What guarantees steady business development?
Some may say it’s proper financing, or the necessary retargets required to conduct a business, including a reliable and committed team. The others could state the success is rooted in good company practices or a solid risk management plan. To some extent, that’s true: indeed, if you’re a CEO, it never hurts to learn more strategic business plans or find out more about business continuity. However, one of other very significant factors, which is often forgotten by the management, is the right mindset.
Actually, very often it’s the proper mindset regarding the team and its performance, followed by the subtle ability to implement it in the form of the best possible practices, which guarantees long-term success.
Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset
When it comes to mindset, according to Carol Dweck’s research, typically we distinguish two types:
The fixed mindset, which Dweck defines as “the belief that an individual’s basic abilities and skills, their intelligence and their talents, are just fixed traits.”
The growth mindset, defined as “the belief that an individual’s most basic abilities and skills can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point.”
In short, a growth mindset motivates the philosophy that people hold potential, and their skills or abilities are not set in stone. On the contrary, every employee can grow and learn: get more intelligent, develop a talent, or become a leader. That means that the organizations with the growth mindset believe and give their employees access and retargets to build, transform, and change. The most significant focus is put on individuals’ progress.
Although there are devoted fans of a fixed mindset, it’s the growth mindset that truly revolutionizes both organizations and individual people’s lives. A growth mindset enables learning new skills, personal development, emerging new leaders, supports change and progress, and gives a chance to those who have fresh insights and outlook on specific tasks.
That’s why the growth mindset is implemented more and more frequently in business and it’s useful to learn how to use it for successful business development.
How to Achieve a Growth Mindset
Generally, there are a few ways how you can achieve a growth mindset as a company CEO.
Hire Learners
When building your team, don’t focus on people skills, but rather on their potential. To construct a team committed to personal development and acquirement of new skills, you should be very cautious during the recruitment process. Look for the people willing to learn and fascinated by self-improvement. Your employees should be learning passionates, always ready to develop new abilities and grow.
Give the Employees More Space
To truly motivate growth mindsets within your team, you must trust your team enough to give them free space to develop at their own pace. You have to take the risk of not controlling every step of their daily tasks; rather than that, provide them with learning retargets, and keep their spirit and motivations and high. It’s also crucial to get them all the necessary help whenever needed and continuously review their progress.
Change the Approach to Failure
Your organization’s culture should be focused on taking on new challenges, which is inevitably connected to accepting possible failure as part of the experience. A growth mindset drives the organization not by punishing for failures but by analyzing them and drawing conclusions.
Thus, please take notice of all the mistakes, and, importantly, talk about them with employees. Viewing them as obstacles or bumps in the road will inspire your team to look further for possible future mistakes and teach how to prevent errors or turn them into something positive.
As a leader, you should always remember to be accountable and responsible and teach your employees the same. Your company shouldn’t be a school based on grades, but an inspiring organization set on progress and never-ending development.
Don’t Focus on Money
You might be surprised, but money shouldn’t be the direct goal of changing your mindset. In reality, it’s about changing your organizational culture to the one that’s healthy, transparent, and encouraging to employees. Building the right way of thinking will provide you with happy and devoted employees, which is an integral part of achieving financial success.
So change your way of thinking and viewing success. If you view success as more comprehensive knowledge and general improvement, instead of money, as a CEO, you will soon see excellent results.
Motivate Innovation
Lastly, always remember to be the most prominent advocate for creativity and innovation. Instead of having a fixed mindset regarding specific policies or norms, carefully listen to your employees, and support their unique ideas. Importantly, work on them collaboratively with your team to give everyone a voice.
Conclusion
Suppose you’ve just decided to change your management approach to the one focused on growth, great! Your company will surely tremendously benefit from this brave move.
However, please remember that transforming a fixed mindset into a growth mindset is not easy and typically doesn’t happen overnight. Instead, it’s a long and frequently tedious process, composed of adjusting many parts of your functioning system and sometimes designing the whole management from scratch.
Thus, typically, it involves a great deal of risk-taking, so it’s essential for you first to make sure you are ready to take up such a big challenge. If your answer is yes, there’s nothing left to do other than roll up your sleeves and get to work. Good luck.