Growth Mindset: the key to learning organizations
In recent years, the concept of Growth Mindset has been gaining strength in organizational contexts, as a key element in strengthening corporate culture and at the same time, aligning practices and habits that facilitate change and the rapid adaptation of individuals and teams.
But, what is the Mindset theory and what is its origin?
For decades, Stanford University researcher and teacher Carol Dweck has devoted herself to studying and understanding students' beliefs about their own school performance.
In her findings, Carol realized that those students who performed better were not those who had a higher IQ level, but those who were able to realize that, in a next time, they could achieve a better result .
In the face of failure or underachievement, what prevailed in some students was frustration and a sense of failure, while in other students there was a strong belief and conviction that they had not yet learned everything, but that they were in the process of improving their performance and results, oriented to continue growing without self-limitation.
To this group of students Carol attributed what is now known as the growth mindset. To those who believed that their performance was not capable of improvement, she attributed a fixed mindset.
What are the characteristics of each one?
But why has Mindset Theory become relevant in organizations?
The growth mindset basically tells us about the attitude and disposition to continuous learning throughout life. In this sense, organizations are also learning entities.
According to MIT scholar Peter Senge, and author of the best-selling book "The Fifth Discipline," learning organizations are those where:
- People continually expand their ability to create the results they really want.
- People are continuously learning how to learn more and better in teams.
- Experimentation and questioning are valued.
- The organization has the capacity to transform itself.
A learning organization is an organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future - Peter Senge
However, not all organizations develop the culture and values necessary to foster a growth mindset in their employees and thus more easily become a learning organization.
Organizations that inhibit the development of a Growth Mindset are characterized mainly by placing a disproportionate value on:
- High IQs and expertise
- The hierarchy and authority of the position
- Result over process
- Competing over collaboration
- Individual achievement over collective achievement
Sound familiar?
What kind of mindset do you identify in yourself? In your organization?
Some Tips
By now you are probably asking yourself : What can I do to facilitate the change of mindset in my organization?
First of all, this is not a simple task, since the beliefs and attitudes ingrained in the culture of our organization require time and effort to be modified, among other ingredients.
However, leaders and teams have the power to install certain practices and habits that favor the development of proactive attitudes towards learning, such as:
- Do not deny the mistake and integrate it into team conversations and generate lessons learned.
- Share your own failure stories with your team, making it easier for others to share theirs.
- Teach your team to give each other feedback, so that everyone can do it.
- We should not always have all the answers and solutions at hand. It generates openness to experiment.
- Install key questions in team meetings or generate retrospectives: What have we learned since the last time we asked this same question?
At The Change Lab we are committed to organizational learning, capacity building for the future and transformation.
That is why our purpose is to install the capacity for change in the DNA of organizations, giving the impulse that your organization and team require.