The importance of a growth mindset for high performing teams

Having a collective growth mindset is the number one component of a high performing team.

In this post, I’m going to explore what a growth mindset is and how leaders can nurture this mindset in their teams.

Carol Dweck, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, tells us there are two mindsets that we can use to navigate life: a fixed mindset and a growth mindset.

Our view of ourselves determines our mindset. If we believe, ‘I am what I am’, we’re indicating that we have a fixed mindset. Alternatively, Dweck states that ‘individuals who believe their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others) have a growth mindset’

Dweck continues, ‘everyone is actually a mixture of fixed and growth mindsets, and that mixture continually evolves with experience. A pure growth mindset doesn’t exist, which we must acknowledge to attain the benefits we seek’

The benefits for a collective growth mindset within a team environment are obvious – problems are tackled head-on, dealt with and learned from, but ‘without practical planning – and the effort to nurture a growth mindset while teaching their team how to achieve their targets – energy and resources will be unfocused, progress will remain untracked, and the team will never reach its potential’

So, how can leaders deliberately target and nurture a growth mindset in their teams? Here are three examples:

  1. Reward collective learning and growth
  2. Deepen the team’s understanding of growth mindset concepts and how to put them into practice
  3. Learn to recognise when a fixed team mindset shows up and challenge it

 

In summary, teams with a growth mindset, that is teams who proactively share information, collaborate and learn together have the ability to achieve exceptional results.

4 people rowing a boat on open water

Working together as a team with a positive outcome

Written by David Harding – Coach and Facilitator

 

 

References
Forbes (Feb 2022) The Secret of high-performing teams: Coherent planning, alignment and execution. [online], Available from <https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertsher/2022/02/22/the-secret-of-high-performing-teams-coherent-planning-alignment-and-execution/#:~:text=Without%20practical%20planning%20%E2%80%93%20and%20the,task%20the%20CEO%20with%20planning> [23 September 2024]
Forbes (Sep 2022) Leading for success: How to build and run a high-performing team. [online], Available from <https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbescommunicationscouncil/2023/08/02/leading-for-success-how-to-build-and-run-a-high-performing-team/>[23 September 2024]
HBR (2016) What having a “growth mindset” actually means. [online], Available from  <https://hbr.org/2016/01/what-having-a-growth-mindset-actually-means> [23 September 2024]