Why Create a Growth Mindset in the Workplace?
New employees face a steep learning curve, so the risks associated with the onboarding process are magnified when new hires don’t have the right learning mindset. When you understand this and how to identify the mindsets of new hires, you can help them fit in and thrive faster – for their benefit and the good of the company.
What are the learning mindsets?
A fixed mindset is when employees believe that they aren’t capable of improving on or learning new skills. It’s a feeling of hopelessness that “this is as good as it gets”.
A growth mindset is an internal acknowledgement by employees that their aptitudes may not be at the right level yet, but they are willing to invest the time and effort to improve.
It’s clear that encouraging a growth mindset in the workplace is the right direction to take.
How to encourage a growth mindset in the workplace
There are five clear markers of a growth mindset according to Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology for Success. These show up in employees willing to:
- Embrace challenges
- Persist despite setbacks
- View effort as the path to mastery
- Learn from constructive criticism
- Find inspiration in the success of others
So you should encourage new hires to adopt this approach by building time for self-reflection into an employee onboarding process. They should analyse if these are true for them and pinpoint where their mindset could improve.
Expanding on the growth mindset with the Kaizen Loop
So, if your new hires have adopted a growth mindset and learned to use the business systems to the level they must, what’s next?
Similar to a growth mindset is the strategy known as the Kaizen Continual Loop of Mastery. Kaizen is the Japanese word for improvement, and so when there’s a workplace culture of continuous improvement, the level of cooperation soars for the benefit of the organisation as a whole. This means, by encouraging your employees to think beyond baseline skills, they should always look to the next logical step and challenge themselves to a new height of mastery.
************
Greg Weiss is Australia’s Leading Career Coach. He is the author of “So You Got The Job! WTF Is Next?”. The book prescribes a proven, practical 7-step framework for new employees so they succeed, rather than fail their probation periods and beyond. Find out more about the book at https://www.wtfisnext.wtf/
He is the Founder and Director of Onboff an online training and coaching platform that helps HR specialists, coaches and recruiters to deliver exceptional onboarding and offboarding experiences for employees.
He also hosts The Keep: The Employee Experience podcast and runs CareerSupport365.
