Discover How to Overcome Imposter Syndrome Podcast_003

September 1, 2017 by Gill Thackray Leave a Comment

Hi Friends,

Welcome to the third episode of The Positive Change Guru Podcast, the podcast for a positive community. We want you to be inspired, achieve your dreams and take action. Our mission is to help you achieve your goals and unleash your awesomeness by providing you with practical, actionable tools for positive change. So what better place to start than with the subject of our third episode, the imposter syndrome podcast all about feeling like a fake and how to overcome it. Let’s go! [Read more…]

Growth Mindset: Building your Mindset Muscle

September 1, 2017 by Gill Thackray Leave a Comment

Growth mindset is one of the key differentiators between people who achieve their goals and those who don’t. Recognising a Growth mindset (and using it) dramatically impacts upon your performance whatever you do in life. Achieving your goals with a growth mindset is a lifelong habit worth investing your time in. But what is it and how exactly can you build your mindset muscle? We give you the lowdown.

[Read more…]

Six Things You Need to Know to Overcome Put-Downs and Stereotypes

July 26, 2017 by Viv Thackray Leave a Comment

What are negative stereotypes?

When others dismiss your abilities because you belong to a particular group, it can leave you feeling demoralised, uncertain and anxious. Worse still, when negative stereotypes are used to describe you, it can seriously hamper your performance or even convince you that your dreams and goals are futile. Psychologists refer to the act of assessing someone’s capabilities as low because they belong to a specific group as ‘stereotype threat’. [Read more…]

3 reasons to be a smart growth mindset business

October 19, 2016 by Viv Thackray Leave a Comment

What’s so hot about a growth mindset culture?

A host of business trailblazers such as Microsoft, Spotify, Quest and Google are actively developing a growth mindset culture within their organisations. What makes a growth mindset such an important component of a successful business?

1. People who work in a growth mindset business create and innovate more readily than those in fixed mindset organisations

It may seem strange to think organisational mindset can dictate to creativity and innovation, creativity is an ability we can all develop right? But scratch beneath the surface of a fixed mindset organisation and you’ll discover a huge fear of failure threading through the entire hierarchy of the organisation. A fixed mindset has the same attributes for organisations as it does for individuals, the belief that you’re either good at a task or you’re not, talented or not, capable or not. Because there’s no such thing as regarding failures as part of the learning curve on the road to success (think James Dyson’s 5000+ prototypes of his revolutionary vacuum cleaner before he achieved success) people in fixed mindset organisations become fearful to experiment and try new ideas for fear of failure. This stifles creativity and innovation and has an obviously negative impact on the progress that a company is able to achieve.

2. People are more likely to trust each other in a growth mindset business

Research shows us that people who work in a growth mindset organisation are more likely to trust their colleagues. There are number of possible explanations for this, the first may be related to the fact that in a fixed mindset organisation employees are guarded about their expertise and knowledge, making them reluctant to share their smarts with others for fear of diluting their reputation as the person with superior, specialist ability. Secondly, current research also reveals that those working in a fixed mindset organisation are more likely to cut corners and keep secrets in their quest to promote their virtuosity in a company where talent rather than effort is paramount. Not a great recipe for trust.

3. A growth mindset business encourages and capitalises on failure

Leaders in truly growth mindset businesses recognise that their people’s approach to failure is the key to success. The growth mindset business encourages new ideas and growth by framing failure as the route to mastery. Growth mindset leaders ask crucial questions such as what can we learn from this situation? How can this help us with future projects? What do we need to change, tweak or strengthen here? By contrast, when failures occur in a fixed mindset organisation blame is attributed, individuals are measured and found wanting and a failure to learn from mistakes is a precious but missed opportunity.

Here at Positive Change Guru we love to talk about all things growth mindset. Check out our forthcoming events or get in touch to find out more about our suite of courses and discuss bespoke growth mindset training for your organisation.

10 Ways to Build a Growth Mindset Business

September 8, 2016 by Viv Thackray Leave a Comment

Want to develop your business into a growth mindset company that inspires and drives success? Follow PCG’s 10 tips to build a growth mindset business.

1. Be a failure friendly growth mindset business

Avoid the fixed mindset trap of regarding business failures as evidence of an innate inability to succeed at the task in hand. Instead, learn to approach each failure as a temporary setback rather than an all defining, confidence shaking blow. When you adopt a growth mindset towards your business, failure and setbacks will still occur but a growth mindset provides you with increasing resilience to persevere with your business goals.

When things don’t go as planned take a growth mindset approach and focus on immersing yourself deeper in the process by asking yourself what different strategies are available, who can provide help and expertise and establish what you’ve learned from this failure that will enable you to improve future performance.

2. Be a growth mindset business that isn’t deterred by the fixed mindset of others

It’s always great to have feedback and learn from the constructive input of others but how do you know when someone else is exposing you to their own fixed mindset approach? Businesses with a growth mindset have a strong sense of their own goals and learning process, their people understand that just because progress and success doesn’t occur overnight, it doesn’t mean that it’s time to throw in the towel, setbacks are just part of the road to success. Refuse to allow your business dreams and goals to be derailed by the negativity and pessimism of others. Be open to new ideas, experiences and processes but frame them within a growth mindset approach.

3) Take a growth mindset approach to the parts of your business that challenge you

It’s easy to avoid the areas of your business that feel more challenging. Stretch yourself and develop your skills to encompass all aspects of your business role and encourage others in the team to do the same. Making a commitment to wholeheartedly engage with challenging tasks allows individuals and teams to develop new skills and abilities. New or difficult tasks are an opportunity to develop new skills and ways of thinking and at the same time you’ll be building new synaptic connections, with perseverance and practice both will strengthen and improve performance.

4) Be a growth mindset business that welcomes new ideas and experiences

Organisations can sometimes stifle experimentation and new ways of working because of fear of failure. It can be tempting to remain in an organisational comfort zone where you stick to the same old processes because that’s what’s always been done. But it’s a changing world and even when you decide to take an ‘it ain’t broke so don’t fix it’ approach who’s to say that you won’t be missing out on new opportunities to expand and develop your business? Be open to new ideas and experiences and ensure that resources and encouragement are available for your team to continuously learn and develop.

5) Celebrate the effort that leads to business success

Process, process, process! Encourage your team to take a deep dive into the process behind successes and failures to maximise learning and improve performance. We work in such fast paced environments that it’s easy to finish one project and move straight onto the next one without pausing to ask:

what worked really well there?
what could we do differently next time?
what can we learn from the last project?
what strengths and deficits were highlighted and how can we utilise this information?

Analysing and learning from the process will support your team to embed successful ways of working and increase performance for future success.

6) Promote and reinforce growth mindset practices

To have a truly growth mindset business culture an organisation needs to constantly highlight and reinforce growth mindset practices. Encourage your team to share their favourite examples of a growth mindset in action and promote growth mindset success stories at every opportunity, across the whole organisation.

7) Recall previous growth mindset approaches when faced with a new challenge

Ambitious new projects can sometimes feel daunting. When you and your team embark on increasingly ambitious plans to grow your business, remember previous achievements that involved learning and working in new ways and remind yourself and others of all the ways that having a growth mindset helped you to achieve success.

8) Embed the growth mindset approach into policies and procedures

For a any change in organisational culture to be an effective and lasting change, it’s important to ensure that it’s firmly included in policies and procedures. Make sure that all of your processes reflect a growth mindset approach and pay special attention to processes that recognise and reward achievement.

10) Monitor fixed mindset triggers

Even the most forward thinking organisations that work exceptionally hard to develop a growth mindset culture will still have areas of their approach that lean more towards a fixed mindset. Commit to honestly assessing the fixed mindset triggers that prevail in your business. A fixed mindset trigger might occur when the organisation faces a challenge, experiences a setback or is less successful than a leading competitor, if we fall into defensiveness behaviour or insecurity then a growth mindset will be inhibited.

10 tips and tricks for a growth mindset team

August 23, 2016 by Viv Thackray Leave a Comment

Are you developing a growth mindset team? Start with our ten tips and tricks to develop a growth mindset culture.

1. Promote problem solving through failure

A growth mindset team problem solves by analysing failures. Help your team understand that taking reasonable risks and experiencing a few failures along the way is an essential part of the process that leads to increased creativity and innovation. Encourage your team to anticipate setbacks and ask..how will you overcome them?

2. Encourage your growth mindset team to talk about how they overcome challenges and setbacks

The culture you create within your business is reflected in everything you do and say. Encourage your team to understand the value and benefits of talking about their professional challenges and setbacks and sharing the tools and techniques they’ve used to overcome difficulties.

3. Encourage the process

Avoid the fixed mindset trap of only focusing on successful outcomes. A purely results driven business risks losing the fertile learning ground that’s contained within both successes and failures. Results matter but learning from the process that your team is constantly engaged in is just as important if you want to create an innovative, agile and resilient culture. Ask your team, what did you learn from the process?

4. Ask your team …where is the challenge?

Invite people out of their comfort zones by asking them to constantly choose and immerse themselves in new challenge. A fixed mindset approach encourages us to stick with that which we’re confident we can achieve and a fear of failure prevents us from breaking free from this limiting approach. In contrast, a growth mindset enables us to take on new challenges wholeheartedly, taking failures in our stride as we relish the new opportunities that a challenge can bring.

5. Encourage a culture of development rather than genius

Carol Dweck’s research has shown that organisation’s who worship a culture of genius rather than development can become places where the majority of employees feel undervalued, disengaged and unsupported. When you encourage a development culture research shows your team is more likely to feel committed, engaged, supported and more able to take on innovative and challenging tasks.

6. Make sure you don’t just talk the growth mindset

At PCG we sometimes hear people in organisations complaining that although leaders talk about growth mindset they do little to embody it. Let your people know that you’re serious about developing as a growth mindset team by talking and walking a growth mindset. Lead by example and talk your team through how you’ve overcome setbacks, dealt with failures and challenged yourself to develop skills and abilities.

7. Encourage reasonable risk

In fixed mindset organisations innovation can be stifled because people resist taking risks for fear of being blamed when things go wrong. Encourage your team to take on acceptable risk in order to support them in developing new strengths and skills.

8. Emphasise that errors are the route to mastery

A growth mindset team understands the need to embrace failure as part of the route to success. When a team member talks about their failures and tells you, “I can’t do this” encourage them to add “yet.” Encourage your team to embrace failure and learn from it by explaining that real mastery is impossible without encountering and surmounting failures.

9. Growth mindset teams ask…who are you collaborating with, who are you mentoring?

In growth mindset teams people share information across teams and networks and support each other to achieve the organisation’s goals. Mentoring and collaboration can spark innovation, improve performance and increase organisational resilience when the going gets tough. Regularly ask your team to share who they are mentoring or collaborating with and how this has benefited them, the team and the organisation.

10. Look for your fixed mindset triggers and encourage others to do the same

The first step to develop a growth mindset team is to recognise what triggers our fixed mindset responses. Learn to listen out for your own fixed mindset triggers and encourage others to do the same by monitoring your inner dialogue and emotional responses.

We love to talk about all things growth mindset at Positive Change Guru. Check out our forthcoming events or get in touch to find out more about our suite of courses and discuss bespoke growth mindset training for your organisation.

10 Ways to Manage a Fixed Mindset Manager

July 22, 2016 by Viv Thackray Leave a Comment

How do you manage a fixed mindset manager?

At PCG we’re often asked to speak to businesses about how they can develop into a growth mindset organisation, during these sessions the PCG team is invariably asked “But how can you implement a growth mindset effectively when your manager has a fixed mindset?” It’s a question that will resonate with many professionals. To help you navigate professional relationships with a growth mindset approach we’ve put together a toolkit of ten ways you can manage a fixed mindset manager.

Be strategic. In many organisations, it’s often the case that people are promoted to management positions without any training on how to develop effective leadership and management techniques. It may be the case that your manager knows little about growth mindset and the benefits that it can have for not only themselves, but also the team and organisational performance but how do you enlighten them without appearing critical? Be strategic and think about what really ignites your manager’s passions, are they a sports fan, fanatical about racing cars or a science junky? Look for examples of a growth mindset approach that will resonate with them. Maybe they’re a David Beckham fan? Tell them how his family describes how he practised for thousands of hours as a child, kicking the ball at a goal painted on a wall and as his skills improved he would move his striking position further and further away from the goal. Perhaps your manager is a basketball fan? Weave the words of Michael Jordan’s coach into the conversation and explain how he always describes Jordan as not the most talented player on the team but what did make him stand out from the crowd was his dedication, when the rest of the team had finished practising for the day, Jordan would stay behind and persevere with practice for hours after his team mates had left.
Talk about growth mindset culture in other organisations.Use conversations about the success of other organisations as an opportunity to include snippets of information on the growth mindset approach and how these organisations have used a growth mindset to their competitive advantage. Talk about companies like Google and Quest and the programs they implement to encourage a growth mindset.
Link a growth mindset to the bottom line. You’re manager tells you, “this growth mindset fad is fine but it’s the bottom line that counts.” Tell your manager how astute they are and then point out that Carol Dweck, the Stanford professor responsible for the international bestseller ‘Mindset: the new psychology of Success’, has addressed this very question, Dweck explains that whenever we apply a growth mindset approach outcomes undoubtedly matter. If effort is unproductive we need to examine how we can more deeply engage in the process perhaps by seeking help from others, trying new strategies or capitalising on setbacks to propel us forwards. Dweck recommends paying equal attention to learning and progress, as well as rewarding effort, which people often more readily associate with encouraging a growth mindset. As Dweck says, growth mindset is indeed linked to the bottom line.
Explain mindset is a spectrum and discuss your own fixed mindset triggers. You’re manager explains “I’ve always had a 100% growth mindset, that’s why I’m so successful.” The next time growth mindset comes up in conversation, tell your manager that you’ve recently read an interesting article on false growth mindset. Without reminding your manager abut their claim to possess a 100% growth mindset, explain how mindset is a spectrum and although we might make a conscious effort to adopt a growth mindset approach, there will always be certain triggers, that can elicit a fixed mindset approach. Explain how you monitor your own thoughts to try and capture what triggers a fixed mindset for you at work and mention what you’ve done to successfully overcome your fixed mindset triggers.
Describe how a growth mindset has contributed to team success. Take a growth mindset approach to the situation and focus on highlighting all the effective ways in which your team tackles challenges with a growth mindset. Whenever you’re talking to your manager about the great work your team has been doing, make sure that you frame your comments to include the positive effects a growth mindset approach has had on motivation, perseverance and positive results in your team.
Inspire your team to work across the organisation, sharing their skills and expertise for organisational success. Encourage your team to promote the benefits of a growth mindset approach when working with others, when there are more workers enthusiastically applying a growth mindset to the organisation’s vision and goals it becomes harder for those with a fixed mindset approach towards their work to ignore the message.
Encourage others to share growth mindset strategies and success stories. Foster wider growth mindset habits within the organisation by encouraging other teams to swap growth mindset strategies, ideas, information and success stories. Make sure that your manager is kept in the loop of this growth mindset exercise.
Emphasise perseverance. When your manager compliments you on the great results and outcomes that your team has achieved make sure you highlight the effort, hard work and perseverance that contributed to the team’s fantastic outcomes.
Expose your manager to a growth mindset at every opportunity. Whenever you watch a video, read a great article, or hear of another business that is working towards becoming a growth mindset organisation, share the information with your manager and if you have time, summarise the contents to expose them to more and more growth mindset information. When your manager realises that so many other businesses see the benefits of a growth mindset, they may start to shift their position and approach.
Maintain a growth mindset towards your manager. Finally, it may sound obvious, but maintain a growth mindset towards your fixed mindset manager! Just because they hold a predominantly fixed mindset towards their role it doesn’t mean that this will always be the case. There are plenty of examples of people who once approached their job, their education, their beliefs about intelligence (including Carol Dweck) or their relationships in a fixed mindset way, only to realise that they could improve their approach and their outcomes by adopting a growth mindset.

Are you a growth mindset leader?

July 11, 2016 by Viv Thackray Leave a Comment

What growth mindset leaders know about failure

Great leaders understand that to really excel and inspire effort and achievement in others, a growth mindset towards failure is essential. Carol Dweck, psychology professor at Stanford University, first realised that not all attitudes towards failure are the same whilst studying children’s reactions to complex puzzles. Whilst some children would resist being presented with the more challenging demands of a complex puzzle, other children would delight in the challenge, relishing the opportunity to flex their problem solving skills and learn something new.

Dweck’s bestseller, ‘Mindset: the psychology of success’ termed the belief that talent and abilities are innate and more or less set, as a ‘fixed mindset’, whereas a belief that, with effort and perseverance, ability and talent can be developed is described by Dweck as a ‘growth mindset.’ Dweck’s realisation that, to some, challenge and failure are an opportunity, has led to more than four decades of research and discovery on the subject of mindset. Growth mindset leadership is a growing area of interest for leaders who want to excel at getting the best from their teams.

Do great leaders focus on themselves or others?
Rather than constantly ensuring that the spotlight shines only in their own direction, great leaders know that focusing on how they can support others and lead them towards a growth mindset is key to organisational success. Growth mindset leaders don’t believe that talent and ability are fixed but that with effort, abilities and skills can be nurtured, encouraged and developed. Great leaders actively seek ways to encourage and motivate others to regard effort as a route to mastery. Leaders who foster a growth mindset within their organisation realise that the rewards reaped by their approach will naturally reflect their own growth mindset leadership skills.

How can growth mindset leadership bring out the best in others?
Great leaders encourage their reports to flex their problem solving abilities by promoting appropriate risk taking which in turn, fosters innovation and creativity. Ensuring that teams understand that failure is part of the process that guarantees deeper learning and improved performance guarantees that individuals and teams know that they’re safe to stretch their skills and abilities by taking on challenging tasks and projects without fear of the repercussions of failure.

Growth mindset leaders are explicit with the message that harnessing failure can be a recipe for success. They encourage their people to acknowledge effort and

examine what went wrong when goals are not achieved,
encourage their reports to ask how can things be done differently in future.
Ask, how have doubts and challenge been overcome in the past and how can such past experiences be applied to current challenges and setbacks?

Growth mindset leaders lead by example
An authentic leadership style that demonstrates the ability to walk the talk is an essential part of fostering a growth mindset in any business organisation. Growth mindset leaders demonstrate that a love of challenge, an appreciation of effort and a willingness to collaborate and grow are key requirements for success.

It’s not enough for leaders to merely espouse a growth mindset approach, they need to actively demonstrate a growth mindset in everything that they say and do, from setting out a vision for success to the way in which they interact with their people. A truly growth mindset leader will consistently see potential in those that they lead and provide multiple opportunities to foster and develop an organisational culture that prizes effort and perseverance, as well as results, in order to achieve excellence.

Take the PCG Growth Mindset Leadership Test to find out if you’re a growth mindset leader that others want to follow.

How to Create a Growth Mindset Organisation Part 2

June 22, 2016 by Viv Thackray Leave a Comment

How to create a growth mindset organisation for success

More and more of the organisations that Positive Change Guru works with are realising that a growth mindset is an essential element of success. Leaders are seeking to create and develop an innovative, agile and resilient workforce. Many companies are also focusing their attention on mindset at recruitment stage, recognising that people who are enthusiastic, willing to fail and open to learning and improving through such failures make great employees. In Part 2 of our series on creating growth mindset organisations, we look at why so many companies are turning their attention to organisational growth mindset.

Inspire and motivate with a growth mindset

Want to create a platform for competitive advantage in your team? Studies show that employees evaluated their growth mindset managers as being better at coaching and developing their skills than fixed mindset managers. Growth mindset managers were also more data driven, less likely to fixate on poor past performance and better at spotting performance improvement in the individuals they managed.

Encourage innovation with growth mindset feedback

What impact do your words have on those around you? Do you adopt a growth mindset and encourage others to learn, develop and adapt? If not, you can improve the quality of your interactions by communicating a growth mindset when giving feedback.

Research shows that when people have their performance compared to that of others they are more likely to adopt a fixed mindset, assuming that the purpose of comparison was to show how good they were. When a person’s current performance was compared with their past performance they were more likely to adopt a growth mindset, believing that the purpose of the exercise was to help them improve. Studies show that not only did performance improve for these people but they were also better at finding the best solution to the project they were working on.

5 Tips and tricks to create a growth mindset in your organisation

Praise the process. Remember to praise the process of teamwork, taking on manageable risk and learning from failure. By analysing and understanding errors your team will be in a stronger position to adapt to future challenges and improve performance. Highlight progress and effort by comparing a person’s current and past performance rather than comparing them to others when providing feedback.
Promote reasonable risk. Carve out time and resources for improving individual and team performance. Encourage innovation and experimentation, adopting a growth mindset approach to the possibility of risk and failure.
Master the aspects of your business you avoid. Don’t avoid areas of your business that feel less than easy to master. Making a commitment to wholeheartedly engage with challenging tasks allows individuals and teams to develop new skills and abilities. Neurologist, Dr. Harry Chugani, describes the synaptic connections which occur in the brain during the learning process as being similar to roads. Chugani explains, “Roads with the most traffic get widened. The ones that are rarely used fall into disrepair” (Linley, 2007). Keep your neutrons firing to develop new skills. New or difficult tasks are an opportunity to develop new skills and build new synaptic connections, with practice both will strengthen and improve performance.
Share growth mindset success stories. Make time to acknowledge growth mindset team and organisational practices. Recognise the hard work,strategies and processes that have enabled your team to learn new skills or excel at a new project. Encourage your team to share growth mindset practices across the organisation.
Guard against fixed mindset triggers. Even when you work hard to develop a growth mindset business, it’s still possible to be tripped up by your own fixed mindset triggers. A fixed mindset trigger might be evident when we face criticism, are unfavourably compared with others or face a challenge, if we fall into defensiveness behaviour or insecurity then a growth mindset will be inhibited. Inevitably, some business environments can be full of such fixed mindset triggers.Guard against fixed mindset triggers in your business by focusing on being aware of when your fixed-mindset ‘persona’ shows up and then identifying what it takes to make you feel threatened and defensive. Develop a growth mindset approach by spotting your triggers, identifying the fixed-mindset persona for what it is and learn to talk back to the persona with a growth mindset voice, persuading it to work towards the new growth mindset effectively.

Learn more about mindset here:

How to Create a Growth Mindset Organisation Part 1

May 18, 2016 by Viv Thackray Leave a Comment

How to create a growth mindset organisation for success

More and more of the organisations that PCG works with realise that a growth mindset is essential for developing an innovative, resilient and successful business. Increasingly, companies are also focusing their attention on mindset at recruitment stage, recognising that people who are enthusiastic, willing to fail and open to learning and improving through such failures make great employees. In Part 1 of our series on creating growth mindset organisations, we look at why so many companies are turning their attention towards becoming a growth mindset organisation. [Read more…]