What is Growth Mindset truly?

Growth mindset is when you face failure or criticism, your reaction is not “I hate this job” “it does not suit me”, “my boss, my customers don’t understand me” and that sinking feeling of self-deprecation and feeling bad about yourself, unworthy, not enough. But rather an immediate hungry reaction of “wow I can learn something here either about myself, the needs of my customers or a new direction for my business”.

It is based on research of Neuroplasticity, also known as neural plasticity or brain plasticity, is the ability of neuron networks in the brain to change through growth and reorganization. These changes range from individual neuron pathways making new connections, to systematic adjustments like cortical remapping. Examples of neuroplasticity include circuit and network changes that result from learning a new ability, environmental influences, practice, and psychological stress.

Neuroplasticity was once thought by neuroscientists to manifest only during childhood, but research in the latter half of the 20th century showed that many aspects of the brain can be altered (or are "plastic") even through adulthood. What that effectively mean is what you are born with, your traits, your qualities and skills are higher malleable. If can’t play a chess, with enough practice, effort and work, you can develop into outstanding player. One of the more famous examples of that is the László Polgár is a Hungarian chess teacher and educational psychologist. He is the father of the famous Polgár sisters: Zsuzsa, Zsófia, andJudit, whom he raised to bechess prodigies, with Judit and Zsuzsa becoming the best and second-best female chess players in the world, respectively. Judit is widely considered to be the greatest female chess player ever as she is the only woman to have been ranked in the top 10 worldwide, while Zsuzsa became the Women's World Chess Champion. Polgar raised his girls with simple premise that any child has the innate capacity to become a genius in any chosen field with the right effort, strategy, process and commitment.

The idea of fixed mindset is the opposite of that – it states that all the skills and talents people are given at birth and are fixed. You are naturally gifted speaker or you are not, you either bright or you are not, you either musical or you are not.

This idea also is true for companies, there are companies that embrace the growth mindset or there are companies that live by fixed mindset concepts. In fixed mindset companies, when someone who works for us does not deliver a project or fails at certain task, the organization penalizes them rather than say …..”lets looks at the effort you put in , how did you approach it, what strategy did you use, could there be another way of doing this”. Always making it not about the achievement or a pure result,  but rather focusing more on the process and strategy used to achieve it.

A lot of people actually have misconceptions about what growth mindset means, some people consider growth mindset to mean open mind for new ides or being flexible. The difference is subtle, growth mindset is a lot more do with how you deal with setbacks, failures and mistakes.

Growth mindset student when faced with D on the exam, with energy attacks the area where she/he lacks knowledge, introspects which areas needs work and analyses the strategy used then tried something new. So eager to raise hand, ask for help, fully admit that they don’t understand something, look to gain deeper understanding. Fundamentally they have no attachment to the bad mark, that D in the exam did not associate in student’s mind that they are not enough, not smart enough, not hard working enough, not studious enough…. All of these characteristic are of people with fixed mindset, where we attach the result to our self-worth with outcome. The growth mindset student knows that D simply means they did not put enough effort, did not use the right strategy and therefore did not achieve the positive outcome. Therefore they need to put more effort, use different tactic if they want a different outcome.

This truly applies to work place and how to deal with your staff and colleagues, how you talk about mistakes in your organization. Do you have blame culture, where people go quiet when something goes wrong, or a boss makes a point to highlight the mistake to make sure everyone is clear that is bad outcome, as he/she is worried people don’t care or don’t appreciate or don’t have the high standards as he/ she does.. so they make the mistake, the failure the case in point, an example of what not to do. This is a fixed mindset culture, the culture where people are terrified failing visibly, mistakes are hidden, not talked about and feared of. This is an organization that does not take risks, does really innovate to the extent it could and certainly does not make the most of its people.

Lets be clear growth mindset is not about setting low standards or praising negative result or not celebrating the win, quite the opposite. Absolutely, win is celebrated, loss is highlighted, but the focus is on the strategy, the process the person took to achieve it. For example, when the boss talks about celebration of the big client win of a colleague – he would not simply say – "Wow congratulations Tom, you are a natural born winner! You are genius! You can really win and you are so gifted!".....Instead the celebration will look as follows -  "Wow well done, Tom! You have won a big client. You took 6 months to develop a trust based relationship with that company, you build relationship strategically with each board member, delivered value based project for each one of them for the last 6 months for free, you showcased what we can do as a company. You introduced them to people in your network who they could benefit from. You studied them for the last 9 months, you knew their strategy, their strength and weakness inside out. You prepared your pitch over the last 4 weeks, you have reviewed and practiced it with our management team. This strategy, this effort, this dedication is what yielded that client signed a three year contract with us and you. Your effort and your strategy is what delivered this outcome. Truly fantastic achievement!"

What the boss did here, is highlighted the process, strategy and steps. This made it clear to the team that such win is available to all who is willing to follow this process. It show the team that he deserved to win, no jealousy, only respect, he is not gifted or naturally born with some unique traits that sets him apart, it is his effort that should be admired and it is available to all.

The same is true to failures, dissect the process and lets learn which part of the process should be adjusted next time. Never blame on the individual. Always the outcome is detached from personal traits, always connect to choices.

Growth mindset also of course applies to our children, how do we react when you son/daughter brings the failed test home. Do you we say : “Or what a great opportunity to understand what you need to work on further, what a great learning opportunity to change your strategy– lets look together what strategy did you use to learn this material, did you understand  it, shall we try a something different, in order to get a different outcome”. Even watch your facial expression, your internal feeling, when you hear negative result of your child, it is always about what they did and what process they followed, never that they are lazy, not smart, unwilling. This is how children develop a fixed mindset, they connect their achievements to being worthy of our love. Therefore they would be afraid to try something difficult or risky in fear to losing our approval. This what causes them chase an easy win, an easy A mark. When the point is in learning, growing, trying something new, challenging what has never been done before, failing, trying again, failing, changing course, succeeding and failing again, always learning and simultaneously becoming unstoppable, fearless and endlessly curious.