On March 15, 2024, Dr. Lindsay Whorton, president of The Holdsworth Center, interviewed Dr. David Yeager, a researcher focused on what works for mentors leading young people. In his book, “10 to 25: A Groundbreaking Approach to Leading the Next Generation—And Making Your Own Life Easier,” Yeager reveals the science behind motivating young people, making it a must-read for managers, parents, educators, coaches, and mentors everywhere.
His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Scientific American, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and more. He has co-authored work on grit and grit-testing with Angela Duckworth, and on growth mindset with Carol Dweck.
Below is an excerpt from the hourlong conversation.
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Place the Ladder with Dr. David Yeager
Lindsay Whorton: In your book, you make a strong case that our beliefs about young people significantly inform the choices we make about how we interact with them. There’s a view that we hold, which you label the neurobiological incompetence model, that you think is scientifically inaccurate and something we need to leave behind. Can you explain?
David Yeager: What I call the neurobiological incompetence model is very simply the idea that young people lack a prefrontal cortex or the ability to reason, plan, think about the future in a logical way.
The prefrontal cortex is mainly for goal-directed behavior, but what is a goal? A goal is always something you want – or something you want to avoid.
Teenagers are great at goal-directed behavior. They just direct their attention to goals that adults don’t want them to. The adult wants them to factor trinomials endlessly on a worksheet, but maybe they don’t apply it there. If they want to sneak out of the house, they’re like General Patton in the European theater – they’re unbelievably good. We just finished the Olympics. How many teenagers were goal-directed for years, waking up at 4:00 am doing things that we never would do?
They can be incredibly competent if they direct their attention to something that society values. Then the trick is to figure out how to align what’s good for them and society and their long-term interest with what they care about.
Lindsay Whorton: You described this complicated dilemma that a lot of adults face in wanting to provide support, encouragement, feedback to young people but having that backfire, unintentionally demotivating them. Talk to us about what’s playing out in those moments and what the alternative moves are for adults who care about young people who they’re trying to help.
David Yeager: The mentor’s dilemma is very simply the idea that when you have authority, influence power over anyone, you have a choice about how you interact with them, especially when you need to correct their behavior or their performance.
Imagine a teacher like me giving critical feedback on an essay to my students, or a law partner giving feedback on a brief to a junior associate, or a surgeon giving feedback to the residents at the teaching hospital. The dilemma is if I’m honest and tough and critical and point out all the things that you are doing wrong, I am potentially helping them improve the work, but I’m also potentially crushing their spirit.
The alternative is lower your standards, withhold feedback, don’t be honest with them, but be very nice, caring and complimentary. That doesn’t feel good either. You’re either crushing people or you’re lying to them.
And what our research has suggested is that there’s a third way, and the third way is to maintain exceptionally high standards but accompany those standards with enough supports that they could meet them.
This third way is something we call a mentor mindset. The theory underlying the mental mindset is (young people) can do impressive and accomplish great things. They can make contributions if they have sufficient support.
Question from the audience: When you talk about support, are you talking about support for the student, support for the teacher, or both? Because it seems like without enough support, educators cannot be mentors.
David Yeager: Teachers who say they want to change young people’s lives and make a difference and make a contribution ¬– they’re more likely to stay in mentor mindset. Now, part of the challenge is that if you’re constantly mission-driven and redlining, teachers burn out. Leaders need to step up as they create schools and say, “All right, how do I support my great teachers?”
Trust is a belief that if you get into hot water or you mess up or whatever, the leader’s going to be there for you and help figure out a solution. They’re going to invest in you. They care about you. They’re not going to blame you. And so if I’m a teacher, why would I try something new if the second it goes wrong, I’m out to dry?
We find that it’s really important to create a culture of earned trust from leaders in schools so that teachers feel confident implementing mentor mindset.
Question from the audience: One thing that we know about Gen Z is that they’re very good at setting boundaries. How does the mentor mindset work with Gen Z? How do you help them set that goal and be motivated?
David Yeager: Selling a vision in which the hard work now is a part of becoming the kind of person they want to be – that’s a really good reason to work hard and dedicate yourself to a craft. But we very rarely appeal to it because we think everyone is self-interested, that we can only talk to you about money and short-term gain and fame and things like that.
And because those aren’t that good at motivating people, then we’re like, “Well, I guess I can’t motivate you.” I think that there’s an underuse of a broader sense of contribution and purpose behind how we connect with them.
I think Gen Z accurately perceives unfairness and injustice in the world. And if we frame the contributions they make as a part of addressing those, then they’re going to be motivated to fix them.
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