Case Study 1 — Chapter 26: Learning, Growth Mindset, and Expertise

Jordan: The CFO Moment and What Followed

Background

The CFO moment — the Q2 presentation, the methodology question Jordan couldn't answer fully — is the opening of this chapter's main narrative. What the chapter's opening describes in a paragraph, the case study extends: what Jordan actually did with the information, and what it revealed about his relationship to learning.

Jordan has been a high-performing professional for twelve years. High performance had never required him to think carefully about how he learned. He learned on the job, in meetings, from reading — and learning had happened. The new role is different. It is the first role in his career where the learning rate required by the role exceeds the natural learning rate of comfortable experience.

He is going to have to learn deliberately. He has not done this since graduate school.

The Methodology Gap

Two weeks after the CFO moment. Jordan has worked through the LTV calculation documentation with two analysts, Rivera and Priya. He now understands not just the output but the construction — the assumptions embedded in the discount rate, the attrition curve modeling, the cohort analysis structure.

He notices something that concerns him: he had been presenting this metric for six weeks before he understood how it was built. He had trusted the output without understanding the construction.

He asks Rivera: "How many of our key metrics do I understand well enough to defend the methodology under pressure?"

Rivera is honest: "Four of the twelve. Maybe."

Jordan writes in his work journal: I have been presenting results I don't fully understand. This is not dishonest — it's normal — but it's not the level I want to be operating at. I want to understand the construction of every key metric we produce. Not to the point of being able to build it from scratch, but to the point of being able to defend its assumptions.

He identifies this as his primary deliberate practice target for the quarter: methodological depth across the team's twelve core metrics.

He designs the practice: - One hour per week with Rivera or Priya, working through the construction of two metrics - For each metric: not what the metric measures, but how it is built — what data goes in, what assumptions are embedded, what the failure modes are - Self-testing: after each session, attempting to explain the metric to an imaginary skeptical CFO - Spacing: review each metric explanation two weeks after the session, then again one month later

He calls this "the methodology project." It is not particularly glamorous. It is also clearly necessary.

The Fixed Mindset Moment

Week three of the methodology project. Jordan is working through the churn prediction model with Rivera. The mathematics underlying the model — a survival analysis approach he has not encountered before — is genuinely beyond his current capability to follow in detail.

He notices, clearly, a fixed mindset reaction: "I was never a quantitative person. This is the kind of thing I'm not built for."

He writes it down. Then he writes the alternative: "I don't understand survival analysis yet. That's a learning gap, not a categorical fact about me."

Then: "What would I need to do to understand this well enough to defend it under questioning?"

The answer is: he doesn't need to understand the mathematics of survival analysis. He needs to understand what the model is doing conceptually — what the inputs are, what the assumptions are, what the outputs mean and don't mean. The mathematical depth is Rivera's expertise. His expertise is communicating the methodology credibly to stakeholders who are also not survival analysis experts.

This reframe produces a different kind of preparation. Instead of trying to understand what he genuinely cannot understand in the time available, he asks Rivera to explain it to him as he would explain it to a senior business stakeholder. This is a different question, and it gets a different answer. He understands the answer.

He writes: The fixed mindset mistake was treating it as all-or-nothing. Either I understand survival analysis or I'm not a quantitative person. The growth mindset version: I understand it to the level I need to understand it for my role, and I know exactly what I don't understand and who does.

Transferring to the Team

Month five. Jordan has a realization: he has been developing the methodology project as a personal learning initiative, but the knowledge gap he identified applies to his entire team.

He raises it in a team meeting. "I want us to do something together. Once a month, one person presents the methodology behind one of our key metrics — not what it measures, but how it's built, what the assumptions are, and what questions they can and can't answer. Fifteen minutes. Questions afterward."

Rivera says: "That's going to be uncomfortable for some people."

Jordan: "Yes. That's the point."

The first session is Rivera on LTV. The second is Priya on the churn model. The third is Chen on customer satisfaction scoring — and Chen, presenting, discovers mid-presentation that there is an assumption in the survey methodology he hadn't understood before. He stops, says: "I need to check something. I may have been explaining this wrong," and flags it as a gap.

Jordan says, to the whole team: "That's the best thing that's happened in these sessions. Chen just did what we're all here to do."

The team's relationship to the metrics changes. They start asking better questions about their own data. They surface assumptions they hadn't examined. Two metrics are revised based on questions the sessions generate.

The Priya Development Arc

Jordan's development conversation with Priya (Chapter 25) had identified that she was interested in strategy as well as analytics. He had suggested the cross-functional project as a low-risk way to find out.

In month five, Priya is preparing to present the cross-functional project's analytical findings to the partner team's leadership. It is the first time she has presented to a room that does not consist of her immediate team.

She comes to Jordan for preparation help. They spend two sessions on it — one on the content, one on the presentation.

In the second session, Jordan says: "What's the hardest question they're going to ask you?"

Priya: "Whether the churn metric we're using is comparable across segments."

Jordan: "Is it?"

Priya: "Probably not perfectly. There are three assumptions that would need to hold for it to be perfectly comparable, and the third one is questionable."

Jordan: "Can you defend that?"

Priya: "I think so. I know why we made the assumption and what the alternative would cost us."

Jordan: "That's your answer. Don't hide the questionable assumption — name it first and explain why you made it anyway. That's stronger than hoping nobody notices."

Priya presents. The third assumption comes up — raised by the partner team's director. Priya names it, explains the rationale, acknowledges the limitation. The director nods. "That's the right answer."

After the session, Priya comes back to Jordan: "I was going to hope nobody asked about the third assumption."

Jordan: "I know. That's how I would have handled it three years ago."

The Learning Journal

At the end of month five, Jordan starts keeping a learning journal — not a work diary, but a dedicated record of what he's learning, what remains unclear, and what questions he's carrying.

The first week's entries: - I still don't fully understand how the attribution model handles cross-channel journeys. I understand the output but not the construction. - Priya's third-assumption moment: I want to be someone who names the limitation before being asked. Am I? - The methodology sessions are producing questions I didn't know we had. What other things are we doing on autopilot that we haven't examined?

He reads it back at the end of the week. What strikes him: the questions are more useful than the answers would be. The answers, he could look up. The questions tell him where his attention should go next.

He writes at the bottom of the entry: Stay uncomfortable. Not anxious — just genuinely not sure you've got it right.

Analysis Questions

1. Jordan's response to the CFO moment is to convert the failure into a specific learning target: methodological depth across the team's twelve core metrics. The chapter describes failure as containing information rather than identity. How does Jordan's specific reframe — from "that was embarrassing" to "what does this tell me I need to learn?" — exemplify the growth mindset orientation?

2. Jordan's fixed mindset moment — "I was never a quantitative person" — surfaces when the learning demand exceeds his current capability. He catches it, labels it, and generates an alternative. The chapter notes that mindset is not binary or permanent — it varies by domain and context. What specifically is the alternative framing Jordan uses, and how does it change what he does next?

3. Jordan converts the personal methodology project into a team practice — monthly methodology presentations. He anticipates that it will be "uncomfortable for some people" and explicitly identifies the discomfort as the point. How does this design use desirable difficulties at the team level? What specifically makes it difficult, and why does that difficulty serve learning?

4. Jordan's advice to Priya — "name the questionable assumption before being asked" — is both a presentation strategy and a learning philosophy. How does the willingness to disclose limitations connect to the psychological safety work from Chapter 25? And what does Jordan's comment — "that's how I would have handled it three years ago" — reveal about his own learning trajectory?

5. Jordan's learning journal entries are dominated by questions, not answers. He explicitly notes: "the questions are more useful than the answers would be." The chapter describes questions as "more developmentally valuable than answers, because questions sustain engagement while answers close it." Why does closing the question (answering it) reduce its developmental value? What does staying with an open question do that having the answer does not?