Cultivating a Growth Mindset
Dr Carol Dweck, the brilliant psychologist, has sold over a million copies worldwide of her book, Mindset, and her Ted Talk on the topic has almost 5 million views. Dweck is a pioneering researcher in the field of motivation, why people succeed (or don't) and how to foster success.
By definition, individuals who believe their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others) have a growth mindset. They tend to achieve more than those with a fixed mindset (individuals who believe their talents are innate gifts) which becomes a powerful self-limiting belief. Carol’s findings go further and prove that utilising a growth mindset within individuals, their teams and organisations, is directly proportional to long term sustainable success. Creating a culture that not only has shared purpose but a shared code of conduct, (one that rewards hard work) encourages collaboration, learns from failure and fosters accountability.
To bring this to life, let’s use a sporting reference; ex All blacks coach Steve Hanson, who led his team to back to back World Cup victories, was once challenged by a journalist around their high error rate. His response was that they encourage opportunity creation, as opposed to error reduction. Now this is not to say that they are happy with errors and don’t care about the consequence, rather it is the mentality that in order to be the most successful team they have to create an environment that rewards effort even when it ends in failure, whilst continuing to be dedicated to improving skills.
Three key findings were discovered by Carol and her team when looking at the relationship between growth mindset and success in business:
Those with a growth mindset found success in doing their best, in learning and improving.
Those with a growth mindset found setbacks motivating. They were informative and a wake-up call.
Those with the growth mindset took charge of the processes that bring success, and maintain it.
One quick tip for how to create a growth mindset? Catch yourself in a fixed mindset, identify when you feel like you can’t do something, and consider what it would take in order to improve that skill? Think of it this way, in order to get fitter we must spend more time training and eating well, training your growth mindset is no different and ultimately it all boils down to the effort applied, the strategies used and the how we effectively harness the input from those around us.
If we use growth mindset as a tool for individuals within an organisation, we can cultivate a culture which rewards hard work, encourages collaboration, learning from failure and accountability.
Tom Bednall
Commercial Director