Developing Growth Mindset
Growth Mindset.
Having a growth mindset can be a boost to your personal life, your relationships and your work life. A growth mindset starts with the belief that your abilities are not set in stone, and that effort and persistence are key to increasing your abilities. Growth mindset focuses on being malleable, curious and believes that nature and development are important. A fixed mindset believes that abilities, such as their intelligence or performance, are fixed and cannot change. Fixed mindset also tends to be rigid, believes people are “born with it” or not, and focuses on talent. It can be overly focused on being right, rather than learning.
Growth mindset varies across different areas and most importantly, can be developed.
This may seem like common sense to people who enjoy learning and growing. However, we all have areas of our life where we can have a fixed mindset, such as relationship skills, technology skills, or organizational change. Growth mindset varies across different areas and most importantly, can be developed. The key is to recognize when you are experiencing a fixed mindset and taking steps to switch it to a growth mindset.
This infographic is a great way to uncover some “symptoms” of fixed mindset, and also a great way to acknowledge where you are experiencing growth mindset.
One of the most frustrating results of fixed mindset is that it causes us to avoid resources that would help us most in the very thing we need to grow in. Research has demonstrated that opportunities such as trainings that would improve skills are not capitalized on and further down the road, performance suffers, which then confirms our fixed mindset.
Being Curious.
One good way to develop a growth mindset is to be curious. The opposite of being curious is knowing it all or having all of the answers. Being curious requires you to evaluate your sources of information and then to start incorporating new and varied sources of information. Curiosity allows you to wonder what the answer may be, rather than feeling pressure to have all of the answers immediately. It opens you up to new ideas and possibilities, as well as new ways of doing things. It draws you away from being focused exclusively on the outcome, and helps you think more about a deep and critical process to get to the outcome. Being curious can also be enhanced by being humble and choosing to rethink.
Learner Questions
Another good way to develop growth mindset is to get in the habit of asking learner questions, instead of judger questions. A learner question puts curiosity into action and seeks to learn and understand others more fully. A judger question focuses on winning for themselves and seeks to blame others when things go wrong. One of my favorite learner questions is “What is the best first step” or “What is the best thing to do now” and I use these when there is a problem, error or big mistake. It takes the focus off of blame and puts people into positive action.
Process Praise and Language
Incredibly, the words we use can induce a fixed mindset in others. Our beliefs about others and their talents can influence the way we speak to them. When we believe someone has limited ability, we tend to use language that supports that belief, not surprisingly. However, we also can influence fixed mindset in others without even realizing it! This can occur through the type of praise we use: person praise or process praise.
Person praise generally starts with “You are so …” and focuses on character traits, talent and intelligence. The signature person praise statement is “You are so smart!”. This labels a person and then puts pressure to live up to this label. It doesn’t foster learning and curiosity. Process praise, on the other hand, focuses on the behavior and the process. It comments on effort, practice, persistence and strategy, such as, “Your hard work paid off!” or “You worked really hard and didn’t give up when things got tough”. While I think of these as classic statements for children, they are so meaningful and necessary to hear from leaders as well.