the SJA’s questions. How can you best help them?
Work on competence before confidence. First, take the opportunity to model a growth mindset. Make sure the Soldier knows that even though the experience did not go as hoped, this is a welcome opportunity to build resilience and come back stronger. Help identify the lessons learned, and then, move forward with actionable steps to improve. In addition, always consider how to shift the priorities to ensure they have the time they need to prepare. What specific information do they need to focus on? What is this SJA’s communication style, and how can they adapt to it? Do a mock brief with the individual and play the role of the SJA. Help them to anticipate questions and prepare answers so they feel more confident the next time they come in to brief. And, then, after their next brief, praise their determination and all the work they put in to improve rather than just the end-result.
Here is another example. A judge advocate (JA) exclaims to their paralegal, “These chapter packets are never correct. I always have to fix them!” Instead, that same JA could say to their paralegal: “It appears we need to do a more thorough job in reviewing the unit counseling packets before drafting chapter documents. Let’s move that item higher on our checklist, so we can identify issues earlier.” This type of criticism reinforces the concept that failure is an opportunity for growth and improvement.12 Many times it is not a lack of ability that causes an error, but a lack of process or prioritization of keys aspects of a process. Focusing criticism on opportunities to improve also helps create an environment in which the individual is less likely to be defensive and more apt to be receptive and to respond in a positive manner.13
(Credit: WindyNight-adobe.stock.com)
3) Foster Learning and Development
You cannot truly instill a growth mindset in your team if you do not foster an environment of continuous learning and development. Training programs require commitment and are extremely challenging because they are time consuming and—understandably—many already feel too busy with the work they have in front of them. You can mitigate this by identifying people’s interests and strengths. If someone in the office is a history buff, tap them to lead a leadership development program on the installation’s history. If a brigade legal team recently completed a Combat Training Center rotation, consider having them give an overview for all the other legal teams on post through an instructional session.
Training time is also a good way to foster collaboration and teamwork. It is an opportunity to grow together and collectively learn from experiences by bringing people together from different legal sections or different ranks to present on a topic as a group. After-action reviews (AARs) are another great way to provide your team with meaningful training and valuable feedback.14
4) Utilize Counseling to Maximize a Growth Mindset
Your people will not know your expectations unless you tell them. At the start of a rating period, set aside time with your subordinates for initial counseling. These are fantastic one-on-one opportunities to emphasize and exercise a growth mindset.
Take this time to learn about your subordinates’ perceived strengths, challenges, and goals. Lay the foundation for a growth mindset by emphasizing that you value determination to tackle obstacles over perfection.15 Ask them to identify the areas in which they would like to grow. After the session is complete, consider having the subordinate revise their support form to reflect what your counseling covered. An individual with a growth mindset believes that their ability to learn and grow can change with effort and failure is not a permanent condition.16 Is your subordinate willing to push themselves and set aggressive but attainable developmental goals? If not, are there things you can change in the working environment to make it more conducive to effectively embracing potential mistakes, setbacks, and failures that come with challenging yourself and others?
At the end of the rating period, you can ask the rated Soldier or Civilian what they believe went well during the rating period and what they would have done differently regarding their areas for growth. This helps you to not only assess whether the subordinate is self-aware but also reflective and ready to learn from any setbacks.
5) Walk the Walk: Modeling a Growth Mindset
Leaders can model a growth mindset by being open to feedback. One such technique is to encourage your subordinates to offer candid, constructive feedback via a variety of tools and methods. Anonymous surveys, small group sensing sessions, and town halls can help you identify any potential blind spots. Some leadership teams may want to consider bringing in the local equal opportunity/equal employment opportunity office to guide small group sensing sessions. With a focus on developing ways to fix an issue, the conversation moves away from complaints that do not help to resolve an issue.17 Being open to feedback will help you grow as a leader and demonstrates to your team you care and are embracing the opportunity for growth.
Another technique is to let subordinates see you try new things that you are not necessarily good at . . . yet.18 Journey with your subordinates in trying new activities or sports for physical training and let your subordinates see you humble yourself. Of course you can run, but how long can you hold your balance in tree pose?
Conclusion
Serving in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps means sometimes stretching yourself beyond what you previously thought you could accomplish. When both leaders and those they lead embrace the idea that individuals can develop abilities through effort and persistence, that their traits are not fixed and inherent, teams can excel and growth-mindset cultures can flourish. By focusing on the learning process and continuously seeking out new challenges, legal professionals can develop new skills, cultivate self-confidence, and become more effective advocates for their clients. A growth mindset can help attorneys, legal administrators, and paralegals embrace feedback and build resilience. So, take advantage of all the professional and personal applications of a growth mindset. The next time a challenge arises or a goal is not met, tap into your growth mindset and trust yourself to keep going. “Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.”19 TAL
BG Martin is the Commanding General of The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center & School in Charlottesville, Virginia.
MAJ Nicholson is the Special Trial Counsel at the Office of Special Trial Counsel Field Office in Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Notes
1. Resilience, Am. Psych. Ass’n, https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience (last visited Feb. 4, 2024); see also Resilience, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/resilience (last visited Feb. 4, 2024).
2. Stephen Curry: Underrated (AppleTV 2023).
3. See Carol Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2007); Growth Mindset, U.S. Army: Army Resilience Directorate, https://www.armyresilience.army.mil/ard/R2/Growth-Mindset.html (last visited Jan. 30, 2024); see also Carol Dweck, TED, https://www.ted.com/speakers/carol_dweck (last visited Jan. 30, 2024); Do This Simple Exercise to Unlock Your Potential, Says the Psychologist Who Coined the Phrase ‘Growth Mindset,’ Entrepreneur (Sept. 12, 2023), https://www.entrepreneur.com/living/do-this-to-unlock-your-potential-says-psychologist-carol/458774. But see Lydia Denworth, Debate Arises over Teaching “Growth Mindsets” to Motivate Students, Sci. Am. (Aug. 12, 2019), https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/debate-arises-over-teaching-growth-mindsets-to-motivate-students (arguing that while the concept can positively impact learning, context matters).
4. See U.S. Dep’t of Army, Field Manual 7-22, Holistic Health and Fitness paras. 9-42 to 9-44, tbl.9-5 (8 Oct. 2020).
5. While some missions and tasks are certainly “no fail,” other aspects of our Corps’s operations include more space to assume risk; leaders can identify each and adjust their risk tolerance as needed.
6. See U.S. Dep’t of Army, Reg. 350-1, Army Training and Leader Development para. 1-16 (10 Dec. 2017).
7. Rachel Pelta, What Is a Growth Mindset?, Forage (May 11, 2023), https://www.theforage.com/blog/basics/growth-mindset.
8. See Keith Ferrazzi, Mary-Clare Race, & Alex Vincent, 7 Strategies to Build a More Resilient Team, Harv. Bus. Rev. (Jan. 21, 2021), https://hbr.org/2021/01/7-strategies-to-build-a-more-resilient-team.
9. The Judge Advoc. Gen.’s Legal Ctr. & Sch., TJAGLCS 12, at 1 (n.d.) (on file with author) [hereinafter TLAGJCS 12]; see also Army People Strategy, U.S. Army, https://people.army.mil (last visited Jan. 31, 2024).
10. Daniel Horgan, 4 Steps to Developing a Solution Orientation, Huffington Post (May 9, 2015), https://www.huffpost.com/entry/4-steps-to-developing-a-solution-orientation_b_6826514; see also TJAGLCS 12, supra note 9, at 1 (“12. Be part of the solution! When presenting a problem, bring suggested solution(s).”).
11. Growth Mindset, supra note 3.
12. Id.
13. See U.S. Dep’t of Army, Doctrine Pub. 6-22, Army Leadership and the Profession para. 2-24 (31 July 2019) (C1, 25 Nov. 2019) [hereinafter ADP 6-22] (“Empathetic leaders are better communicators, help others to understand what is occurring, and inspire others to meet mission objectives. During operations, Army leaders gain empathy when they share hardships to gauge Soldier morale and combat readiness....”); TJAGLCS 12, supra note 9, at 1 (“7. Leaders should be both hard charging and empathetic; they are not mutually exclusive.”).
14. See U.S. Dep’t of army, Field Manual 7-0, Training para. 4-29 (14 Oct. 2021). Effectively utilizing AARs at TJAGLCS has been critical to our continued success as an educational institution; AARs aid our growth and development as a learning organization as we further strive to better equip others in knowledge and ability. See TJAGLCS 12, supra note 9, at 1 (“6. We are a learning organization – incorporate AARs into everything you do.”).
15. Kathleen Woodhouse, Getting Things Done When It Feels Impossible, Forbes (Sept. 8, 2021), https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2021/09/08/progress-not-perfection-a-five-step-guide-to-getting-things-done-when-it-feels-impossible/?sh=b9447c230b16; Karen Casey, ‘Progress Over Perfection’: A Mantra for HR and Leadership (May 11, 2021), https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2021/05/11/progress-over-perfection-a-mantra-for-hr-and-leadership/?sh=de75b4679e7b; see also TJAGLCS 12, supra note 9, at 1 (“11. Overcoming adversity makes you stronger—don’t shy away from the hard things.”).
16. See Angela Lee Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, TED (April 2013), https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_grit_the_power_of_passion_and_perseverance.
17. See supra note 10.
18. See ADP 6-22, supra note 13, para. 5-63 (“Leaders who understand their own abilities can gain greater respect from their subordinates for their honesty, even as they seek to improve.”).
19. Benjamin Franklin’s the Art of Virtue: His Formula for Successful Living 50 (George L. Rogers ed., 1986).