[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to grow the reach, revenue, and impact of your learning business, you're in the right place.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Celisa Steele.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Jeff Cobb, and this is The Leading Learning Podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Both the concept of Mindset and Carol Dweck's book titled Mindset continued to influence how we think about learning, leadership, and performance.
[SPEAKER_01]: This episode number 468 is an on-core airing of an episode from our archives in which Jeff and I dig into the distinction between fixed and growth mindsets.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we explore how those mindsets shape the ways adults approach challenge and change, and we connect DoX research directly to the work of learning businesses.
[SPEAKER_00]: Originally released in May 2019, we think the conversation remains highly relevant as organizations deal with uncertainty, look to cultivate innovation, and work to foster the development of resilient adaptive learners.
[SPEAKER_00]: We hope you enjoy this revisit to mindset, capital M and lower KSM.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jeff, here's a statement for you to consider.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can learn new things, but you can't really change how intelligent you are.
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you say you mostly agree or disagree with that statement?
[SPEAKER_00]: I would have to mostly disagree with that statement.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there are probably limits, but I also think that intelligence is much more malleable than we tend to appreciate or acknowledge, or maybe I'm just being hopeful about my own intelligence.
[SPEAKER_01]: OK, well, here's another statement.
[SPEAKER_01]: No matter what kind of person you are, you can always change substantially.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mostly agree or mostly disagree.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, that one I infatically agree with.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you can definitely change the kind of person you are substantially, primarily through learning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Jeff, as you know, those statements that I just asked about appear in the book mindset published by Dr. Carol Dweck in 2007.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're going to devote this episode to talking about mindset with a capital M as in the book and mindset little M as in the idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we thought, why not go with a question and answer format for the episode?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why not indeed?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the first question will address is simply what is mindset?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Dweck's research and work have become well-known in the dozen years since mindset came out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I'm guessing many listeners are familiar with the term mindset.
[SPEAKER_01]: And even if it happens to be a new term, it's actually, I think, pretty self-explanatory.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mindset is the frame of mind, the perspective, that we bring to anything we do or experience in life, whether that's something on the job at home, something professionally, something socially, something intellectually.
[SPEAKER_00]: And listeners might also know that Dweck says there are two mindsets.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fixed mindset and the growth mindset.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have a fixed mindset, you believe your qualities are carved in stone.
[SPEAKER_00]: A growth mindset on the other hand is founded on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in other words, the growth mindset believes intelligence can be developed and the fixed mindset believes intelligence is static.
[SPEAKER_01]: To talk a bit about how those mindsets play out, let's circle back to those statements that I asked about at the very beginning of the episode, Jeff, do I use those statements as a way for individuals to self-assess their own mindset?
[SPEAKER_01]: So that first statement, you can learn new things, but you can't really change how intelligent you are.
[SPEAKER_01]: That conforms to a fixed mindset.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, and the other statement you asked me about, no matter what kind of person you are, you can always change substantially, that reflects a growth mindset.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now that we've covered what mindset is, let's move on to question number two.
[SPEAKER_00]: How does mindset relate to learning?
[SPEAKER_01]: Growth mindset ties directly to learning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I curse all rights?
[SPEAKER_01]: The belief that cherished qualities can be developed creates a passion for learning.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is, if you believe you can change and always change substantially and that your own efforts make that change possible, you're going to embrace the potential of learning.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it seems that those of us who work in learning businesses should, by default, embrace the growth mindset.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet,
[SPEAKER_00]: and yet that doesn't always happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's important to recognize that we bring different mindsets to different circumstances.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something I wrote about in ten ways to be a better learner and that I continually see in myself and in others is that we may have a growth mindset in many areas of our lives, maybe even most areas, and yet be stymied by a fixed mindset in others.
[SPEAKER_01]: I see that in myself and in others as well, and Duac makes the point that as individuals were usually not entirely of the fixed mindset or entirely of the growth mindset.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I might have a growth mindset about my ability in a sport.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I might think I can practice tennis and I can get better.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I might have a fixed mindset about my ability with music.
[SPEAKER_01]: I might tell myself there's no way I can learn to play the violin at this point in my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you can, I think you can, because, you know, one key to becoming a better learner is to fair it out, those fixed mindset areas, and where appropriate, replace them with a growth mindset.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's common for both learning business professionals and learning businesses to feel, for example, that they have a growth mindset as relates to creating effective education.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's something they feel confident about.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can always improve there and do a good job at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And no real capacity for growth when it comes to something like marketing, which of course is so essential for success as a learning business.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I think there's another variation of this kind of mixed mind sets, and that's that we may have a fixed mindset about our own ability in some area, but have a growth mindset for others in that area.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, again, to use that violin example, I might think it's too late for me to take up the violin, but I might believe that my kids can learn any musical instrument they want as long as they just put in the time in the effort.
[SPEAKER_00]: And those of us working in learning businesses, we may judge our own abilities differently, then those of the learners and customers that we serve.
[SPEAKER_00]: We might embrace, for example, the almost limitless possibilities of learning that growth mindset, but then think that our learners are just never going to get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not going to understand that concept and embrace that growth mindset.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe it's vice versa that the learners that they can do anything, if they'll just engage with those learning experiences we're creating for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then at the same time, we're thinking it's impossible to ramp up our learning business in new areas and to achieve the growth we like to with our learning business.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so as we're beginning to tease out here, you know, mindset applies to A, us as individuals, you know, to ourselves, B to the learners that we serve and C to our learning businesses and entities.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we want to talk about each of those groups, A, B, and C. And so our next three
[SPEAKER_00]: how does mindset impact us personally?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we've begun to address this mindset has really huge ramifications, because it's the backdrop for really everything that we do.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the backdrop for how we engage with others, for how we learn, for what we choose to learn.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's worth adding that the growth mindset does come with a kind of perseverance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Duac writes, the passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it even, or especially, when it's not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think that's critical.
[SPEAKER_01]: The two mindsets see challenge risk and effort very differently.
[SPEAKER_01]: The growth mindset embraces challenge and effort and sees failure as an opportunity to learn and an opportunity to improve.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fixed mindset on the other hand sees challenge and effort as dangerous, you know, if intelligence or
[SPEAKER_01]: social skills or whatever ability is fixed, then working hard for something is a sign of inferiority.
[SPEAKER_01]: The logic of the fixed mindset is if you're good at it, it should come naturally effortlessly immediately.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the fixed mindset sees failure as forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you have a fixed mindset and you fail at something, then you're bad at that thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So definitely offer a whole lot of opportunities for recovering.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's versus a much more generous viewpoint from the growth mindset that you know, if you fail, you just did.
[SPEAKER_00]: that thing badly that one time, and of course you're going to be able to bounce back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, this view of setbacks is really just, it's so important because we know that challenge and effort are important aspects of learning.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're fundamental to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think of the concept of effortful retrieval, for example.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: An effortful retrieval.
[SPEAKER_01]: That makes me think of make it stick, the science of successful learning that book.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and those authors mentioned more than once, in fact, it does in times throughout the book, because they recognize how important mindset is to successful learning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, in fact, we'll be sure to link to an episode we did with Peter C. Brown, who is one of the co-authors of Make It Stick, and definitely go check that out.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in the meantime, let's move on to the fourth question, which is, how does mindset impact the learners you serve?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, first and foremost, I think mindset impacts the learners we serve in the same way that it impacts us.
[SPEAKER_01]: That means mindset determines the attitude that learners bring to a learning experience and the learners mindset plays a huge part in how effective any learning experience can be.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's important to recognize that mindset is not going to be even across groups of learners we serve.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, some learners will come with a growth mindset.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to show up to your programs with that growth mindset, but others are going to show up with that fixed mindset.
[SPEAKER_00]: And really, this has a dimension to the concept of prior knowledge that Malcolm Nulls pointed out so many years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only do learners come to our offerings with
[SPEAKER_00]: different levels of expertise and experience on the subject matter so that differing prior knowledge, but they also bring those different mindsets.
[SPEAKER_01]: which has another layer to teaching a mace at extra tricky.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the good news is that people can be put into a growth mindset.
[SPEAKER_01]: And doing that, putting your learners in the growth mindset strikes me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think probably you two Jeff has a potentially really powerful tool for learning businesses.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's talk a little bit about how we might put learners in a growth mindset.
[SPEAKER_00]: definitely.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, here's some some pretty simple ideas.
[SPEAKER_00]: One is to tell learners just say to them that whatever they're about to study can be learned and emphasize that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then also emphasize that the learning experience you're offering is going to give them the chance to learn it.
[SPEAKER_01]: kind of a related approach, maybe going slightly deeper, is to give the learners an article.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that Dweck ran tests where she gave research subjects a scientific article that describes people who didn't have natural ability but developed exceptional skills.
[SPEAKER_01]: And just reading that article was enough to put her research subjects into a growth mindset for at least a period of time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we can do something like that, give them an article to read.
[SPEAKER_01]: put learners in the growth mindset through the messages that we send, and I'm thinking of things like setting rules and norms that often happens at the beginning of an instructor-led or facilitated experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you might have the instructor or facilitator stress that effort and contribution or what they're looking for from the learners and that they value that effort in contribution above the learner being right or doing something quickly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, definitely.
[SPEAKER_00]: That kind of upfront work reminds me of Robert Chaldini, and what he and I talked about in terms of pre-swagion in the learning context.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had an episode with Bob, a while back, we'll be sure to link to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we discussed there that just putting a question like, do you consider yourself a committed learner?
[SPEAKER_00]: on a slide before the start of a conference session.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's just, it's up in the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's where people can see it is are coming into the session.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just doing that can presway those people in the room to think of themselves as life-long learners and better prime them for the learning experience that they're about to engage and make them more receptive to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you could further refine that slide to put those people in the room into a real growth mindset by basically borrowing duetx question and putting something up there like, do you believe no matter what kind of person you are that you can always change substantially
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, there's something like that to further prime them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in any case, a simple approach to getting people into that growth mindset in a learning experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, and so those are great ways to prime and pre-swead.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then of course you have to make sure that you keep that growth mindset front and center as you actually head into the learning experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so one aspect that I'm thinking of, for example,
[SPEAKER_01]: a tricky area or can be a tricky area and because one thing you need to do is that make sure that the feedback you want to stress and praise learners effort and the process that they go through to do something versus judging the learners talent or intelligence.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you have to be careful about how you give that feedback and what you're stressing in the feedback.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I mentioned facilitators and instructors when I was giving an example earlier, but I want to note that these approaches could of course apply to asynchronous online courses too.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to have a human delivering this growth mindset.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jeff, the example you gave a slide, there's no human involved there.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just up there.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it could be easily the, you know, just having text and audio and an e-learning course as long as what it's conveying is that growth mindset.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we should say there's a word of caution here just as we can put people in a growth mindset.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can also put them in a fixed mindset.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we do have to be careful.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to make sure that those who are designing and delivering learning experiences know.
[SPEAKER_00]: about the mindsets and understand what triggers them, you know, something that you want to discuss, particularly with your subject matter experts, if you're using those volunteer SMEs, for example, to deliver sessions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Make sure they understand this concept, and make sure they understand that, for example, they need to know that labels.
[SPEAKER_00]: can trigger the fixed mindset.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even positive labels can do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So calling someone smart equates that person with their achievement or performance.
[SPEAKER_00]: To prompt a growth mindset, you want to label it a little bit differently.
[SPEAKER_00]: You want to praise effort or way of thinking, saying that was a smart way to think about that problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's very different from simply saying, you're smart.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and on the label front, you said, even positive labels can do negative work, and sometimes labels that just seem innocuous or just seem sort of fact-based, direct points out that those can have a negative effect.
[SPEAKER_01]: She sites research that shows that just checking a box to indicate race or sex can trigger a stereotype in the learner's mind and lower test scores.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's just,
[SPEAKER_01]: important to think about whenever you're asking someone to identify themselves to label themselves whenever you're labeling them, that can have an impact on the learner.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so just keeping that in mind and being sensitive to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of this can feed into bias and Jeff, I know you got to talk with Howard and Shilpa about bias, so we should link to that episode in the show notes as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think Howard Ross may actually cite the same research in his book every day by us, but it definitely with Howard Ross and Shoupa, Alamachandani.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had a great episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's still one of the most popular ranking episodes and the people in the right rail of the leading learning site has been one of the most shared, very powerful episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: And definitely connects into mindset in so many different ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: And with that, we come to our penultimate question, which is, how does mindset impact our learning businesses?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that there is a very important way that mindset connects into learning businesses, connects into our learning business maturity model, because it
[SPEAKER_00]: directly impacts one of the domains in that model which is capacity.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how we perceive the capacity of our learning business and how we cultivate that capacity as leaders is also connected to the leadership domain of the learning business maturity model because as leaders we have the ability to influence the mindset of those who follow us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's going to
[SPEAKER_00]: influence capacity and is going to influence our ability to cultivate capacity, so it's really, really critical.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and that point you made about impacting leadership, do what herself, dedicates a chapter to business, mindset, and leadership, and probably no big surprise, listeners, do what finds that good leaders have a growth mindset, usually.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that the fixed mindset actually tends to be toxic.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is where you have those companies with the kind of the big ego CEOs that tend to shut down feedback and ideas and innovation from those who serve under them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, definitely.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in another way, this kind of links back to capacity and we've done episodes on the learning business maturity model before and talked about these domains like capacity and leadership.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we'll definitely be sure to link to those.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, we're going to have some very rich show notes for this episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: So definitely do go and check those out.
[SPEAKER_00]: But another danger of a fixed mindset and an organization is that it tends to encourage group think.
[SPEAKER_00]: and then that of course deprives the organization of the diversity of opinions and views that often yields insight into the market and also just the ability to solve the problems are come up with the innovations that are going to take your learning business forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you can self-assess at the organizational level.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just as we opened today's episode with a couple of questions that help you gauge your own mindset, you can ask questions about your organization to get a feeling for the overall mindset there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you might ask things like, how do you act towards others in your workplace?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you believe that they can change?
[SPEAKER_01]: How do others act towards you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do they believe that you can change?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's incredibly important.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think so many times we come across organizations where there is a pervasive fixed mindset in many ways there's not the belief in the organization that they can achieve what they want to achieve as an organization.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's almost an issue and we may just need to do a whole episode on this at some point, but it's an issue of low organizational self esteem because they're stuck in that fixed mindset when they really need to be tapping the growth mindset.
[SPEAKER_00]: So incredibly, incredibly important.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for now, let's turn to our final question, and that is, what takeaways do we want to emphasize?
[SPEAKER_00]: And that might be kind of a cheat question, but it's one that allows us to start wrapping up.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'll emphasize that the growth mind set doesn't equal learning.
[SPEAKER_01]: And by the same token, a fixed mindset doesn't mean no learning.
[SPEAKER_01]: But a growth mindset does increase the odds that learning will happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a growth mindset increases the odds that that learning will stick.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll emphasize that mindset impacts multiple levels of what we do, how we act as learning businesses, that embracing a growth mindset is good for our learners.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, so they're gonna really get the impact out of the learning experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's good for our learning businesses.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about that concept of capacity there and really impacting the capacity of the business.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then for us, as learning business professionals and especially in our work as leaders of learning mindset is just so important.
[SPEAKER_00]: that wraps up this uncor airing of our episode on Mindset.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks again and see you next time on the Leading Learning Podcast.