Recently I attended a Vistage meeting in San Diego, California where I was fortunate to participate in a workshop conducted by Dr. Eve Grodnitzky based on the teachings of Carol Dweck on Growth vs. Fixed Mindset and how it affects everything in our lives from leadership to love. What I appreciated about this workshop is that it brought a new perspective to business leaders that much of the trajectory of business growth that materializes for an organization is directly the result of the leadership and employee mindset and the attitudes and commitments that they adopt. As a business owner in Morris County, New Jersey, it is very easy to fixate on the exterior economic circumstances like regulations, taxes, GDP growth and the job market, which can prevent developing the growth mindset needed to succeed.
Recently Brainpickings.com wrote an article on this subject. In the course of their content, they have said that one of the most basic beliefs we carry about ourselves, as Dweck found in her research, has to do with how we view and inhabit what we consider to be our personality. A “fixed mindset” assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static givens which we can’t change in any meaningful way, and success is the affirmation of that inherent intelligence, an assessment of how those givens measure up against an equally fixed standard; striving for success and avoiding failure at all costs become a way of maintaining the sense of being smart or skilled. A “growth mindset,” on the other hand, thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of unintelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities. Out of these two mindsets, which we manifest from a very early age, springs a great deal of our behavior, our relationship with success and failure in both professional and personal contexts, and ultimately our capacity for happiness.
You can read the entire article here: https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/29/carol-dweck-mindset/?utm_content=bufferb80fa&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
There is also an excellent Carol Dweck Ted talk that is worth the time to listen to at http://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve
Long story short, many business owners from the small business sector to the Fortune 500 corporate group look externally for economic drivers and opportunities to propel their business ahead. Sometimes, with proper reflection and study, there are things that can be done at the individual or team level. Working on mobilizing your organization into action and moving them forward from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset can lead to significant business growth and many unpredicted opportunities.
It’s definitely a mindset worth pursuing!
