In this episode, Dr. Martha Acosta emphasizes the need to shift from a "fixed mindset" of trying to "fix the worker" to a growth mindset that fosters continuous learning. She highlights that the most effective leadership practice for building a learning organization is coaching through inquiry—specifically helping teams align on a shared purpose, observing the reality of the work environment, and generating multiple options before rushing to find a solution. Finally, she stresses that leaders must take responsibility for creating the context that drives worker behavior, and that a true "performance culture" requires organizations to actively unlearn old habits, safely experiment, and intentionally plan for failure.
Get to know Dr. Martha Acosta:
Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martha-acosta-ed-d-7293ba4/
Website: martica.com (Company) marthaacosta.com (Personal)
Email: martha@martica.com
In her conversation on the Counter Errorism podcast, Martha Acosta shares profound insights on transforming how organizations learn, emphasizing that leaders must shift from trying to "fix the worker" to fostering a genuine "performance culture" that embraces continuous learning and experimentation.
Here are the key lessons we learn from her approach:
Moving from a Fixed to a Growth Mindset
Organizations historically operated under a "fixed mindset," using behavioral models to try to "fix" workers, operating under the illusion that a person or a system could reach a point of absolute perfection where mistakes are impossible. Acosta advocates for adopting a "growth mindset," which is the foundational belief that people and environments must be continuously developed.
Coaching Through Inquiry (The GROW Model)
Acosta believes the single most effective leadership practice for creating a learning organization is coaching. However, this does not mean acting like a high school volleyball coach who just tells people what they did wrong and barks orders. True coaching uses humble inquiry to help teams discover motivations and options. She frames this using the GROW model: Goals (Shared Purpose), Reality, Options, and Way forward.
Uniting Experts with a Shared Purpose (Goals)
When dealing with ad-hoc groups of highly specialized experts, individuals can easily become compartmentalized, deferring only to their specific knowledge silos. Furthermore, team members often have conflicting individual goals (like wanting overtime vs. avoiding it). A leader's job is to establish a clear "shared purpose" so everyone knows exactly why they are doing the work, which pulls the diverse expertise together.
Exploring the Context (Reality) via Humble Inquiry
Rather than managing safety solely by reacting to accidents after the fact, leaders should continuously observe the "reality" of normal work to catch systemic drift early. To truly understand this reality, leaders must utilize humble inquiry. Instead of acting like a policeman looking for procedural compliance, leaders should use disarming phrases like "help me understand," "walk me through this," or "paint me the picture," which invites workers to share their actual context without fear of giving the "wrong" answer.
Problem Solving vs. Solution Finding (Options)
A massive trap organizations fall into is "solution finding"—impatiently pulling past solutions out of their pockets to quickly apply to new problems. In volatile environments, assuming the current reality perfectly matches the past is dangerous. Real problem solving requires pausing to generate multiple different options and hypotheses before rushing to fix things. Acosta even suggests using AI as a tool to put on different "thinking hats" and generate diverse alternatives that humans often skip because it takes too much time.
The Way Forward Requires Planning for Failure
In highly innovative or hazardous environments, a true performance culture is a learning culture. When you commit to a "way forward" on something you haven't done before, it is essentially an experiment. Because the hypothesis might be wrong, leaders must actively plan for failure—ensuring hazards are mitigated so that the team can fail safely, learn from the experiment, and prevent unbearable outcomes.
Unlearning and Recognizing that Context Drives Behavior
When workers make mistakes, leaders must realize that management creates the context in which those decisions are made. Instead of blaming the worker, leaders must evaluate whether the context they provided—through lacking resources, confusing procedures, or poor communication—made the worker's actions make sense at the time. Furthermore, to adapt to new contexts and successfully improve, organizations have to be willing to do the hard work of "unlearning" their deeply ingrained habits.
Mentions in this episode:
SAFETY CAPACITY: Leadership Practices for Failing Safely by Martha L. Acosta Ed.D. (Author), Todd Conklin Ph.D. (Foreword)
Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono (Author)
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