They might appear to us as strokes of genius. Testaments to courage and perseverance. Lucky accidents. Yet every discovery, innovation, and singular success we can name has a common denominator.

A person deliberately tried something new.

The spirit of exploration—an intentional willingness to immerse yourself in new and challenging situations—is what we've come to think of as seeking, which is a fundamental component of agile leadership. The pursuit of growth and expansion, the mindset, skills, and tools of the explorer, are the focus of this closing chapter.

Our premise is that effective leaders do not wait for learning opportunities to come along. They seek out and embrace them, constantly exploring new pathways for themselves and others.

Why? Because new experiences become the oxygen leaders need to be effective. Without new experiences to challenge, stretch, and inform them, leadership loses some of its essence. It's not only what they desire. It's what they need.

Another fundamental premise—that effective leaders are made and not born—suggests that seeking is not some preordained trait we possess from birth. Instead, it is a mindset that we choose, a tool we pick up, a skill we spend our life perfecting. Seekers may appear lucky, and in a profound sense, they are. But their good fortune is not by accident.

Their ability to thrive in new situations means seekers are often called upon to take on fresh challenges. The reason? They invariably say yes. More important, in the absence of new challenges being presented, they seek them out. That's no small thing. The seeking behaviors examined in this chapter require a willingness and commitment to take action—as well as considerable courage.

Before you pursue your next learning experience, consider the ten behaviors listed below that typify a leader who excels at seeking experience; identify the three that you feel you are currently strongest in and the corresponding three that you feel are most in need of development.

STRENGTH	NEED
	Takes advantage of opportunities to learn new things.
	Treats all situations as an opportunity to learn something.
	Seeks experiences that will change his or her perspective.
	Responds well to new situations that require him/her to stretch and grow.
	Seeks out new and diverse work experiences.
	Takes risks in pursuit of seeking new challenges.
	Focuses more on learning than success/failure.
	Immerses self in new experiences.
	Moves on when learning begins to plateau.
	Leverages network to gain access to new learning experiences.

Take a moment to reflect on how your perceived strengths and corresponding development needs in this area have played out in the past and currently. As you progress through this chapter, keep in mind how you might augment or leverage these approaches.

The fundamental mindset driving seeking behaviors is the belief that every new experience offers the potential for learning and growth. Leaders with this belief take responsibility for embracing new learning opportunities, refusing to take them for granted. Alternatively, deciding to stay in one's comfort zone and preserve the status quo of experience is seen as a lost opportunity for learning.

Beyond this core belief, some other key elements of leaders with a seeking mindset emerge.

• THEY VENTURE OUTSIDE THEIR COMFORT ZONE—WAY OUTSIDE. They are true believers in the aphorism that “Life begins at the edge or your comfort zone” and often find the experience of living at the edge exhilarating.
• THEY VALUE EXPERIENCE OVER THE OUTCOMES. The real focus is on the experience itself and what learning it might yield. This surpasses any excitement or concern with where the experience will eventually lead or its career consequences.
• THEY TAKE OWNERSHIP. Once committed to a new learning experience, seekers become immersed. Not content to tentatively wade in or be passive bystanders, they put themselves at the center of what's going on and take responsibility for what eventually happens.
• THEY KNOW WHEN IT'S TIME TO MOVE ON. Seekers are a restless lot. They want to be where the action is and sense when they are starting to become comfortable in their current situation. They would sooner run toward the next experience than run from the current one.

Exploring the anatomy of a new, challenging learning experience reveals why learning seekers are so eager to attain them. Research by CCL's Kerry Bunker and others provides a visual representation of what happens when we encounter a new learning experience.

Learning from the experiences we seek doesn't follow a continuous upward trajectory. As we assimilate learning from previous experiences, we gradually enter a leveling-off phase. New learning opportunities jolt us out of our comfort zone. Performance falters and actually decreases while we struggle to learn and apply the skills required for success in this new situation. But the decrease is only temporary. As we gain skill, pick up some wins and the confidence that comes with them, performance and growth accelerate to a higher-than-before level until, gradually, a new status quo emerges.

If we react to the new learning opportunity by choosing to stay close to our comfort zone and minimizing or avoiding exposure, we miss the discomfort of going against the grain but also the corresponding rebound in growth and performance. The end result is we are pretty much the way we were before encountering the new learning opportunity. Most striking is what doesn't happen—all of the learning that otherwise could have occurred.

People who are seekers recognize the value in continuously embracing learning opportunities that will propel them to ever higher levels of learning and growth. They have a knack for choosing opportunities that will yield maximum learning and further broaden their portfolio of experiences. And they do it often. This is the magic formula of high quantity, high quality, and diversity that was highlighted in Chapter 1.

Quantity speaks for itself. As for the other two variables, CCL's research has defined explicitly what seekers understand implicitly about the quality and diversity of their experiences. Let's dive a little deeper into each.

QUALITY

Quality emerges from several aspects of a learning opportunity. An exhaustive CCL study highlighted what elements of a new experience were associated with the greatest amount of learning.

• UNFAMILIAR RESPONSIBILITIES
• NEW DIRECTIONS
• INHERITED PROBLEMS
• PROBLEMS WITH EMPLOYEES
• HIGH STAKES
• SCOPE AND SCALE
• EXTERNAL PRESSURE
• INFLUENCE WITHOUT AUTHORITY
• WORK ACROSS CULTURES
• WORK-GROUP DIVERSITY

The more of these elements that are present in any one experience, the greater the potential for learning.

DIVERSITY

Beginning with the foundational Lessons of Experience study, CCL has spent decades defining the types of learning experiences we encounter. Each category (15 in all) is listed below along with a brief example.

	BOSSES AND SUPERIORS: Worked with a boss who was demanding and supportive.
	TURNAROUND: Fixed an underperforming unit or organization.
	INCREASE IN JOB SCOPE: Took on additional responsibilities without promotion.
	HORIZONTAL MOVE: Transferred/rotated to different function/job at the same level.
	NEW INITIATIVE: Created a new service/product/brand.
	PERSONAL EXPERIENCES: Played a leadership role outside the workplace.
	STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT: Formed a partnership or joint venture across organizations.
	ETHICAL DILEMMA: Experienced ethical violation by a superior/coworker.
	CULTURAL CROSSING: Lived and worked in another country.
	DIFFICULT PEOPLE: Handled performance problems with subordinates.
	FEEDBACK AND COACHING: Served as a mentor to someone.
	COURSEWORK AND TRAINING: Pursued advanced degree/certification.
	CRISIS: Dealt with budget or financial crisis.
	MISTAKE: Made a mistake that affected my team/unit/organization.
	CAREER SETBACK: Experienced discrimination of some sort in the workplace.

Now that you understand some fundamentals about why experience matters for learning and the quality and diversity of experiences that are out there, the rest of this chapter will introduce you to how seeking individuals make the most of new learning experiences.

Try these behavioral approaches to improve your skill at seeking. Some may require more practice than others, but all will help reframe the value of experience and orient you toward seeking quantity, quality, and diversity in new learning.

FIND THE LIMITS OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE

To get out of your comfort zone, you first have to know its boundaries. Explore both past and present circumstances to understand what experiences trigger an avoidance response in you and why. How might you reason with yourself to work past these comfort-zone traps when future situations trigger them?

TAKE RISKS

Some leaders are perfectly content to accept the status quo and remain safe. In order to become a seeker, you must be willing to accept new roles, pursue new opportunities, advocate for the unusual, and risk failing. Remember to focus more on the experience and less on the possible outcomes.

CALCULATE THE COST OF MISSED EXPERIENCES

Avoiding risk usually means that you're missing opportunity. Next time you encounter a new learning opportunity, consider what you might be missing out on if you decide not to take it. Also, what could that missed opportunity cost the organization?

LISTEN TO YOUR INTERNAL TIMER

The leveling-off phase of a learning experience is slow and gradual. Then next thing you know, you are stuck in another rut. Stay alert to when the familiarity and the safety of the status quo kick in. Ask yourself, “Am I learning anything new? Am I growing stagnant?” Know when it's time to start seeking the next new learning opportunity.

CHALLENGE YOURSELF

Identify your growth needs and then immerse yourself in situations that will push you to your limits in these areas. This may be uncomfortable and frightening at first, but it is important for you to reframe these threats as opportunities if you hope to gain the most learning from them. Seeking the first challenge is often the hardest—after seeking (and working through) repeated challenges, the confidence in knowing that you've been here before starts to grow.

SEEK OUTSIDE-OF-WORK EXPERIENCES

Learning opportunities aren't exclusive to the workplace. Sometimes new challenges outside of work are even more valuable sources of learning, filled with surprising insights. Recall the story from Chapter 1 of the individual who chose to put himself at the center of mediating a complex, emotionally charged family dispute over inherited property. The lessons he learned from this experience later proved very valuable in handling business negotiations back on the job that featured multiple parties with a lot at stake.

EXPAND YOUR NETWORK

New learning opportunities seldom just happen, and those that you seek to create for yourself can be very difficult to make a reality. Remember: It's not all up to you. Other people play a role. That's why it's important to establish a thriving network, with people who you know can make the difference in what opportunities come your way and who you can reach out to for the opportunities you are seeking. Not all networks are alike. As we discussed in the previous chapter, it is more advantageous to cultivate a network that is open, diverse, and deep.

For seekers, success is more easily measured by the number of stamps on their passport than the plaques on their wall. They are caught up less in the constant striving for advancement and specific accomplishments and more in building an ever-expanding portfolio of experiences.

Seekers take advantage of the unique vantage point offered by their cumulative previous experience to blaze a path forward. Looking at such a leader's resume, some of their choices don't always make immediate sense and sometimes appear like zigs and zags. But beneath the surface, a story emerges. It typically involves the search for the next missing piece in their experience that will add something meaningful to everything they've already done.

The experience inventory below is a useful way to take stock of your journey to date and find that next missing piece that will provide the opportunity for challenge, learning, and growth.

Under the Quantity column, use the following scale to indicate the number of experiences you've acquired in each category.

Under the Quality column, use the following scale to indicate the depth of learning you've acquired in each category.

Take a moment to reflect on the significant learning experiences that you've had and look for patterns and themes. For example, are there any areas where you see large discrepancies between the ratings for quantity and quality of experience?

Next, consider what types of experiences are missing and what you might gain from seeking them out. What is the next missing piece that will enrich your existing portfolio of experiences?