Growth mindset: Chris Pruett

- Having a growth mindset about your career and getting honest feedback is critical for anyone to grow. My colleague Chris Pruett, he's the VP of Engineering for LinkedIn.com for our consumer business, and we met each other seven years ago. We built trust and a relationship together where we can give that honest feedback to one another. And I'm super excited to sit down with him and share some of our advice together. I think we should probably reflect a little bit about how we got to where we're at, but then also maybe how we've changed through our careers, even before LinkedIn. - You know, early in my career, I was certainly, I think I've always been someone that is always looking to do, you know, stay excited about what I'm doing. I operate best when I'm sort of outside of my comfort zone a little bit. You know, it's like I know what I like, but I want to just like kind of keep pushing myself. And until I got to LinkedIn, and probably for my first year or two at LinkedIn, it was all kind of not intentional, sort of accidental, right, I was very curious. Even to this date, if you ask me what do I look for in engineers, one of the top two things I'll say is curiosity. Like I want people that are intellectually curious and that they're going to learn, and I think that's a really important part of having a growth mindset is actually being curious about things and being willing to sort of go from the point of view that you don't know everything, right, there's-- - No, you don't have all the answers. - Exactly. - We're going into new territory all the time of building new things. - [Chris] Exactly. - What drives intentional growth? Now you're in this intentional path. Is that where you continue to be, or have you been toggling back or forth, or? - Absolutely, I think what I've learned to do over time, and something that you have helped me tremendously with is actually talk about it, have these sort of very transparent, vulnerable conversations. - I think that's a great example, and I remember us having these pretty intense conversations about a year and a half ago of, be more intentional about where we wanted to go. And I remember thinking, you know, we were having similar conversations even within the company of similar roles that we both were interested in. - Well I mean, I took your old job. - Yes, you did take my old job. (both laughing) But it was, I think the relationship that we had, that we were able to talk about that. And whatever the outcome was, I mean, obviously we work at a great company where transformation, next play, all those things, you know, we embrace, but we were able to have a very vulnerable conversation that may end up in the same place, maybe switching each other's jobs, all around, and also not only talking to each other about it, but I think going back to the point that you mentioned earlier, that you need to describe exactly what you want so other people can help you get there. - You have to also trust that you can be wrong in that. Be really acutely self-aware of like where you are today, and be open to changing and knowing that you can. - It helps to have an ally on a similar career path. - You know, one thing we say here is relationships matter. And I think that to be an ally has a number of really important meanings. To me, I think it's someone who you just deeply trust, that you can be really vulnerable with. Ideally, it's a two-way connection, right, I think that, you know, you can trust that like you're really not beating around the bush, right, you're being very direct about what is it. Like you said-- - It's like don't waste my time, let's just get straight to the point. - Yeah, even if understanding feedback for what it is, right, like helping someone say, "Hey, hey, stop being defensive, "let's figure out why someone bought this," right, whether or not you think it's true. - And I think we've called each other out on some pretty transparent stuff before, but it's like helpful, it's like that's what you need to hear. - For example. - [Erica] For example (laughs), let's get down to the details. - Okay. - No, but I, you know, this came up in a recent one-on-one conversation, someone asked me out for coffee and they were newer to the company and they said, "Hey, I need a mentor, could we spend more time together?" And it's that allyship that I think it's like these, a set of people that you trust, but it takes time, but like how do you get there, I always get like how do I start establishing it. - So I think-- - It sounds great, but how are you going to do it? - I connect most when like, I try to bring my whole self here, right, and I want people that want that, right, that are actually interested in the fact that I have three kids and two dogs and live in the mountains, right, like build it over time, right, just over time just figure out who you - Like any relationship, it takes time. - Have rapport with, you figure out, you know, people that, for me, I think people that really challenge me. - Right, you need to have where I want to surround myself with people that are smarter than me in different areas, and I think that that is core because that's how you're going to grow, that's how you're going to be more intentional about where you want to go and with the kind of person or leader that you want to be. But I think there's an ending point here, that it was something I learned from you, as well, in our conversation, is that in order for that to happen is that you have to change. You have to really want to change. - You have to want to change. Exactly, like the clearer you can be about what you're trying to get to, you have to want that, be intentional about growing into that. - Yep, I love it, it's awesome Chris. Fantastic. - Nice. - Yeah. (hands slap) (upbeat music)