Are you a judger or a learner?
Take a minute before you answer because this answer will tell you how you think about everything in your life, about your approach to dealing with problems in life—personal and professional—and maybe even how far you’ll be able to go in your professional and personal life.
The answer to this question tells you what you bring to the table when presented with a problematic situation.
Table of Contents
What are the judger and learner mindsets?
A mindset is “a set of assumptions that help you distil complex worldviews into digestible information and then set expectations based on this input”. These belief systems in the form of assumptions help you set expectations, plan for the worst and guide decisions.”
Personality traits and characteristics of the judger and learner mindsets
Dr Marilee Adams, who developed Judger and learner mindsets in her book ‘Change Your Questions, Change Your Life’ describes the personality traits of these mindsets.
Comparative table to help you get a better picture
| Judger | Learner |
| Close-minded Rejects suggestions, solutions or changes and is inflexible to alternatives. | Open-minded Is curious to learn more, flexible enough to try alternatives and accepting of solutions that others offer. |
| Critical and judgemental Criticizes all offered solutions and focuses more and more on the problem. | Connected and creative Is connected with the people around her, more appreciative of the solutions offered and even innovative in their approach to finding solutions. |
| Shirks responsibility Does not take any responsibility when the opportunity is presented and looks for who to blame for the screw-up. | Connected and creative Is connected with the people around them, more appreciative of the solutions offered and even innovative in their approach to finding solutions. |
| Self-righteous and defensive Are generally insecure so act defensive when given feedback and hence, are generally focused on the final result. | Curious to learn and open to feedback Is open to feedback so she can improve on it the next time and hence, is generally focused on the process. |
| Examples of Judger questions What’s wrong with me? Whose fault is it? Why am I a failure? Why can’t I do anything right? Why are they so clueless and frustrating? Haven’t we already been there, don’t that? Why bother? | Examples of learner questions What happened? What do I want? What’s useful about this? What can I learn? What’s the other person thinking, feeling, and wanting? What are my choices? What’s best to do now? What’s possible? |
How the mindsets play out in real life
Let me break it down a bit more and help you to identify your mindset status.
Imagine you’re at work, it’s 6.00 p.m. and you’re almost getting ready to leave and in comes your boss with a new assignment that needs to be completed. There’s too much work to be done in too little time. How do you respond?
Do you get mad at her for bringing it up as you were about to leave or do you gather the team and split tasks so you can divide and rule?
Your partner was supposed to pick up your kid from school but she got stuck in a meeting. You’re also quite far away from the school right now and the kid is going to have to wait an hour to be picked up. How do you respond?
Do you lose your temper at your partner for poor planning? Or do you pick up the phone to call a trusted friend or a family member to do the needful? Worst case scenario, you speak to the teacher/attendant to ensure that the kid isn’t alone.
If you bring anger, defensiveness or a critical approach to the table, you have a judger mindset.
On the other hand, if you’re open to exploring possible solutions and genuinely have a positive attitude while solving a problem believing that possible viable solutions exist, you, my friend, have a learner mindset.
But ‘why’ are we constantly talking about the mindset so much, you’re probably asking right now.
What makes mindset so important?
Why on Earth is everyone talking about mindset so much?
Power of your mindset
I’m sure you’ve either read a self-help book or recommended one that talks about the power of your mind, asking the universe for all the good things and believing you’ll get them, having a positive mindset, the power of positive thinking, manifesting your dream life, and vision boards.
Have you ever wondered why it’s so often and highly recommended, and by so many practical and pragmatic people?
Mindset builds perception
Science, my friends, has shown that mindset is what shapes how you perceive everything around you.
Since perception plays a huge part in how you react and respond to your environment, it influences how you feel about things, how you deal with problems and setbacks, how motivated you are to deal with them, influences the factors you consider when making any decisions, impacts overall mental health and thus, how you work towards your success in life.
This is why two people with different perceptions may experience and react to the same situations in a very different way.
Healthy mindsets translate to better cognitive abilities
If you already believe everything I’ve said about the mindset up until now, you can skip the next few paragraphs but if you don’t, this is for you –
- A study based on data collected from over 2500 students in China showed that adolescents with a growth mindset suffered significantly less due to mental health issues and stress due to life events than those who didn’t.
- They are also less prone to mental health problems including anxiety and depression than the others.
- Studies have also shown that people with a growth and learner mindset recover from setbacks faster, are more motivated than others, have more resilience to tackle problems, are generally less stressed and anxious, perform better in academics, are curious to learn more, embrace challenges and take constructive criticism well.
- All this owing to the growth and learning-oriented belief system that if they work harder and smarter, they can learn what they need to tackle the challenges better.
People with healthy mindsets are more likely to succeed
It makes sense right, if you believe you can do better, and achieve everything you want to, then you’ll work towards it.
But if you don’t, i.e., you have a fixed mindset, then you’re fixated on the idea that no matter what you do, you won’t get any results and won’t even consider trying because you truly believe it’ll be a waste of your time.
With a fixed mindset, you set yourself up for failure even before you try.
Don’t think you need any more convincing than that, do you?
Yeah, I thought so. Let’s move on to the next section. 🙂
Moving away from the default setting towards growth
Interestingly, most of us are more accustomed and auto-tuned to function with more of a judger mindset than the learner mindset.
Instead of asking exactly how many of us will it take to complete the work on time, we often ask, why the boss always remembers things at the last minute just when you’re getting ready to pack up – even without thinking about it.
And if you’re the boss with a judger mindset, you don’t sit with the team and contribute to the complete tasks. Instead, you ask why the team members aren’t done with the tasks yet and who is to blame for the delay. You rush to be the judge of others instead of having a mindset open to growth.
This is not me attacking your ability to be a good employee or an admirable boss.
As I said, a judger is just our default setting most of the time. It’s up to you and me to train ourselves to change it to the learner-growth Mindset.
How to shift from Judger to Learner
Become aware and observe
We’ve talked about this enough on the blog. But let me repeat it for your benefit – unless you acknowledge the problem and know how big it is you cannot get around to solving it.
Make a conscious effort to notice how you respond to your colleagues and your partner each time you have to deal with a complicated situation. You have enough material in this article to take notes to help you identify how deep in this you are and how much work will it need.
Self-awareness questions to ask yourself each day
At the end of the day, ask yourself –
- How did I respond today?
- Do I respond this way often?
- If so, is there a different underlying issue that needs my attention?
- Was there anything that made me anxious or irritable?
- What am I assuming about that situation?
- What are the facts I know?
- What do I need to know more?
Consciously question yourself
Dr Marilee Adams, in her book ‘Change Your Questions, Change Your Life’, states that we’re often juggling between judger and learner mindsets while the majority of the working space is occupied by the former.
Since the judger mindset is the automatic belief system we resort to, it is generally hard to switch to a learner or growth mindset. You’ll simply forget to check in; so, I highly suggest figuring out ways to remind yourself intermittently.
Set up reminders around you
For me, it works to have a piece of art or furniture at my work desk to remind me to stay on track. Sometimes, it also helps to set my goal as my wallpaper or phone password so I can be reminded of it repeatedly.
Arrange for similar reminders around yourself in the space where you spend the maximum amount of your time.
Then each time you catch yourself being close-minded, become aware of your current state of mind, acknowledge that and open yourself up to new possibilities and alternatives.
Adopt question-thinking
Instead of reacting based on limited facts and assumptions, you need to learn how to respond after gathering all the relevant information.
The kind of information you need will depend on how deep in a judger mindset you are and the problem at hand. Once you have this information, you can start framing the right kind of questions to help you get the right kind of information – about yourself, your surroundings including others, and the problems.
Ask the right questions
Only the right kind of questions will get you the right answers. Before you ask a question, consciously consider what information will lead you to the solution.
Very carefully, craft the goals of the questions and then frame the questions you need to ask. Since you’re looking to solve the problem and not someone to blame, this exercise will help you shift to a growth-oriented mindset more fluidly.
Here are some examples of the right kind of questions to ditch the judger mindset, to stop reacting and start responding.
Questions about yourself
- How can I contribute to problem-solving?
- I am irritated right now, do I need a few minutes off? You’ll be surprised to know what some time off can do for you!
- If I react angrily right now, how will that impact the situation and the others who are helping solve the problem?
- Do I need some more information about the situation before I jump to the conclusion since I just learned about it 30 seconds ago?
Questions about surroundings and others
- Is this a good time and right place to ask questions?
- Can we discuss xyz matter? This is my understanding but you’ve drawn a different conclusion, is there anything I’m missing?
- How will others respond to the suggestions?
Questions about the problems
- Have I understood it correctly?
- How are others thinking about it?
- What are the solutions everyone else is thinking of?
- What are the facts and what are the assumptions?
Using the choice map
Dr Marilee Adams offers a great solution to shift mindsets in her book. She uses the choice map to explain that we can choose how to respond in each moment.
I highly suggest that you take a quick print and stick it on your workspace.
Listen more talk less
At the very root of question thinking is your ability to listen. When you keep talking, you don’t give others a chance to speak. How are you supposed to be open-minded when you refuse to give others a chance to open up to you?
This study conducted by Harvard found that listening to people talk is more effective in helping them change as compared to offering feedback.
Also, notice that we’re not talking about hearing the other person – perceiving some jibber-jabber sound is just not enough.
We’re talking about listening. Pay attention to the other person, understand what they’re saying, make sense of it, and ask follow-up questions where you have doubts and you’ll be surprised to know that you’re not the only genius in the room! 😉
Judge and be judged or learn and help learn
If you’re in a leadership position, then here is an experiment for you.
When you have an assignment to deliver to a new client and someone makes a mistake notice how your team responds:
- when you scream and look for the person to blame
vs.
- when you give everyone a pep talk, have a healthy conversation about how you can avoid such mistakes.
In the former situation, your team will also get annoyed at you for screaming, your stress will stress them out making more room for mistakes in future projects and on top of that, they will be judging their manager (I mean, you) for not doing her job properly either.
On the other hand, in the latter situation, you’ll notice that your team members will have the chance to self-reflect, will become more open to your feedback and learn to incorporate it into their work going forward. You’ll also spend more time coaching and mentoring your employees which will in turn translate into better results for the team and organisation.
Personally, as an employee, the latter motivates me to work harder and be more in touch with the rest of the team as well.
What a world – you get to choose which one are you going to be. So what will you be?
Are you going to be the judger handing out ‘Guilty’ certificates? or Are you going to be the Learner who is going to get the whole team to succeed?
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