For many businesses, this last year has been challenging to respond effectively to the impacts of COVID. Do you feel like your organisational growth has plateaued? Has your team settled into a comfort zone and not pushing any new boundaries? To create some radical changes and move out of the old ways of thinking and doing, you need a growth mindset.
Over 30 years ago Dr. Carol Dweck developed the concept of fixed mindset and growth mindset to describe the underlying beliefs people have about learning and intelligence.
“In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.” (Dweck, 2015)
Complacency is one of the largest challenges businesses face globally. Once complacency is entrenched in your staff, then the willingness to take risks to grow your business.
People with a growth mindset take challenges by the horns, go the extra mile to achieve success, and enjoy the journey of getting there.
So, how can you encourage a growth mindset in your teams? It’s a lot easier to say than do, it takes consistency, effort, time and everyone to be going in the same direction. Here’s a couple of tips to get you started if you have some staff with a fixed mindset.
Inspire continuous learning by running various programs where your team acquires new skills, learn, engage with others, and enhance production.
Set performance-based goals that challenge staff to think outside the box and take risks.
Treat failure as a learning experience in order to achieve their personal, team, and organisational goals. Ensure you praise staff for taking initiative, even if this means failure. This instills self-belief and confidence, and create a culture of daring and innovation.
Create a feedback culture. Be open to feedback from your team, it fosters closer teams and your relationship with them.
Promote internally rather than recruiting new staff which encourages your team to work harder and become more productive in a bid to advance further.
To survive in this tumultuous economic climate, you need your staff to be focused on growing. You need to do is to encourage a growth mindset that will see your team push the boundaries, innovate and take the business to the next level. You should encourage constant learning, nurture a feedback culture and promote staff, in order to foster this growth mindset.
If you'd like to build your confidence as a leader and feel equipped to shifting from complacency to a Growth Mindset in your team, then enrol in our Thriving Leaders Program. The program is focused on first-time leaders becoming more confident, by equipping them with the leadership and management skills to effectively lead a high performing team. The program is delivered in 2-hour sessions over 8 weeks. These sessions are interactive virtual coaching sessions, with practical and focused training in small, intimate groups to allow for collaboration and sharing. In between sessions participants, complete activities, curated readings, and videos to embed learnings. If you would like to join us please follow the link to the Thriving Leaders Program.