The Importance of Self-Evaluation

This week’s article summary from the New York Times is The Secret Ingredient for Success.

Although the article is about how a chef became a restaurant magnate through self-examination of what was and wasn’t working in his first restaurant, it resonated for me because it confirms the importance of giving our students ample opportunities to develop and practice self-assessment and reflection--in areas such as My Learning and student-led conferences.

The article—and soon to be a full book—shows the importance of self-awareness and critical examination in success. The authors of the article interviewed successful people in business, sports, etc. and found that while talent, persistence, and luck are obvious factors in eventual success, so is the ability to look at oneself.

The article talks about the difference between ‘single and double loop learning’ with the latter including the ability to look inward and critically examine one’s own decisions, missteps, biases, etc.  rather than only looking (and blaming) outward factors to become more successful in any endeavor.

I like seeing real-life and research-based affirmation of what Trinity believes and practices!

Joe

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What does self-awareness have to do with a restaurant empire?

David Chang’s experience is instructive.

Mr. Chang is an internationally renowned, award-winning Korean-American chef with eight restaurants from Toronto to Sydney. He says he worked himself to the bone to realize his dream — to own a humble noodle bar.

He spent years cooking in some of New York City’s best restaurants, apprenticed in different noodle shops in Japan and then, finally, worked in his tiny restaurant.

Mr. Chang could barely pay himself a salary. He had trouble keeping staff. And he was miserably stressed.

He recalls a low moment when he went with his staff on a night off to eat burgers at a restaurant that was everything his wasn’t — packed, critically acclaimed, and financially successful. He could cook better than they did, so why was his restaurant failing?

Mr. Chang could have blamed someone else for his troubles, or worked harder, or he could have made minor tweaks to the menu. Instead he looked inward and subjected himself to brutal self-assessment.

Was the humble noodle bar of his dreams economically viable? Sure, a traditional noodle dish had its charm but wouldn’t work as the mainstay of a restaurant.

Mr. Chang changed course. Rather than worry about what a noodle bar should serve, he stalked the produce at the greenmarket for inspiration. Then he went back to the kitchen and invented recipes, crowding the menu with wild combinations of dishes. What happened next Mr. Chang still considers “kind of ridiculous” — the crowds came, rave reviews piled up, and awards followed.

During the 1970s, Chris Argyris, a business theorist at Harvard Business School began to research what happens to organizations and people, like Mr. Chang, when they find obstacles in their paths.

Professor Argyris called the most common response single loop learning — an insular mental process in which we consider possible external or technical reasons for obstacles.

Vastly more effective is the cognitive approach that Professor Argyris called double-loop learning. In this mode we — like Mr. Chang — question every aspect of our approach, including our methodology, biases, and deeply held assumptions.

This more psychologically nuanced self-examination requires that we honestly challenge our beliefs and summon the courage to act on that information, which may lead to fresh ways of thinking about our lives and our goals.

In interviews we did with high achievers for a book, we expected to hear that talent, persistence, dedication and luck played crucial roles in their success. Surprisingly, however, self-awareness played an equally strong role.

The successful people we spoke with — in business, entertainment, sports and the arts — all had similar responses when faced with obstacles: they subjected themselves to merciless self-examination that prompted reinvention of their goals and the methods by which they endeavored to achieve them.

No one’s idea of a good time is to take a brutal assessment of their animating assumptions and to acknowledge that those may have contributed to their failure. It’s easy to find pat ways to explain why the world has not adequately rewarded our efforts.

But what we learned from conversation with high achievers is that challenging our assumptions, objectives, at times even our goals, may sometimes push us further than we thought possible. Ask David Chang, who never imagined that sweetbreads and duck sausage rice cakes with kohlrabi and mint would find their way beside his humble noodle dishes — and make him a star.