PERFORMANCE INSIGHTS FROM “MINDSET” BY CAROL DWECK

I recently spoke to a young man who described a basketball game he played a while back. He explained that the other team was loaded with national age-group players and as such was the overwhelming favourite to win the clash. However, his own underdog team was loaded with “belief in possible” and a dare-to-win mentality despite their clear disadvantage in terms of experience. The other team, he said, were fearful of losing, and their approach bore this out. They played safe to try not to lose. His team went into the game believing they could win, and believing they had nothing to lose. So, what happened? His team won!

This was all about mindset. Clearly the team that lost had better skillset. They were undoubtedly better on paper. We are all aware of examples like this. Some examples have been turned into Hollywood movies; Rocky, Rudy, Cool Runnings, A League of Their Own, Miracle, We Are Marshall, Seabiscuit. If we are aware of these examples, how do we apply the principles to ensure we have the best mindset for us?

Dr Carol Dweck is recognised as one of the foremost experts on mindset. Her students wanted her to write a book about her accumulated expertise in the realm of mindset so she obliged and compiled this masterpiece.

She begins by unpacking the mindsets; Fixed and Growth. Fixed mindsets see abilities and qualities as relatively unchangeable, whereas growth mindsets believe that people can change, improve and learn through application and effort. Her thesis is that we can change our mindsets. She provides several examples of fixed and growth mindset behaviours. She explains that we are all a mix of both but that through awareness and increased attention, we can catch ourselves when we are holding ourselves back, and we can generate a growth-mindset approach to focus on what we can control vs what we cannot.

Fixed mindset is about immediate success at any cost, growth mindset is about short-term sacrifice if necessary, and then stretch to sustainable success for the longer term!

Growth mindset allows people to love what they do. This is a key distinction as many people see excellence on the other side of the fence from fun. John McEnroe is identified as a classic fixed-mindset athlete. His behaviour and the way he treated others, his fear of failure and his excuses when he lost, were all part of protecting his confidence and insecurity. He was all ego and no effort. He appreciates this now looking back – his fear of failure was all consuming.

Christoper Reeve (best known as Superman in the movies of that name) completely disrupted and effectively disproved medical opinion when his positive growth mindset eventually enabled his brain to send signals to his body after the severest of spinal cord injuries.

Growth-mindset leaders and teams get a thrill from what is hard and from trying really hard to learn something over time. Indeed continuous improvement journeys take time and require effort, they involve failure but that failure does not define the team; the effort and the learning defines the team; their attitude and altitude.

Effort ignites ability and turns it into accomplishment.

The movie Groundhog Day is an excellent example of the manifestation of the two different mindsets. Bill Murray plays a news reporter who gets stuck in time. Initially he uses his fate to manipulate for selfish gain, then he progresses to learning and helping in order to get released from the spell. It is a comedy but it illustrates this serious distinction.

The author touches on the mood and language of parents and leaders. If the prevailing climate rewards only outcomes then fixed-mindset behaviour will follow. If however, effort and process is praised, there is a greater likelihood of a learning and growth approach. In addition, by seeking constructive criticism for learning and growth, parents and leaders can actually inspire the right conditions for progress to excellence.

The subtle cues, such as saying “good result, well done for working hard”, vs “good result, you are a smart child”, can have massive implications for how a person approaches future challenges. IE if it feels like the effort is being praised, that will be applied, but if it feels like talent is being praised then fear of failure and deceit about performance can manifest. Stereotypes and labels can be equally damaging. We need to be aware of what we say.

Teachers that teach improvement and how to learn have had significant impact on students at schools. A growth-minded teacher can model an approach which inspires students to follow suit and realise progress which a fixed-mindset teacher would have potentially restricted. This resonates with most of us, yet many of us do not acknowledge that we are our children’s teachers most of the time (at home).

Ultimately we need to convey that failure when progressing is a building block towards future success. It merely shows a lack of experience which is being developed all the time. Fear of failure holds many people back, generally for all the wrong reasons.

Thomas Edison, Charles Darwin, and Amadeus Mozart are mentioned as examples that we all know. The reality is that each had a team around them, and each took a decade or more to become the celebrities we know today. Growth-minded effort played a critical role in each of their accomplishments. Jackson Pollock revolutionised modern art yet has was considered a very average artist when he started out.

Sport provides arguably the best arena to study the importance of mindset.Sport is littered with talented people who fell by the wayside because they lacked the mentality to get up when they were knocked down. Equally, there are thousands of examples of average physicalities who reached the top through sheer grit and effort. Interestingly, Muhammad Ali is cited as a champion who had no right to become the legend he did in terms of his physical dimensions. Sonny Liston was more physically talented, but Ali won the mental game in and out of the ring.

Michael Jordan was not selected in top basketball teams at school, it was this that drove him to always want to prove he could get better. He is now viewed as the best basketball player of all time. Tom Brady was a sixth round draft pick for the New England Patriots, he went on to become the best Quarterback ever to have graced the NFL. Tiger Woods learned to focus on the process when he was young. This has helped him rebound from failure on and off the golf course many times in his life.

A growth mindset can overcome the negative interference which limits our individual and collective potential.

The All Blacks provide a great example of how to do this as a team. They have continuity at the top and they always use language which focuses on what they can control. Anything outside of their control is unnecessary interference (the weather, the media, the last game).

The business world provides some fascinating case studies for growth vs fixed mindset. Enron was all about the talent (fixed) mindset but that sowed the seeds of its demise because admission of deficiency was perceived as weakness and failure. The documentary “Enron – The smartest guys in the room.” revealed that leaders cultivated a hyper-competitive, win-at-all-costs environment in which Enron traders resorted to all kinds of underhanded dealings in order to make money at any cost and to keep their high-paying jobs.

Dweck references Jim Collins’ book “Good to Great” as it provides some great examples of improvement (growth) mindset companies who sustained excellence through continued learning. An example was Wells Fargo who were vulnerable enough to ask themselves, “What can we potentially do better than any other company?” They realised they needed to transform from traditional banking to become a pioneering leader in electronic banking and to open fit-for-purpose branches run by small crews of superb people. They proudly saw themselves as stoic Spartans in an industry that had been dominated by the wasteful, elitist culture of banking. “Run it like a business” and “run it like you own it” became mantras; simplicity and focus made all the difference. With fanatical adherence to that simple idea, Wells Fargo made the leap from good results to superior results. – Jim Collins.  

Dweck’s research showed that the following traits were noticeable at growth-mindset organisations. Trustworthiness, commitment, loyalty, agility, creativity, innovation, risk-taking support, integrity, a culture of development, care for well being, collaboration.

Human relationships provide perhaps the most significant and fascinating insights into growth and fixed mindsets. Growth is associated with forgiveness and kindness, while fixed is often characterised by insecurity and bitterness. This applies not just to the way we treat others, but also the way we should treat ourselves. If mistakes are made, learn and move on rather than judge and wallow in self pity.

Daniel Goleman’s book, Emotional Intelligence struck a chord with millions of people. He said that there are social, emotional skills and that he could explain what they are. In other words, we can grow in our ability to help grow a relationship we are in. A relationship does not have to remain stuck in a holding pattern. With effort and compromise, the relationship can strengthen, but as we know, this takes effort and compromise! Fixed mindset partners take a view that if the couple is compatible their relationship should not need to be worked on, or put another way, if a relationship needs hard work, the couple is incompatible.

There are no great relationships without problems along the way.

When problems arrive as they will, the growth mindset focuses on solving the problem rather than the other person. But then each person focuses on what they can do different to help the problem go away. The obvious one with relationships is communication, and if each member in a relationship then decides to become a more effective communicator, this issue can go from being a weakness to a strength.

Hillary Clinton forgiving Bill Clinton is referenced as an example of a growth mindset. Hillary chose to believe in Bill’s potential to change and to take responsibility after the scandal involving Monica Lewinsky.

The rubber hits the road when Dweck suggests at the end of the chapter that we should consider our response to rejection. Growth comes from reflection, forgiveness and learning, fixed dwells on revenge, judgement and blame.

We need to stay above the line and own a mature response to circumstances outside our control.

Our words and actions send messages to our children and to our subordinates. Growth mindset is nothing short of great leadership. Growth mindset leadership helps others to unlock their potential, to learn, to change, to transform, and to succeed.

The final chapter in the book focuses on changing our mindsets. Tremendous progress can be achieved if fixed mindsets can be converted to growth. Some daily questions Dweck proposes are as follows; “What are the opportunities for learning and growth today for myself and for others?” “When, where and how will I embark on my plan?” “When, where and how will I act on my adapted plan after problems occur?” “What do I have to do to improve my plan?”

A growth mindset is effectively a belief in better. It is never content because there is always more that can be done, but milestones and successes should also be celebrated because that fuels the fire to become more, for ourselves, and for others. As I have heard said many times; “Consistent hard work beats complacent talent over time”.