The Power of Flexing: How to Use Small Daily Experiments to Create Big Life-Changing Growth

by Susan J. Ashford

Overview

A leadership and learning expert shows you how to change your behavior, develop soft skills, and achieve personal and professional growth through a series of small experiments she calls “Flexing.”  

A personnel shift at your organization puts you into a leadership role you don't feel prepared for. 

Your boss tells you that you seem aloof and unapproachable in client meetings. 

You need to win the support of the members of a local community group for a project you feel passionate about.

Addressing these diverse issues depends on improving your soft skills—such as time management, team building, communication and listening, creative thinking, and problem-solving. But this isn’t as easy as it may seem.

Sue Ashford, the chair of the Management and Organizations group at the Ross School of Business, has the solution. In this timely book, she introduces Flexing—a technique individuals, teams, and entire organizations can use to learn, grow, and develop their skills and knowledge with every new project, work assignment, and problem. Flexing empowers you to embrace any challenge and adapt to any change, yielding practical, valuable takeaways that ensure growth.

Flexing helps you move ahead when you’re confronted with a new challenge, or simply want to develop a vital skill. It’s a journey that begins with setting a flex goal—stating explicitly what you want to learn and how you want to grow. Once that flex goal is set, you then begin to run experiments, solicit feedback from peers or colleagues, and monitor and tweak your progress on the way to achieving your goal. Flexing can be tailored to each person, allowing you to reflect on your own experiences and incorporate the lessons you learn in the next project you tackle. It’s a growth mindset that will help you become the best version of yourself.

Flexing also works with teams and organizations. Ashford teaches small groups and large how to implement flexing to ensure their members are ready for new challenges. With more people moving to remote working full-time and developing new ways of collaborating in teams, this warm and practical guide will help every professional and any organization on the journey to greater effectiveness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063011571
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/05/2021
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	641,116
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Susan (Sue) J. Ashford holds the Michael and Susan Jandernoa Professorship and is chair of the Management and Organizations group at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. Her academic work has been published in all the top journals in her field and she has been recognized with two lifetime achievement awards for her scholarship from the Academy of Management. Her academic work has been published in the Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Strategic Management Journal, and the Journal of Applied Psychology. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Experience Is the Best Teacher … but Only When You Flex 19

Chapter 2 Mindset Matters: Framing Experience to Enhance Learning 35

Chapter 3 Setting a Learning Focus: Choosing a Flex Goal 57

Chapter 4 Unleashing Your Inner Scientist: Planning and Conducting Experiments 77

Chapter 5 It Takes a Village to Grow: Seeking Feedback to Amp Up Your Learning 97

Chapter 6 Wringing Meaning from Experience: Systematic Reflection for Long-Term Gain 119

Chapter 7 Managing Your Emotions to Enhance Your Learning 143

Chapter 8 The Power of Flexing in a Variety of Circumstances 167

Chapter 9 Coaching Team Members in the Power of Flexing 187

Chapter 10 Flexing Your Company: Building an Employee Development Program Around the Power of Flexing 209

Chapter 11 How Flexing Can Help to Build a Learning Organization 229

Epilogue A Life of Growth 249

Acknowledgments 253

Notes 259

Index 279

Editorial Reviews

07/12/2021

Leaders and workers must develop the skills to adapt to a fast-changing world, according to this encouraging if superficial debut from Ashford, chair of the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business’s Management and Organizations group. Ashford lays out a personal-development formula for a wide range of professionals that consists of creating “flex goals” that focus on an “area where you want to grow,” planning and conducting experiments, gathering feedback, reflecting, and managing one’s mindset and emotions. She includes stories of business leaders who boosted their careers by using such methods as mindfulness, approaching new situations with an aim to improve, coaching a team, and viewing life as “an ongoing experiment.” The best of her advice offers value to readers looking to make a change (such as a list of questions to help track one’s progress), but overall there’s nothing new, and the writing can be bloated: “The goals you set for enhancing your personal effectiveness can help you focus on your development even as you strive to master the daily tasks you must perform.” There’s nothing to set this one apart in a very crowded field. Agent: Leila Campoli, Stonesong Literary. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Flexing will begin by improving your work, it will then become a habit, and soon enough it will have changed your life.

Gianpiero Petriglieri

I can't wait to share her key lessons with my MBA and executive students. Sue's wisdom on flexing is on point and on time for all of us (including me!).

Dolly Chugh

Sue Ashford’s evidence-based book illustrated with compelling examples teaches us the art of flexing and masterfully helps us thrive in a constantly changing world. For anyone who wants to grow on the job, this is a book for building the skills needed for a lifetime of career success and fulfillment.

Scott Sonenshein

Narrator Megan Tusing is authoritative and credible as she delivers Ashford’s ideas in an easy-to-listen to and well-paced voice. She demonstrates her storytelling skills in bringing the important lessons of flexing to life. Flexing is about identifying personal development areas in communication, leadership, emotional responses, problem solving, and change management and then experimenting to master new, more effective approaches. Ashford introduces the importance of adapting a learning mindset. She discusses the interesting and relatable experiences of a wide range of people to demonstrate the positive impact of flexing on results and relationships. Ashford draws on research, case studies, and strategies to support her thesis. Tusing is in perfect step with Ashford and her message. There are valuable lessons here for individuals, teams, and organizations. E.Q. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2021 - AudioFile

Narrator Megan Tusing is authoritative and credible as she delivers Ashford’s ideas in an easy-to-listen to and well-paced voice. She demonstrates her storytelling skills in bringing the important lessons of flexing to life. Flexing is about identifying personal development areas in communication, leadership, emotional responses, problem solving, and change management and then experimenting to master new, more effective approaches. Ashford introduces the importance of adapting a learning mindset. She discusses the interesting and relatable experiences of a wide range of people to demonstrate the positive impact of flexing on results and relationships. Ashford draws on research, case studies, and strategies to support her thesis. Tusing is in perfect step with Ashford and her message. There are valuable lessons here for individuals, teams, and organizations. E.Q. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2021 - AudioFile