Positive Connections #7: Growth Mindset: “Yet,” “Fail,” and Other Words that Change Everything

Have you ever said or heard someone else say “People don’t really change,” or “You can’t expect so and so to change. That’s just the way they are.” It’s pretty common. I know I’ve said these words in the past. The thing is, these statements actually fly in the face of recent brain research. It turns out that people are constantly changing. The plasticity in our brain allows us and our brain to grow new neural pathways well into old age. This means we can continuously change, learn and grow if we want to...and if we and others around us believe we can. This has clear consequences for leaders , whose words can have a heightened significance in creating the type of mindset that pervades a workplace.

For example, Vanessa was a strong middle manager of a growing tech company. She had some relative autonomy to lead a group of developers in a particular department of the company. She stayed very organized and prided herself on knowing how to manage projects efficiently, attending to all the necessary details, while keeping to strict timelines and budgets and problem solving along the way.

On paper she looked great, except for two things. First, very little new, creative or exciting ideas had come out of her department in quite some time. When her group was handed a project, it was executed to the specifications. However, the executive leadership of the company was hoping to see some creative development come out of her department. The second issue was that she had trouble keeping people in her department. It seemed that people would be happy for about 3-6 months and then ask to transfer to another department or leave the company all together.

When she came to me for coaching, she talked about these issues. I listened to her for a while and then I followed a hunch and asked her a simple question, “what happens when an employee under your lead makes a mistake?”

“I correct them,” she answered.

“How do you do this?” I asked.

"What do you mean how? I show them the mistake and ask them to correct it.”

“But how do you say it?” I reiterated. She looked at me blankly. “Think of a time recently when you had to correct someone. Really think about it. Replay it in your mind. Then put yourself in the shoes of the person who was on the receiving end of your words… Feel what it would feel like to be them.”

She humored me, closed her eyes and stayed silent for about 30 seconds. Then I watched as her whole face changed. Her brow softened, her cheeks fell slightly as did her whole head.

She opened her eyes and stared at the ground. “Oh shit,” she said. I’ve turned into my dad.”

We dug a little deeper and discovered that she grew up with high expectations and no room for failure. When a mistake was made, it was a big deal to the point where she just made sure she either didn’t make mistakes or hid her mistakes the best she could. Now it was the same for her employees and they weren’t happy or thriving in this type of environment.

We talked about what it would look and sound like if she instituted more of a culture of growth mindset in the organization. Rather than a correction from her sounding like, “This isn’t to the specifications I gave you, now redo it until it’s right.” It might sound like, “Hey, this was a good first go at this project. And I think it isn’t quite there yet. How do you see that this work could be improved? In fact, is there a way we could make it even better than we originally were thinking?”

Asking questions enlists people into the growth process. It helps a person feel more ownership and find inspiration to continually improve the work – often in a creative way.

Carol Dweck has led an emerging field of research on growth mindset. Her work shows that people who have a mindset where they believe they can learn new skills and new ways of being, build the synapses and neural pathways in their brain to help them learn. In contrast, those folks who are stuck in a fixed mindset, where they believe they “can’t” do certain things or change in the ways that they want to, have less new growth in their brain and consequently don’t grow and improve as much - or at all.

Here's the kicker. Our beliefs about our own capacity become more fixed or grow depending on how others around us believe and think. I’m sure you’ve felt this if you’ve ever had someone rooting for you in a way that helped you do something that you weren’t sure you could do. The words and energy of those around a person can diminish or stifle the growth of a person or motivate and inspire growth in a person.

There are, of course, cases where a person's capacity is far from what's needed to get a job done well. In these cases, it behooves a leader to help that person move on to a more fitting job. However, in most cases, people can grow their capacity fairly quickly when given the right circumstances, opportunities and guidance. It's important for leaders to understand this so that their words and attitudes reflect a growth mindset stance. With a growth mindset stance, an entire organization can learn and grow in creative ways that can exceed expectations.

Further ideas for nurturing a growth mindset:

Failing forward: Creativity comes when people take risks. People only take risks when they know it’s safe to try something and fail. I’ve coached organizations to start meetings with something called gratitude, acknowledgements and oops. The oops part is a way for someone in the organization to simply admit a mistake in front of everyone. It might sound like “Hey, sorry I lost my patience last week in the meeting we had. I was having a rough day. I’ll do better next time.” Or, “I just want to acknowledge that the project idea I proposed last week totally tanked. I'm pretty sure there's no way it's going to work. I think we should go back to our original plan" or Sorry I created some complications last week when I couldn't figure out the program. Thanks to Dominic for covering for me. I’ll work to get up to speed on it this week.” This type of quick 5-minute ritual at the beginning of staff meetings can create a culture of safety in risk-taking, which will lead to a creative and collaborative organization.

In addition, leaders can work to recognize failure as a necessary part of the creative process. Sometimes a leader might even have to step back and watch a minor project fail so a valued employee can learn from it and do better the next time around.

The power of “yet”: I’ve taught my children that the word “can’t” doesn’t have a place in most of our conversations together. We replace it with “I haven’t found a way yet.” It works in other areas too. “I really don’t know how to use excel formulas… yet. Can you help me with this?” or “Hey Vic, I’m stuck here with this client, she doesn’t seem to like me yet. Can you give her a call for me?” It’s a small change with a powerful psychological effect. Try it out and let me know how it goes.

Learn something new: The best way to understand the power of a growth mindset, is to really feel it. See what you can do to learn something completely new. Maybe you’ve always wanted to learn to speak French, or ride a unicycle, or knit scarves, or paint landscapes, or play the piano. Watch what happens when you dedicate yourself to learning something new. On one hand it will help you empathize with those you work with who might stumble as they learn. On the other hand, it will help you inspire others to continually grow as you yourself feel the good creative energy that comes with learning a new skill.

Mindful Practice/Journaling:

Find a quiet space. Center yourself by focusing on your breath. Let your brow soften. Release your jaw. Drop your shoulders.

Picture yourself as a child when you learned something new in a safe environment. Maybe it was learning how to cook something, or how to swim, or ride a bike or write cursive or play soccer. Watch yourself joyously learning, making mistakes, redoing what you tried and doing it better.

Connect to the joy of this moment in your own development for at least one minute. Bring this feeling into your center, your heart.

• What elements of this process can you rekindle in your current life?
• What parts of this process do you want others to experience?
• How can you use your words, tone and actions to create a culture of growth mindset where you work?

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You got this.

Zach

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“The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.” - William James

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