If there’s a single behavioral shift employees can make to unlock performance, it may be changing from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. This simple change — from seeing mistakes as failures to seeing them as chances to improve — has been found in numerous studies to tilt entire organizational cultures toward better outcomes.
NLI has been studying these effects for years, building them into scalable solutions for organizations that want to become learn-it-alls, not know-it-alls, and maximize their engagement and performance. In short, these organizations want to build growth-mindset cultures.
But what exactly is a growth-mindset culture, and what are the essential ingredients for creating one in your organization? We explore these topics in our recent journal article, “Transform Organizational Culture Through a Growth Mindset,” an updated version of our foundational white paper published in 2016.
The Benefits of Growth Mindset
Creating a growth-mindset culture begins with appreciating the full range of benefits it can offer. For instance, teams that demonstrate a growth mindset have been shown to be more engaged in their work, demonstrate higher performance, and display greater persistence toward goals.
The benefits show up in many other ways, too. Teams operating within a growth-mindset culture conduct performance evaluations that promote growth and development. They do a better job mitigating bias and prejudice. They’re more creative and entrepreneurial. And leadership as a whole tends to be more effective at creating the desired outcomes.
Truly, just about everything changes when teams adopt a growth mindset. By focusing on learning, improving over time, and seeing challenges as opportunities instead of threats, teams in a growth-mindset culture can accomplish difficult tasks as a cooperative unit, rather than a fractured group of individuals who are all trying to look good and be perfect.
When NLI has measured the impact of our solution GROW: The Neuroscience of Growth Mindset in organizations, it’s clear the benefits are there to stay. For example, in a survey of 571 GROW participants, we found that 85% of people were shifting from a fixed to a growth mindset on a weekly basis. In addition, 92% regularly shared mistakes, and 95% discussed growth mindset with a teammate at least once per week.
Building a Growth-Mindset Culture
Creating such a culture doesn’t happen by accident — it all comes down to habits. Through our own research, we’ve distilled the traits of growth-mindset cultures down to three repeated actions: Value progress, Experiment, and Learn from others.
Simply put, when teams focus on getting better rather than looking good, regularly try new things and learn from the outcomes, and share knowledge with one another, what results is a growth-mindset culture. It’s an environment where team members drop their egos and prioritize getting results together, instead of competing to earn the praise of their leaders or peers.
Importantly, we’ve also found there’s a real science to embedding these shared habits; simply declaring them as new priorities won’t accomplish much. People may see value in the behaviors, but without the right systems to reinforce the habits, pretty soon employees will be back to their old ways.
NLI’s model for culture change blends these elements into one methodology known as Priorities, Habits, and Systems™, or PHS. Culture change happens when teams adopt the same priorities, practice the same habits, and implement the right systems (e.g. policies, procedures, incentives, and punishments) to move everyone in the same direction all at once. With PHS, individual employees can become a unified team, whose efforts add up to more than the sum of their parts.
When teams use PHS to instill cultures of growth mindset, it’s clear to everyone that learning and improving matter more than being perfect or looking good. They practice the same habits upholding this priority. And they create systems that make the desirable habits easier to practice and the undesirable ones harder to practice.
Over time, this is how growth-mindset cultures develop. It’s how organizations can turn inner thoughts and attitudes into measurable business results.
Download the white paper, “Transform Organizational Culture Through a Growth Mindset,” by clicking here.
