How A Growth Mindset Benefits Your Company
The key themes of Growth Mindset are of great value to any business, especially in the current times, where the ability to adapt and respond to changing work situations, is even more important than ever before.
Firstly, what is the growth mindset?
Initially, a growth mindset sounds like just another buzzword, but it really does bring value when you apply it to how you see yourself and others.
In a nutshell, we generally tend to view our (and others) talent and abilities in terms of whether we’re naturally good at something, or we’re not. We think in terms of fixed traits. You likely have some views about this yourself – maybe one of your colleagues is great at sales so you’d describe him as a natural-born salesman. This is a fixed mindset.
A growth mindset is a way you look at this from a different perspective – you think of abilities or talent as something that can be developed through dedication and hard work. Someone with a growth mindset may think, I’m not a great salesman yet because I haven’t put the hours of practice in yet, like someone who is a great performer.
A person with a growth mindset doesn’t believe that talent alone creates success, rather, experience and applied practice does.
Why change to a growth mindset?
People with a fixed mindset tend to believe that their abilities are directly linked to who they are as a person. In this way, we not only put limits on our achievements but also are likely to take constructive criticism as a personal attack, rather than seeing it as an opportunity to learn.
Research from Stanford Psychology professor Carol Dweck highlight we should be teaching the growth mindset from an early age. Dweck’s study found that, when comparing children who were praised because they worked hard with those who were praised for being talented, those who were praised on their efforts were much more likely to spend more time trying to find a solution a difficult problem. Oppositely, those who were shown that smartness was a fixed quality showed less resilience to deal with difficult situations – either giving up or resorting to cheating – as this challenged their self-image that they were smart.
Do you praise effort in the workplace or results? Given the evidence above it is worth examining our behaviours.
Benefits of a growth mindset at your workplace
When your employees adapt a growth mindset, they are likely to develop the following positive habits which benefit any business.
1. Confidence to try new ideas
A growth mindset employee is more eager to experiment and bring new ideas to the table – potentially contributing to business growth and new revenue streams.
2. Ability to tackle tough decisions
Do you have challenges that need to be solved? A growth mindset employee typically has strong abilities in critical thinking to solve problems – something of huge value in the dynamic oil industry. When faced with a difficult challenge or decision which they’ve not dealt with before, they’re willing to both seek advice from mentors and work hard to find the best possible solution.
3. Self-development
Growth Mindset employees continue learning and apply their new knowledge to continuously improve skills.
4. Openness to feedback
Growth mindset loves feedback to improve their performance and will make the effort to change behaviour and attitudes faster.
5. Ability to admit and deal with mistakes
A growth mindset employee takes accountability for outcomes, sees failure as a learning opportunity and acts with less fear.
How do you cultivate a growth mindset in employees?
Now the benefits of a growth mindset are clear, come back soon for our next article discussing strategies on how to help employees adopt a growth mindset in the workplace.
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