Growth Mindset isn't just for the classroom, but for you personally and for the world of business. To get the most from yourself and your team, help find your best performance and also manage stress and anxiety anxiety in all areas of your life, it's time to invest in mindsets.
What is a Growth Mindset?
Over 30 years ago, Carol Dweck and her colleagues became interested in students' attitudes about failure. They noticed that some students rebounded, while other students seemed devastated by
even the smallest setbacks. After studying the behaviour of thousands of children, Dr. Dweck coined the terms fixed mindset and growth mindset to describe the underlying beliefs people have about learning and intelligence. She then recognised and developed the theory in the world of business as she could appreciate and see the high impact it was having on business growth.
In a growth mindset, people believe that their abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. When people have the belief their basic qualities can be developed, failure still hurts, but they know those failures don't define you. The Growth Mindset attitude and focus creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for accomplishment. Teaching a growth mindset creates motivation and productivity in the worlds of business, education, and sports.
In our schools and businesses, we have a huge responsibility to teach knowledge to achieve the increasingly demanding examination results and achieve highly ambitious targets, but other factors, such as resilience, confidence, integrity and empathy also have a profound impact on our success. It is crucial to encourage and embed positive attitudes and behaviours by modelling them every day to whomever we meet.
Embracing the Growth Mindset provides individuals with the mental tools to develop a more growth orientated approach towards learning, as well as a more positive approach to any given situation. We have seen individuals make a mindset move, becoming more intrinsically motivated and becoming determined and more resilient to deal with problems and setbacks that arise, thus reducing the levels of anxiety and stress felt. This, in the long term, can prevent the onset and management of mental illness. Knowing that your ability can be developed through hard work, effort, persistence, good strategies and seeking feedback, opens opportunities to all learners, plus the power of knowing you can improve, impacts enormously on our mental attitude, self-belief and focus.
Developing a Growth Mindset culture within any business is the foundation for proactive learning and change. Inviting employees to embrace a growth mindset does not mean that outcomes become devalued, it means by refocusing on the beliefs and practises that shape your employees confidence to try, to learn and to grow, you are more likely to get the desired results. Every business has corporate goals to achieve. Growth Mindset allows businesses to see how to achieve these goals effectively and with sustainability.
Across the UK, businesses have growing concerns and challenge when faced with mental illness within the workplace. 1 in 6.8 people experience mental health problems in the workplace, which equates to 14.7% of the UK’s workforce (Mental Health Foundation – www.mentalhealth.org.uk) and this figure is increasing all the time.
Businesses are challenged by the remaining stigma of mental illness and in the recognising of symptoms before affecting staff absence. Many businesses are now working tirelessly to ensure that their colleagues receive the best support when faced with mental illness and wish to continue this by developing preventative measures.
The Growth Mindset approach has scientifically been proven to reduce, prevent and increase the management for mental illness. In a recent clinical trial funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, it was found that a brief intervention teaching growth mindset improved social stress recovery, increased perceived control, and reduced depression and anxiety. The mindset intervention was especially helpful for depression, with much fewer symptoms being exhibited. With this in mind, growth mindset can reduce staff sickness, but more importantly for the your business, value and show support for your colleagues.
As well as this, developing a growth mindset can have a number of other benefits:
- Individual Organisation
- Employee satisfaction
- Customer orientation and focus is increased
- Higher company profile
- Increased productivity and quality
- Increased productivity
- Lower attrition
- Improved Life balance
- Improved company performance in all areas
At Grow Your Mindset, we are passionate about supporting your business revival going from strength to strength, by providing you with the foundation tools that support wellbeing in the workplace. With our knowledge, skills and interactive strategies, we will support your business to ensure that you continue to develop, grow and maintain these core goals that are at the heart of all you do.
When companies enter the world of growth mindset, starting with the leaders, everything changes. You will find that your company brightens, expands, and fills with energy and with possibility. We believe wholeheartedly, in human development, also nurturing the mindset of your staff, to allow them to recognise their enormous potential.
For the journey to be most successful, the under lying principles of growth mindset need to be fully understood and actioned by the most senior members of any business. They are the role models to their workforce, those the staff look up to and aspire to be like.
Healthy employees are happier, more productive and less likely to call in sick. There are many things you can do to promote a culture of physical wellness, but understanding of mindset and the science of their thinking, actions and behaviours can be a real gamer changer for people.
The two biggest barriers that prevent companies from developing a wellbeing program are simple: time and money. Small business especially, sometimes believe that they simply haven’t got the time and the resources to dedicate to employee wellbeing, so they end up doing nothing. The thing is, any investment in employee wellbeing is sure to pay off. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain from investing in your people.
“This programme has helped us to create a foundation of positive thinking, where challenges are an exciting way to grow our brain. It has helped us to foster a love of learning and growing together as a leadership group and inspired a new approach to coaching and motivating our teams. I highly recommend this programme, especially for organisations who are aiming to optimise leadership performance and development.”
Femi Salako Customer Service Leader
Enjoyed this? Read more from Grow Your Mindset