What is a growth mindset?
Professor Carole Dweck, is an American Psychologist at Standford University, who has studied and researched growth mindset and its benefits.
Carole talks about finding the ‘not yet’ position after a setback. Rather than labelling a person with failure, the language ‘not yet’ encourages perseverance and persistence. Every time we are pushed out of our comfort zone and we learn something new that’s really hard and we stick to it, the neurons in our brains can form new stronger connections and we can become smarter!
After her study, Carole found that those that learnt about developing a growth mindset, showed a sharper increase in performance.
This is about transforming the meaning of ‘effort and difficulty.’ Before, to us it might have meant that we were stupid or dumb, but now it means we have a chance to get smarter.
The more we know that basic human abilities can be grown, and that it’s a basic human right for all children and adults to live in environments that create a growth mindset, the more we will thrive.
A fixed mindset is ridged with fixed traits that makes us afraid of learning and failure. We’re so worried about looking stupid, that we shut down and hold back from challenge.
But, when growth mindset is adopted, we can focus on developing our abilities, and take on challenges so we have more resilience.
The benefits are significant. We can create higher achievement, greater resilience, create a problem-solving environment, empower people to foster innovation, collaboration and create a learning and development environment.
What’s needed is to praise wisely. Not on the outcomes, but on the process. To focus on perseverance, rather than talent or results.
What’s also valuable to realise, is that although, say a manager, may adopt a growth mindset themselves, it’s important to teach that to their teams for conceptual understanding. Giving constructive feedback that deepens conceptual understanding, is a chance for individuals to revise and show their understanding. To learn that failure is helpful and it’s an interesting platform for learning.
The key principles of having a growth mindset are
- Emphasis on effort and learning. With a growth mindset people view challenge as opportunities for learning rather than as threats. They understand that effort, strategy, perseverance and sometimes failure lead to improvement.
- Resilience in the face of setbacks. Growth mindset promotes viewing mistakes as part of the learning process. People with a growth mindset are more likely to persist after failure and adapt to overcome obstacles rather than to crumble.
- Value feedback. Instead of seeing feedback as criticism, people with a growth mindset welcome it and use it constructively to improve. They’re open to learning from others, adjusting their approach authentically to grow and develop.
- Focus on the process, not the result. There is a greater enjoyment of the journey to get to where you want to, valuing development, rather than the outcome.
What can a growth mindset do?
A growth mindset helps us to take steps to being assertive and make positive change to our relationships and behaviour and how we communicate with others. And take on bold challenges without the fear of risk taking.
Why do we need it?
If we can raise our self-awareness through learning, who we are, where we’ve come from, we can make positive shifts to take a new stance in our interactions with others and our teams. I recently came across the Inner Development Goals (IDG’s) which was created to foster inner development towards more sustainable futures. The IDG’s gives us a framework to see the qualities we may wish to work on.
Please get in touch if you and your teams would like to adopt a growth mindset, or you would like to learn more about the communication skills training and coaching that we offer.
