When AirAsia X was launched in 2007, then CEO of Singapore Airlines dismissed the viability of a long-haul low-cost airline model because he noted that, unlike short-haul flights, everyone needs meals, checked baggage and in-flight entertainment for long-haul flights. Yet, once AirAsia X proved that a large greenfield opportunity existed, Singapore Airlines swiftly responded and launched their own long-haul low-cost airline, Scoot. Innovations developed by AirAsia X like Quiet Zone or new routes launched were also quickly replicated.

In May 2015, Netflix’s CEO, Reed Hastings announced that they would only focus on streaming video and not offer download services. While streaming is more convenient for consumers with high-quality internet bandwidth, it was a barrier for emerging markets subscribers that only had mobile services with limited data quota. iflix from Malaysia pioneered a download-and-watch offline feature later that year after solving two challenges: the engineering complexity of video compression to enable a movie to be conveniently downloaded under one minute with only a 3G connection, and securing permissions from Hollywood studios. This feature accelerated iflix’s adoption in Southeast Asia. It got Netflix’ attention, and in a year, the video-on-demand giant raced to introduce their version of download-and-view offline.

Today, most business innovations, product launches or creative ideas can easily be replicated by competitors, especially larger ones with deeper pockets. Snapchat’s successful ‘transient’ social media content attracted Facebook and Instagram to copy with their ‘stories’ feature. The only competitive advantage today is the speed and agility to keep innovating and to not rest on the laurels of past successes. At the heart of this capability is whether an organisation can create a conducive learning environment and culture, where team members are able to speak up openly, contribute ideas outside of their daily work scope, and organisational courage to move beyond prior successes and keep reinventing their core. The following are three principles that guide leaders to build a learning culture and infuse a growth mindset in their teams.

Identify ‘Knower’ language and rephrase to ‘Learner’ statements

Call out ‘knower’ language in team meetings and rephrase ‘knower’ statements to ‘learner’ statements on the spot.   Knowers claim to know how things are, how they ought to be, and what needs to be done. They give a lot of orders and ask very few questions. A Learner, by contrast, is curious and humble. They are more inquisitive than directive. They consider other perspectives instead of imposing their own.  Typical knower statements include ‘this is the way it should be done. I’ve been in this industry for twenty years’ or ‘that idea will not work here, we’ve already tried it before’. Leaders should encourage all team members to call out these phrases irrespective of hierarchy and get the person to rephrase it in a learner language: “from my experience, this is one way to address this situation. What other views should we consider?”. Feedback is most effective when it is given on the spot.

Enable psychological safety

The next step to foster a learning environment is enabling psychological safety. That’s when employees can take risks at work without being punished. When teams feel psychologically safe, they are willing to talk freely about their mistakes, and learn to prevent them and re-think the practices that cause them. When they don’t feel psychologically safe, they hide their errors and more prone to repeating them. The number one way that leaders shut down psychological safety inadvertently is when they say, “don’t just come to me with problems. Come to me with a proposed solution.” Leaders may want their teams to be constructive and not just whine and complain. But if people can only speak up when they have a solution, you will never hear about the biggest problems that are too complex for one person to solve.

Proactively encourage new ideas and commit resources

The third principle is to proactively encourage new ideas from the team and commit the resources to implement the best ones. Leaders should audit all the key product or service features in the business and all the strategic initiatives outlined in the annual business plan to see how many were initiated not from the top leadership but from front-line teams. A true learning culture will blossom only when everyone sees real examples of how ideas can come from anywhere in the organisation and be taken seriously by the top decision-makers. Ideas will rarely be brought up naturally. Leading teams now use specific events like quarterly hackathons where voluntary teams from different areas get together over 48-72 hours to work on a business challenge to unleash curiosity and passion within the organisation. For this to be sustained, leaders must commit to take the rough prototypes, refine and then roll out the best ones. Google’s famous ’20-percent’ time is another way companies can foster learning and creativity at work by giving employees the space and resource to experiment.

There are many other ways to nurture a learning and growth mindset. They are all predicated on leaders actively creating the opportunities for team members to speak up, take chances without fear of failure, and having the courage and vulnerability to have team members challenge current practices and strategies before external competitors do.