As humans we have an innate need for personal growth, and when people talk about great experiences at work, they nearly always involve some element of growth. This might be a more traditional idea of intentional learning and development at work, or something less tangible, such as a feeling that we have grown as a person, as a result of an experience. Growth is linked to challenge; we often find ourselves experiencing personal growth when we have a challenge to overcome. In addition growth is also somewhat predicated via our mindset, highlighting the importance of our own mindset in subsequent experiences at work.
The concept of a growth mindset was initially developed by Carol Dweck and popularized in her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. In summary, a mindset is a perception, or theory, which people have about themselves. For example, you might tell yourself you are bad at maths, or good at art, you are not creative, or you are a great writer, a bad parent, or a brilliant teacher. Dweck’s work focused on two different types of mindset: fixed or growth.
As the name suggests, those with a fixed mindset believe their qualities and traits are fixed and can’t be improved or developed with effort. However, those with a growth mindset believe the opposite to be true, that basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. People with a growth mindset tend to learn more, learn more quickly, and view challenges and failures as opportunities to improve.
Having a fixed mindset is often a result of the praise and feedback we have received throughout our lives, but the good news is that we can change our mindset. Developing a growth mindset would seem to be a good foundation for great experiences. So just how do we go about developing a growth mindset, and how can we use this knowledge to design experiences which facilitate growth at work? Dweck suggests taking time to reflect using the following growth mindset practices:
- Think about a time during the past month when you were faced with a challenge. Did you face that challenge with a growth mindset or a fixed mindset?
- How do you know?
- If you faced the challenge with a fixed mindset, how might you have approached it differently?
- Reflect on real-life examples of the use of a growth mindset (by you or someone you know). Do some journaling or free writing about this example. Try to explain how the growth mindset helped you (or someone you know) to solve a problem or to achieve a goal.
- Be specific. What did you think and/or do that allowed you to push through the challenge?
- Think of something about yourself you want to change. What is it? Has a fixed mindset prevented you from doing this?
- Think about it from a growth mindset and capture any actions.
There are some simple steps we can take to develop a growth mindset:
- See failure and mistakes as opportunities to learn
- Reframe challenges as opportunities
- Stop seeking approval from others
- Check your language and reframe it
- Explore your strengths and appreciate them
- Value the journey (or process) over the end results
- Learn from others including their mistakes
- And get comfortable with taking risks and making mistakes in the company of others
- Be realistic about the effort involved
- And finally – growth mindset can be summarized as “I can’t do that…. yet!”
But… is it possible to design employee experiences that facilitate a growth mindset?
We believe it is and here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Change the language
The words we use when things don’t go to plan can have a huge impact on our mindset. For example talking about a task as either a pass or fail, is a fast track to develop a fixed mindset. But we can turn this around. In one study with high school students, Dweck found that simply replacing a failing grade with the word ‘not yet’ enabled a significant improvement from the lowest performing students. Quite simply, a fail feels definite and final, and places you in a box, whereas a ‘not yet’ feels hopeful and on a road to better things.
There are so many experiences at work which could benefit from a language tweak, from internal communication of results, to performance development, and the way leaders lead. There are loads of opportunities to review the words we use and think about how we can choose carefully to help promote a growth mindset.
- Focus on learning goals
The type of goal we set can also have a big impact on our mindset and growth. Dweck’s research showed that learning goals were way more effective at facilitating a growth mindset than performance goals, and actually yielded a better outcome in the long term. This is big news for performance development approaches, given how often we judge performance by a pass/ fail standard rather than looking at effort and learning. Focusing on learning also means we are less likely to fear failure and more likely to set ourselves more challenging goals in the longer-term.
- Develop a culture of learning
To learn and grow we most often will get things wrong and make mistakes. So often in organisational cultures there is a fear of failure. But if we want growth we have to get comfortable with getting things wrong. Changing the language and setting learning goals can go some way to signalling that we are ok with allowing our people to grow at work. But intentionally designing experiences which embrace these ideas can take make all the difference. For example encouraging improvement feedback and getting comfortable with this can help. Challenging ourselves and each other to get out of our comfort zones will also contribute to developing a culture with a growth mindset.
And if you’re reading this blog thinking ‘I’d love to embrace these ideas in my workplace, but it just wouldn’t work, or maybe we’re not ready for it’…. Simply add ‘yet’ to that statement and see what happens!
