Blog: How to adopt a growth mindset

Culture

How to adopt a growth mindset

What happens when you follow a fixed path and dont create a dynamic approach in your lifes challenges? Why is it necessary to keep on reinventing yourself?
How to adopt a growth mindset

Fallouts of not having a growth mindset

Jacob is a post-graduate from IIN Behmedabad and has also been awarded with a gold medal for his outstanding performance during his post-graduation. He is hired by J M Porgan, one of the leading MNC banks in the world, in their Customer Service department. Jacob is excited about his placements and is looking forward to implementing the learnings in the day-to-day activities.

Jacob joins the bank in June 2001 as Manager, Customer Service in their India Headquarters based at Mumbai. The magnificent building spread over100 acres of land and adorned by lush green landscape enthralled Jacob on his first day of entrance to the corporate world. This gave him a realization that he is at the right place and has to continuously perform for reaching the pinnacle. 

Jacob is a meticulous employee with an eye for details. He is very energetic in his approach and performs the tasks with utmost perfection and sincerity. He always backs the results with data and deduces multiple references out of data available. This has helped him achieve multiple milestones in his life and reach new heights in his current as well as previous roles.

It’s June 2010 and J M Porgan has acquired a small financial institution (ABC Ltd.) in India to spread its wings in the area of insurance and brokerage. The take-over completes smoothly and now is the time to run the show. 

The CEO of J M Porgan, Mr. Smith, calls Jacob in his cabin in the presence of Senior Executives and breaks the news:

Mr. Smith:“Hi Jacob! How are you?”

Jacob: “I am good, Sir. How are you?”

Mr Smith: “All is fine. I would like to break the silence by announcing that the board has decided to entrust you with the new role as CEO, ABC Ltd.,w.e.f. 1st July 2010.”

Jacob: “Thank you so much for the opportunity Sir! I will surely meet the expectations.”

The room is filled with the sound of claps, applauses and congratulations. 

Just to give a brief that ABC Ltd. was bought by J M Porgan when it was in its decline stage. It was in its doldrums, singing melancholy when J M Porgan decided to take it over and convert that melancholy into a sweet baritone!

Today is September 2010. Jacob has already joined ABC Ltd. and has spent 2 months in his current role. The responsibility of Jacob and his team was to resuscitate ABC Ltd. with his innovative ideas and bring ABC Ltd. back in competition.

This was one of the most challenging tasks for Jacob till date. So far, he was accustomed towork within pre-set structures and procedures. He never worked under such an uncertain terrain where he had to manage risks through self-analysis and action. Throughout his career, he was heavily dependent on data for deducing inferences and results. Jacob actually understood customer data but never tried to understand customer empathy. In his career span, he could not get the opportunity to widen his horizon and build a broad repertoire. 

This resulted in an unmanageable situation for Jacob, where he could not perform according to the expectations of senior management. Senior management realized his problems instruggling with unknown &unexpected areas and took a decision to move him back to the previous role. 

According to the science of design thinking, Jacob possessed a “fixed mindset”. This might help an individual when the things are structured and well-placed, but in the current VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) world, many a times managers fail with a fixed mindset. 

Then what should managers do?

In the current context, it’s essential that all of us follow the “Growth Mindset” and combat the uncertainty with value creation.

A person with a growth mindset:

  1. Is open to new learning: A person with a growth mindset is always open for new opportunities and look forward to learn from them. S/he takes the new challenges as new avenues for learning and in turn, increasing the knowledge base.

  2. Loves uncertainties: They take the opportunities as and when theycome and combat them with a proper action plan. Uncertainties never demotivate them in taking any action.

  3. Growth and only growth: They always seek new experiences & multiple growth opportunities in personal as well as professional life. People with a growth mindset are aware of the fact that in personal as well as professional life, new experiences will add special flavor and hence they are keen to grab them!

  4. Builds a broad repertoire through customer empathy: People with growth mindset value “customer empathy” and always put themselves in customer’s place before taking any action. This helps them understanding the problem better and in turn coming up with better solutions. They also create a broad repertoire through various interactions and experiences which help them grow in life.

  5. Life’s Mantra - Succeed: Most of the times people with growth mindset conquer the problems and succeed in life. This is because of the inherent capability of understanding the problems better and equipping themselves with all the armors to combat!


Which mindset do you have? 

Feel free to share your viewpoints in the comment sections below.

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Topics: Culture, Life @ Work

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