Man smiling next to building blocks pointing upwards

How to foster a growth mindset in a rapidly growing organization

We’ll explore how you can foster a growth mindset at your organization through collaboration, training, and continuous reinforcement.

Mike Jeavons, Content Writer

2023-07-21

Encouraging employees to develop a growth mindset is essential for any forward-thinking company. Your organization may provide learning materials, resources, and personalized PDPs for your employees, but that isn’t where your responsibilities as an employer end. To take engagement to the next level and ensure your business continues to grow, you must encourage employees to have a growth mindset.

A growth mindset, a term coined by psychologist Professor Carol Dweck in 2006, is the belief that you can use hard work, strategies, and guidance to grow and develop. Having a growth mindset encourages employees to proactively pursue growth through dedication and commitment, and not allow setbacks to get in the way of progress.

Encouraging employees to follow this method ensures sustained growth and continued success in a rapidly changing business landscape. With this in mind, we’ll explore how you can foster a growth mindset at your organization through collaboration, training, and continuous reinforcement.

Understanding the power of a growth mindset at work

It’s important to understand the power of adopting a growth mindset to see how it can benefit your organization. To do this, consider how learning and development suffers when employees don’t have a growth mindset:

A lack of engagement
A lack of retention
Additional pressure and stress
A greater risk of burnout
Allowing problems or setbacks to become blockers

With a growth mindset, employees approach learning and development with more enthusiasm, which can prevent such issues from materializing. When employees put effort and perseverance into their development, they’re more likely to have positive outcomes.

Pull quote with the text: When employees put effort and perseverance into their development, they're more likely to have positive outcomes

Not only this, but adopting a growth mindset also has additional benefits:

Allows your business to be agile and adapt to industry changes
Ensures a greater level of flexibility
Encourages problem-solving and resilience
Builds a culture of continuous learning in your organization
Rewards innovation and creativity
Encourages more collaboration and communication
Helps develop your leadership team

For example, Apple, Microsoft, and Bloomberg are just three major organizations that have successfully built a growth mindset in their workforces. To learn more, check out our podcast on the neuroscience behind a fixed vs growth mindset.

Nurturing a growth mindset in your employees

Now that you know the benefits of a growth mindset, the question becomes: how can you develop a growth mindset at work? Consider the following steps to encourage your employees to make this positive change:

Employees should be encouraged to reflect on the skills and knowledge they lack.
Senior leaders should adopt a growth mindset to set an example for others across the business.
Encourage employees to step out of their comfort zone and challenge themselves. When employees face challenges, they’re more likely to seek ways to grow and learn.
Reward and celebrate successes, no matter how small.
Don’t have a negative attitude towards failure. Instead, offer support and guidance to employees who struggle.
Offer a variety of opportunities to learn, such as through online courses, in-person sessions, and collaborative learning.
Creating personalized learning plans that are specific to each employee. Check out our post on personalized learning at scale for more information.
Set meaningful and achievable goals.
Embrace micro-learning.
Encourage feedback from across the organization.
Introduce gamification to add a fun and competitive element to learning.
Help employees by offering training on persistence and resilience.
Set achievable, transparent, and trackable goals.

Encouraging a culture of collaboration and innovation

There is a close connection between collaboration, innovation, and developing a growth mindset. For example, with a growth mindset, employees are more likely to be open to new ideas, be happy to accept feedback, and be more receptive to suggestions.

Pull quote with the text: With a growth mindset, employees are more likely to be open to new ideas, be happy to accept feedback, and be morereceptive to suggestions

The same also works in reverse. Encouraging collaboration and innovation can attract employees to a growth mindset.

Of course, with innovation comes risk, and with risk comes the possibility of failure. However, as we’ve highlighted, failure shouldn’t be viewed negatively, as doing so will prevent future growth opportunities. Instead, learning from failures is a key part of fostering a growth mindset.

As such, you should encourage experimentation and creative problem-solving. Not only will this lead to more success, but also increase how employees learn and develop.

Sustaining a growth mindset through continuous reinforcement

Encouraging your employees to adopt a growth mindset is just the beginning. Getting them to sustain that mindset indefinitely can be another challenge altogether. Doing this requires continuous reinforcement so employees recognize and understand the importance of development.

A part of adopting a growth mindset is employees changing how they feel and behave about learning. It could be something small and simple, like putting their phone in another room so they can focus, or something large, such as overcoming self-doubt and fear.

Reinforcement, such as recognizing successes and rewarding innovation, ensures that employees remain motivated, engaged, and willing to develop.

Of course, setbacks will happen. However, continuous reinforcement helps you overcome these setbacks. Plus, having a growth mindset will ensure fewer setbacks in the future!