During the summer, I was invited to speak to a group about mentoring and specifically around mentoring and lifelong learning. As part of my prep, I revisited this book and remembered why it had been so insightful the first time around.
Some of the approaches from this book I thought I knew – growth and fixed mindsets - but this gave me a greater understanding of what’s behind that.
First up, this quote from the book summarises the difference between the two mindsets:
“In the fixed mindset, everything is about the outcome. If you fail—or if you’re not the best—it’s all been wasted. The growth mindset allows people to value what they’re doing regardless of the outcome. They’re tackling problems, charting new courses, working on important issues.
Maybe they haven’t found the cure for cancer, but the search was deeply meaningful.”
If you have a growth mindset, you can feel that your skills and your intelligence can be enhanced with effort and perseverance. It appears that people with a growth mindset have a ‘bring it on’ attitude to challenges, they keep going when things get tough and learn positively from criticism. It’s the process and working to improve that are the most important elements. They believe they can achieve what they want through time and practice.
The opposite of a growth mindset is a fixed mindset – so you’re either good or bad at something – why would you need to practice to improve?
Dweck gives examples in her book of sports people with both fixed and growth mindsets (John McEnroe is mentioned a lot!) and puts the spotlight on business leaders who exhibit a growth mindset and the positive impacts it’s had on their organisations. In relation to organisations, one quote really stood out for me:
“In not one autobiography of a fixed-mindset CEO did I read much about mentoring or employee development programmes. In every growth-mindset autobiography there was deep concern with personnel development and extensive discussion of it.”
I was originally revisiting this book through the lens of mentoring. It helped me recognise that if I develop a growth mindset for myself, then we show ourselves and others that things are not set in stone. We can challenge ourselves to push our comfort zones and create opportunities to learn and grow.
There’s lots to explore in growth mindset and I’d definitely encourage reading into this a little more. I found the more I understood, the more my thinking shifted. An interesting read.