Develop a Growth Mind-set
Research has shown that adopting and utilizing a growth mind-set on the job leads
to higher levels of satisfaction and engagement. People invested in their own
learning, growth, and development are generally more involved in their work and
demonstrate a greater interest in and capacity for innovation and collaboration.
Furthermore, they are more likely to be viewed favourably by supervisors and
leaders, and more likely to be promoted.
Regardless of whether or not your organization officially embraces a growth mindset, there are actions you can take to develop your own skills and talents in your daily
work life. A growth mind-set can be an ally in your career.
First, you must recognize the characteristics of a growth mind-set:
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Skills and intelligence are grown and developed.
Concern is focused on learning and growing.
Effort is necessary to learning.
Mistakes are learning opportunities.
Challenges are obstacles to be overcome.
Then, take action to apply it within your own work life:
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Recognize and monitor your own mind-set.
Share your mind-set.
Provide feedback for others' growth.
Strive for continuous team improvement.
Develop a Growth Mind-set
Developing a Growth Mind-set
In the workplace, there are two specific types of mindsets, or attitudes, that can
either promote personal growth and resilience or hamper an employee’s
performance. People with a growth mindset achieve ever-higher levels of
productivity and can help their organizations thrive; by contrast, people with a
fixed mindset tend not to develop professionally, and may hinder an organization’s
goals.
In this course, you'll learn about the characteristics of a growth mindset, such as
perseverance, and how to distinguish it from a fixed mindset. You’ll also explore
methods of developing mindsets for success, and how professional growth can
benefit you and your organization.
Table of Contents
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Developing a Growth Mind-set
Moving into a Growth Mind-set
Setting Your Mind on Growth
Growing Your Mind-set
Recognizing a Growth Mind-set Workplace Culture
Embracing a Growth Mind-set at Work
Developing a Growth Mind-set
Developing a growth mind-set allows people to achieve ever higher levels of
satisfaction and performance in both their personal and professional lives.
In this course, you'll learn the characteristics that constitute a growth mind-set and
how to distinguish it from a fixed mind-set. You'll learn how to grow and embrace
the growth process. And how your personal growth can benefit you and your
organization.
Moving into a Growth Mind-set
The phrase growth mind-set has become almost ubiquitous. First coined by
researcher and professor of psychology at Stanford University, Carol Dweck. It has
been adopted by everyone from school administrators, to business executives, to
professional athletes.
NBA champion and basketball superstar LeBron James has been quoted by the
New York Post saying, it's always about a growth mind-set. It's the fact that you
know that you can do better. Even at our age, even with our accolades, even with
what we've done in our careers, we still feel like we can improve. According to
Develop a Growth Mind-set
Dweck herself, it is the belief that skills and intelligence can be grown and
developed through hard work, good strategies, and input from others. Those with a
growth mind-set tend to achieve more than those with a more fixed mind-set.
Because they focus less on looking smart, and more on learning and growing. It's
about getting better.
While thinking about what a growth mind-set is, it's important to consider what it
isn't. A growth mind-set isn't just an attitude of keeping an open mind or a positive
outlook. It isn't a matter of maintaining a belief that good things will come your
way. It isn't just a matter of praising or rewarding effort, and it isn't keeping with a
fixed mind-set.
Fixed mind-sets are all too common, both in business and in general. Those with a
fixed mind-set maintain the belief that skills and intelligence are predetermined.
They are irrationally concerned with being right and looking good in front of
others. The fixed mind-set suggests that learning should be effortless. You either
have a knack for it or you don't. It encourages you to avoid mistakes at all costs,
and views challenges as road blocks and barriers. It pigeonholes what success is
and who can achieve it.
Conversely, a key characteristic of the growth mind-set asserts that skills and
knowledge can be and are developed. And that learning requires time and effort. It
is not set, but rather fluid and capable of being nurtured. Further characteristics are
that it treats mistakes as learning opportunities. And the challenges that mistakes
generate simply as obstacles that need to be overcome.
A growth mind-set focuses on ''yet''. It is the hallmark of the growth mind-set. I
have not learned this yet. I may not be able to do this yet, but I can work hard and
get better. And this is not just pop psychology. Research in brain science has
proven that our brains grow and evolve constantly. We can and do create new
neural pathways throughout our lives. This ability is called neuroplasticity, and
studies are conclusive that with effort, we can continue to learn and grow skills and
talent, even if we don't entirely believe it yet.
A growth mind-set allows for the potential and promise of learning, getting better,
increasing your knowledge and skills. It encourages achieving ever higher levels of
potential and performance, even if you haven't gotten all the way there yet.
Setting Your Mind on Growth
Adopting a growth mindset allows for the potential and promise of learning,
getting better, increasing knowledge and skills. It is a way of approaching work
and life that encourages risk taking, learning from mistakes, and trying again with
a better idea of what's necessary for overcoming the obstacles. But just knowing
what it entails and promises isn't enough. The first step is to make the choice to
Develop a Growth Mind-set
adopt a growth mindset and act on it. That is easier said than done. Many people
are mired in a mindset that needs to be abandoned. Faced with a challenge, a fixed
mindset frets, are you sure you can do it, what if you fail? Hit with a setback it
says, see, I told you it was a risk. It's not too late to back out. And facing criticism,
it tells you, it's not my fault. Who do they think they are anyway? The other person
might be giving you specific constructive feedback, but you might be hearing them
say, I'm really disappointed in you.
A growth mindset lets you talk back. It says, I don't have that skill yet, but I can
learn it. This is because adopting a growth mindset allows you to take the next
step, to view challenges as opportunities for learning and improving. Choosing to
grow means choosing difficult tasks, the kind that force you out of your comfort
zone and focus on the process and effort to master them. It means trying different
approaches and strategies until you find the one that works. And it means choosing
to persist and overcome setbacks. Adopting a growth mindset also means taking
the step to change your vocabulary, and replace the word "failing" with the word
"learning". Walt Disney was once fired from a job for lacking imagination and
having no good ideas. Oprah Winfrey was let go from a television station for being
too emotionally invested in her stories. Long before it was called a growth mindset,
these two embodied it, learning from their setbacks and trying again and again.
Disney and Winfrey's experiences embody taking the steps to grow their mindsets
beyond thinking that would have told them to stop wasting their time and accept
their limitations, even if those limitations were imposed on them by the outside
world. That leads to the final step, do the best you can today, knowing that there
are always opportunities for improvement so that you can be better tomorrow. The
trick is to stop competing against the world and instead to compete only against
yourself. Resolving to learn from experience so that you might improve as you
move forward. And as you succeed, don't just celebrate the victory. Celebrate the
actions and processes that led to your success. A growth mindset is a choice, but it
is a choice that you make over and over again as you move forward. Not to be
some ill-defined the best, but the best you can be today.
Growing Your Mind-set
Having a growth mind-set means striving to improve. It means making the decision
to learn and grow. And part of that decision is developing a number of key habits
that foster a long-term growth mind-set. One of those habits is learning to focus on
continuous personal improvement. Learning and growth are not one-time things.
And growth isn't simply about meeting a challenge, rather, it's about meeting it and
then welcoming the next challenge. Challenges are the opportunities for you to
stretch and grow. Wherever you are now, you can get better still. This happens
Develop a Growth Mind-set
when you start to see setbacks as wake up calls and interpret them in your growth
mind-set as signs that you need to ramp up your strategies and efforts. Stretch
yourself and expand your abilities. And by extension, they are an invitation to
make it a habit to seek out and welcome feedback. Those with a fixed mind-set
tend to be very defensive when they receive feedback. But growth mind-set people
are always looking for opportunities to learn and grow.
They not only respond well to feedback, but they also actively seek it out. Of
course, some feedback is factual evaluative feedback. While evaluative feedback is
useful, it doesn't provide a lot of qualitative detail. Developmental feedback,
however, is where you receive ideas and opinions from others about how you can
adjust your approach and improve performance. Utilizing developmental feedback
is a critical part of creating a growth mind-set. It could be anything, from someone
suggesting arranging your workspace more effectively, to learning that your
approach to a situation has upset someone. Whatever the circumstance, it provides
food for thought and strategies for instituting new processes and actions. Another
habit to establish is to seek out and talk to new people and try new things. Initiate
conversations with people in groups you might not have previously sought out.
Approaching these conversations with an open mind allows you to discover new
perspectives and have your views challenged.
Fresh voices and insights can stimulate your creativity and encourage you to try
new approaches. And this feeds into a final key habit, learning to value the process
over the end result. This is not to say that results don't matter, of course they do.
However, people with a growth mind-set have learned to enjoy the journey. They
welcome the learning process and don't mind if it continues beyond a defined time
frame or leads somewhere unexpected. When you seek to grow your mind-set, you
learn to embrace uncertainty. You know that in order to learn, you must be
challenged. You're willing to ask for feedback and input, and you accept situations
in which you might appear weak, or vulnerable. You understand the value of
saying, I don't know yet while you're learning and growing.
Recognizing a Growth Mind-set Workplace Culture
A growth mindset is a powerful tool for developing and improving skills and
talents. It's useful both in personal and professional lives. But fully integrating it at
work requires an organizational culture that supports and encourages it.
Recognizing the characteristics of a growth mindset culture in the workplace will
help you maximize its benefits on the job. Take Microsoft for example, they offer
an annual hackathon. Providing employees a chance to step outside of their regular
jobs and develop leadership skills by launching projects with business or social
merit, building business plans and prototypes, and pitching them company-wide.
They also back and reward employee-generated high risk projects, often promoting
these project leaders. They have redefined their talent development programs based
on the proposition that everyone has the potential to lead if properly developed and
Develop a Growth Mind-set
encouraged. In many ways, they embody the characteristics of a growth mindset
culture. It's useful to assess your own organization with regard to these
characteristics. And embrace and encourage them to whatever extent they may be
present.
Key among these characteristics is creating a safe environment for taking risks and
making mistakes. Organizations that support a growth mindset encourage
appropriate risk taking, even knowing that some risks won't work out. They
welcome employees pursuing new approaches. And even when it doesn't work,
they appreciate useful lessons learned. They value mistakes as opportunities for
growing and improving. And, in fact, they view learning as a normal and valued
activity, which is another key characteristic. It's part of the job. They make visible
the learning and growing that's already occurring across the organization, from top
leaders to those on the front lines. They give their people personal control over
their learning, provide a way to monitor progress, and provide opportunities for
reflection. These companies also exhibit the characteristic to encourage sharing
information and feedback.
They support collaboration across organizational boundaries, rather than
competition among employees or units. This leads to a sense of shared learning as
employees work together, pool their knowledge, and foster a sense of group
commitment. They take a sense of appreciation of not just their own, but others'
growth. A final characteristic of a growth mindset culture is acknowledging
progress and improvement. These organizations understand that when people are
told that improvement matters, they improve. And when progress is acknowledged,
they push for more progress. From a business and personnel standpoint, they
recognize that value is moving the needle. That is, as their people develop and
grow, they provide more value to the company in terms of performance,
innovation, and creative solutions. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is credited with
leading the company through a culture change, using a growth mindset strategy.
And is using it to develop the company's next generation of leaders. He recognizes
the benefits of promoting a culture of growth and learning, and that mindset
matters.
Embracing a Growth Mind-set at Work
Research has shown that adopting and utilizing a growth mind-set on the job leads
to higher levels of satisfaction and engagement. People invested in their own
learning, growth, and development, are generally more involved in their work, and
demonstrate a greater interest in and capacity for innovation and collaboration.
Furthermore, they are more likely to be viewed favourably by supervisors and
leaders, and more likely to be promoted. Regardless of whether or not your
organization officially embraces a growth mind-set, there are actions you can take
to develop your own skills and talents in your daily work life. A growth mind-set
can be an ally in your career. First, you must recognize and monitor your mind-set
Develop a Growth Mind-set
persona. Be mindful of triggers that bring on old patterns of thought and behaviour
that limit taking control of your learning and development. You must find ways to
prioritize learning over approval.
This doesn't mean that the approval of your supervisor doesn't matter. But rather,
than on a personal level, continued growth should be your goal, not a pat on the
back or a gold star. When you fully comprehend your key strengths and
weaknesses, you can identify the areas for self-improvement. Next, you must share
your mind-set with others. As you discuss and model growth mind-set behaviours,
it encourages teammates and others to recognize their own growth potential. When
they see you competing only against yourself, and celebrating others successes and
growth, it fosters a sense of teamwork, and camaraderie where people take a
genuine interest in each other's learning and development.
And along those lines, you can take action to provide feedback for others' growth.
When you get comfortable with telling the truth, you make the truth an opportunity
for growth. It's a sharing of positive criticism intended to help others see areas in
which they can learn and improve. This isn't easy, and doesn't always come
naturally. But when you make criticism positive, expressing true concern, others
will come to see that you have their best interests at heart, and they can provide the
same honest feedback for you. To "This ultimately allows everyone to take
the final action and strive for continuous team improvement. Encouraging a teamwide growth mind-set let's you pose team challenges as opportunities for learning
and improvement. Set up opportunities for peer mentoring, and help those with
fixed mind-sets change their beliefs about themselves. This, in turn, encourages the
growth potential of the entire team. Of course, no one individual can singlehandedly turn around an organization's culture. Even the CEO needs trusted allies
committed to the same vision. But one person can influence those around them.
Sharing and modelling a growth mind-set at work, helps both you and your
teammates achieve greater satisfaction and higher levels of productivity.