Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been talking about developing a growth mindset.

  • First, we started by describing a growth mindset: the belief that with time and experience, we can all learn, grow, and become more intelligent.
  • Then last week, we reviewed some suggestions for ways you could practice a growth mindset, with things like openness and curiosity for others’ perspectives and aiming for progress versus perfection.

Today, we want to review some ways that you can develop a growth mindset within your organization.

In our work, we’ve found that a growth mindset comes to life in a culture of curiosity and learning. One where all levels share successes, challenges, and learnings, and keep putting forth their best efforts, despite setbacks along the way.

Whether you’re a leader or a team member, think about how one or more of these ideas might come to life as you work to build a growth mindset within your organization.

DEVELOPING A GROWTH MINDSET
WITH YOUR TEAM

Craft a vision for what a growth mindset could look like in your work, teams, and organization. For example:

  • Open up dialog about what it might look like to build an organization where learning and continuous improvement are truly valued and celebrated.
  • Commit to creating a culture of curiosity and engagement where every single member of the organization owns their leadership, regardless of their role or title.
  • Encourage the team to envision what success will look like if all levels of the organization are embracing a growth mindset.

Define the core behaviors that you’d expect to see if people are living a growth mindset. For example:

  • ALL members of the organization seek feedback and gratefully accept it.
  • Identify what continuous recognition and respect for explorations, risks, and failures, will look like in meetings.
  • Change language to incorporate “yet” as part of the approach to solving problems, as in, “We aren’t there yet, but we’re getting closer.”

Track increases in the organization’s growth mindset. For example:

  • Regularly discuss and keep track of what successes, challenges, and learnings have looked like, in both individual and team meetings.
  • Use employee satisfaction and/or engagement surveys to assess growth mindset.
  • Build growth mindset stories into newsletters, emails from leaders, and presentations at organizational meetings. Success stories that come from this type of learning environment help people start to understand how to translate it into successful implementation.

When you embrace a growth mindset,
you’ll be creating a space for people
to bring all of themselves to their work.

They’ll be more inclined
to celebrate successes
and work through challenges,
together.

Remember, practicing a growth mindset, is just that—practice. It’s not a one-and-done and it certainly isn’t all or nothing.

Be patient with yourself and others as you learn and grow individually and as a team.

Spend some time this week considering how you can bring a growth mindset to your organization.

Let us know how it’s going!

If you’d like support
creating a growth mindset,
within your organization
contact us today.