Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset: Why Helping Your Team Build a Growth Mindset Matters

In a world filled with increasing uncertainties, your team will inevitably face new challenges. How you and your people approach these problems matters. Do you embrace obstacles and learn from setbacks in the workplace, or do you avoid challenges because you fear failure?   

Researchers classify those sides into two mindsets: growth mindset vs fixed mindset. Your mindset has a powerful effect on how you approach life’s challenges and obstacles — ultimately influencing what you’re able to achieve.  

Let’s look closer at what these mindsets mean and why they matter in the workplace. Then we'll explore strategies that can help you, your team and your business cultivate a growth mindset and achieve success in a rapidly changing world.   

What is a growth mindset and what is a fixed mindset? 

Psychologist Carol Dweck, a professor at Stanford University, developed the framework of a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. “Individuals who believe their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others) have a growth mindset,” writes Dweck in Harvard Business Review. In contrast, people with a fixed mindset believe their abilities are fixed and were predetermined at birth. This thinking applies to their own qualities and the qualities of others.  

Common characteristics of people with a growth mindset include:

• They believe in development over time 
• They’re able to prioritize improving skills
• They view obstacles as temporary
• They gain inspiration from others
• They accept feedback

Common characteristics of people with a fixed mindset include:

• They believe in established intelligence
• They disregard practise
• They view obstacles as permanent
• They compare themselves to others
• They’re unable to consider feedback

Another way to think about these two mindsets is described in Dweck’s popular TED talk, The Power of Yet. She identifies two ways to think about a problem that’s slightly too hard to solve. Are you not smart enough to solve it, or have you just not solved it yet?  

Mindsets in the workplace

Approaching work with a fixed mindset or a growth mindset greatly influences how people handle challenges and obstacles. According to Dweck’s research, with a growth mindset, people pursue and enjoy challenges that may lead to failure, because they’re able to focus on the learning and development that’s possible. With a fixed mindset, people avoid challenging situations altogether as they may lead to failure.  

Such lifelong learners able to embrace challenges are sought after today, given the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the accelerated shift toward digital technologies. A recent Future Skills Council report, on behalf of the Government of Canada, identifies the need to build a learning nation so Canadians are prepared for the future of work. “Now more than ever, we must be forward-thinking, open to doing things differently and we must be nimble and agile and act quickly to adapt and adjust,” the report states. 

The mindsets of employees can also shape how they handle feedback and if they see their peers as competition or inspiration. It’s important to remember, however, that our mindsets are changeable. Everyone is a mixture of fixed and growth mindsets, according to Dweck, and that mixture changes with experience. 

Why an organization’s mindset matters

The mindset terms were popularized in Dweck’s book on motivation, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. While her research initially focused on students in classrooms, Dweck and others have gone on to look at mindsets beyond individuals, including the mindsets of organizations as a whole. 

Building a growth mindset into the foundation of an organization has profound effects. Organizations with growth mindsets believe that people can grow and improve with effort, good strategies and good mentoring, Dweck says, and these organizations value personal development and the growth of employees. Opportunities for growth affect employee happiness, and happy employees are more likely to stay with their current employer.

Dweck’s research on the mindsets of large corporations suggests people who work at companies with a growth mindset have more trust in their company and a greater sense of empowerment, ownership and commitment to the future of the company. Those employees are more likely to say their organization supports risk-taking, innovation and creativity. 

Mindset also matters to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Employees continue to care deeply about DEI, as identified by Indeed and Glassdoor’s report on the future trends affecting the labour market. A growth mindset can help reduce damaging stereotyping and it can help protect people on the receiving end of prejudice, research shows. Growth mindsets help organizations see the potential in all people.

Strategies to help your team develop a growth mindset

In your workplaces, try to back up any talk of a growth mindset, advises Dweck. The message can come from the top, explaining what this new value system is and how it will be enacted. Leaders can try encouraging people to take on challenges, rewarding reasonable risk, and emphasizing teamwork and sharing information. 

A growth mindset can also be incorporated into how employees are hired. Tech company Rangle, for example, tells IT World Canada they look for people with a growth mindset who have curiosity and are in continuous improvement mode, rather than focusing on people’s education level. 

When it comes to performance evaluations, consider metrics that speak to people’s growth and learning, and salary increases that take into account if someone took on challenges, improved and helped other people improve. 

Companies with a growth mindset also invest in their people’s development, through workshops, mentorship, coaching sessions, reskilling and upskilling efforts. “Encourage lifelong learning and unconventional career paths. Give employees the latitude to explore their passions and their strengths… and to evolve,” writes HR executive Naomi Titleman Colla in The Globe and Mail.  

When you and your people believe in development over time, view obstacles as temporary, find inspiration from each other and are open to feedback, you’ll be better prepared to thrive in a rapidly changing world. Cultivating a growth mindset — in yourself, in your team and in your organization — offers a powerful way to approach obstacles and achieve success.