Cultivating a growth mindset—essentially a belief that your skills can sharpen over time—has been hailed as a game-changer by the likes of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who credits the approach with improving collaboration and performance.
Research indeed shows people are most engaged and satisfied with their work when they experience continuous growth and learning. And a growth mindset allows individuals to find intrinsic rewards in progress and discover new possibilities.
But nurturing a growth mindset needn’t be an individual endeavor. To discover how leaders can harness the power of a growth mindset to build a culture that supports employees broadly, Quartz sought the advice of David Rock, co-founder and CEO of the NeuroLeadership Institute, a cognitive science consultancy. Rock, who also is the bestselling author of Your Brain at Work, provides a three-part framework that can help both individuals and companies wholeheartedly embrace the growth mindset.
Part 1: Model and coax a growth mindset
Rock suggests that leaders openly discuss and model resilience, which is a hallmark of a growth mindset. He also advocates that they be proactive about helping others notice and shift their mindsets. His simple tool for that: the magical word “yet.”
By sprinkling “yet” into statements like “I’m not a technology person yet,” individuals can instantly transform their perspective to one of growth. It’s like a real-time mindset booster shot.
Part 2: Deepen your habits
To cultivate lasting resilience, we must dive deep into our habits and develop ones that foster growth and adaptability. Rock presents three areas of focus for this:
- Value progress. Resilient leaders understand the significance of progress. They go beyond focusing solely on outcomes and emphasize the importance of developing new habits and skills.
- Embrace experimentation. Resilient leaders are fearless champions of experimentation. They encourage their teams to explore uncharted territory and embrace the unknown. They know that repetition breeds automatic behavior. By creating a culture of experimentation instead, these leaders foster an environment that thrives on continuous learning and adaptation.
- Learn from others. Resilient leaders understand the power of seeking input and feedback. They recognize that outside perspectives often provide valuable insights and help identify blind spots. By leveraging the knowledge and expertise of their teams and peers, they accelerate their own growth and that of their organizations.
Part 3: Strengthen systems that foster resilience
Resilient leadership extends beyond individual habits; it requires the integration of resilient principles into the organization itself.
“The systems work is about how you take the overall mindset and apply it, so the overall environment is encouraging the growth mindset,” said Rock. “We want the right language and the right systems nudging us to be constantly improving rather than trying to prove ourselves.”
Rock challenges us to apply a growth mindset to the full lifecycle of an employee. “The way we hire people can be growth-mindset focused,” Rock said. “The way we promote people, the way we give feedback, the way we do performance management, even the way we do learning and development—all these things can be designed with a growth mindset and in different ways.”
AI’s influence on the growth mindset
Looking ahead, Rock believes that technology such as artificial intelligence may play a significant role in supporting the growth mindset. AI-driven interfaces that nudge individuals away from fixed mindsets and toward greater mental health and conflict resolution are on the horizon. This holds promise for helping us to apply growth mindset principles in various aspects of life.
This, Rock believes, is how we scale the growth mindset. “When you multiply that out by 10,000 or 100,000 people, you get everyone essentially learning faster,” said Rock. “And learning faster has its own reward, as it enlivens the brain with positive neuro chemicals like more dopamine. It activates a sense of aliveness, and it’s very intrinsically rewarding.”