Everyone who has led a team knows that a teammate with a ready mentality can help the team develop more than a person with skills because the skills can be understood if they are willing to learn. But it is difficult to change a person's mentality. However, the mentality is way too conceptual, hard to explain in one go. What kind of mentality can help us? Stanford University psychology professor Carol Dweck answer this in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. 

Carol divides mentality into two types. One is a Fixed Mindset and the other is Growth Mindset. The two mentalities are not fixed, either black or white, but will constantly change with time, environment, and situation. 

The biggest difference between the two mentalities lies in their attitudes towards abilities and personal traits. People with a fixed mindset believe that ability is innate, and success is determined by natural ability; while those with a growth mindset believe that ability is obtained by learning and working hard is the way to gain ability. 

A fixed mindset thinks that ability and performance are linked, so they want to express themselves in front of others, but the way they express themselves is to avoid making mistakes. Since it is a demerit system, it is easy for people with a fixed mindset to develop the habit of just saying nothing or being complacent. The growth mentality is the opposite. They implement a bonus system. They believe that mistakes do not mean failure, but a learning process. They believe that success can only be achieved through hard work and challenges, so they can persevere when encountering difficulties instead of giving up. 

There is an experiment in "Mentality to Win". Carol finds a group of children to play with a box of easy jigsaw puzzles. After they finished the first game, she gave them two choices. One is to play the easy jigsaw again or to play a box of more Difficult puzzles. It turns out that some children choose to replay the previous puzzles, but some children express excitement about having new challenges. It’s hard to relate to a fixed mentality and a growth mentality that is partly affected by innate influence. 

However, the psychology community agreed that 40-50% of the personality by nature, and 50-60% is by nurture. Therefore, even if we are born with a fixed mindset, if we are willing to face and make changes, we still have more than half of the chance to change gradually.

There are many guidelines on how to build yourself into a growth mindset. If you want to change, you can search on the net. As long as you are willing to do it, you can still do it. What I want to share this time is how to slowly cultivate the employees with the growth mentality as middle-level managers. The team is the soil for growth. If the soil is fertile, it will naturally produce excellent players. 

1. Pay attention to the first reaction of the team members when they accept the challenge

Members who tend to have a fixed mentality, when accepting some difficult jobs, instinctively refuse. At this time, you might as well take more time to explain, play the challenge interestingly, and provide appropriate support so that the members are willing to try. 

2. Encourage making mistakes

The mistakes we encourage are the mistakes caused by the trial, not the mistakes made carelessly. As a supervisor, you must understand that it is normal for people to make mistakes, and the fear of making mistakes is the biggest obstacle to growth. Therefore, mistakes will happen in the team and had to happen. When an error occurs, the supervisor should face it with peace of mind, assist the team members in correcting the error, and at the same time improve the team members’ experience in handling crises. 

3. Reward with a sense of success

The one who has a growth mentality attaches great importance to the pursuit of oneself. If the team members do not pursue the work, it is difficult to get into the swing. The supervisor can release the challenges one by one and appreciate the team members' concentration and hard work when the challenge is successful. The key point is you can't praise his cleverness because this is the talent, and it is something that a fixed mindset pursues. After group members have repeatedly tasted the joy from the appreciation, they naturally know how to pursue satisfaction. 

4. Open your eyes and encourage exploration

The world is big, so team members must be exposed to a different area, both good and bad so that they can agree from the bottom of their hearts that the world they know is not the full picture, and they should not stick to their own opinions. You can face your shortcomings, only when you understand how you are insignificant; you can only have the new development from exploring more.

Simon So Head of Digital Marketing