♪ (intro music) ♪ (narrator) If you operate in the world of sports or education you've most likely heard of the term: growth mindset. It's a concept that's sweeping the world and changing and improving the way that people learn. This powerful idea has been pushed forward by Stanford professor and best-selling author, Carol Dweck.
(Carol) For decades, I've been studying why some people succeed while people who are equally talented do not. And over the years, I've discovered that people's mindsets play a crucial role in this process. (narrator) These mindsets are really important when it comes to learning.
Her work has uncovered two ways of thinking about skill and development. Some people have what's called a fixed mindset. They believe that skills and intelligence are set and you either have them or you don't, that some people are just naturally good at things, while others are not.
In short, they believe that you are not in control of your abilities. Other people have what's called a growth mindset. And they believe that skills and intelligence are grown and developed.
So people who are good at something are good because they built that ability, and people who aren't are not good because they haven't done the work. In short, they believe that you are in control of your abilities. Really the core idea here is people with a fixed mindset believe that skills are born, people with a growth mindset believe that skills are built.
People with a fixed mindset believe that you can't or don't have to learn and grow, and people with a growth mindset do believe in their capacity to learn and grow. Dweck's work shows that mindsets have a major influence on people's ability to learn. And that people who utilize this growth mindset tend to learn, grow and achieve more over time than people with a fixed.
♪ (music) ♪ Growth mindset really creates a solid foundation for great learning. And because of its power, companies, sports teams, and schools from all over the world are implementing this into their culture. ♪ (music) ♪ (Trevor Ragan) Over the years, we've worked with a ton of amazing groups to help instill this within their culture.
We're talking Fortune 500 companies, lots of colleges, lots of high schools, and even a few prisons who are working to build growth mindset into their re-entry program. What I'm trying to say is, this is bigger than one study or one TED Talk. This is a powerful concept that's helping lots of different people in lots of different places.
Now the reason it's so important and powerful is, it is the foundation for learning. And if you understand this, no matter what you build on that foundation, it will be more powerful. But to really implement and run with this concept we need to zoom in and look at the nuts and the bolts of it.
We need to talk about what it actually is and how it actually works. (narrator) Through years of work, Dweck and her team have uncovered sort of the defining characteristics of the two mindsets. This table really illustrates the contrast between the two.
The first big characteristic we need to talk about is belief. Again, people with this fixed mindset believe that skills are born and therefore they can't or don't have to learn. People with a growth mindset believe that skills are built, therefore they can learn.
The second major characteristic is focus. People in a fixed mindset tend to focus on performance and outcomes and results. In other words, their main focus, their main concern becomes how they look.
More specifically, to not look bad. People with a growth mindset tend to focus more on the process of getting better of learning and growing. These mindsets and these characteristics have a huge influence on our ability to learn.
And now we start to see why. Let's look at the four key ingredients to growth: effort, challenges, mistakes, and feedback. The research shows that when somebody is in a fixed mindset they look at effort as a negative thing, as something that you do when you're not good enough.
They also don't see the value or purpose of putting in effort. They've been shown to back down and avoid challenging situations. They get really discouraged and worked up when they make mistakes.
And when somebody with a fixed mindset receives feedback from a parent a teacher, a coach, or friend, they get defensive. They take it personally, and they don't see the value or purpose of the feedback. So, in other words, people with this fixed mindset actually avoid and shy away from these four key ingredients to growth.
Dweck and her team have shown that when people enter a growth mindset they look at effort as a useful thing, as an important part of the learning process. They're actually more likely to embrace challenges and persevere and work through them. They see mistakes as learning opportunities, and when they receive feedback they actually appreciate it and use it.
Now the fascinating and important part of this table is to connect the dots between these key characteristics of the two mindsets and our actions and behaviors towards learning. Let's look at the fixed mindset side first. They actually shy away from putting in effort because they don't believe that they can change.
They give up when they're met with a challenge and things get hard because they don't want to look bad. So in their mind the challenge becomes a threat and because they don't believe that they can change. They hate making mistakes and are discouraged by mistakes, because if you're making mistakes, you're not looking good.
And they don't see the value or purpose of feedback because they don't believe in their capacity to grow. So, in one way or the other, every single one of these actions is a byproduct of these characteristics. And the same is true on the growth mindset side.
They see the value and purpose of effort because they believe in their capacity to grow. They're more likely to take on a challenge and persevere through it because they believe that they can grow, and because they're focused on the opportunity to do that. So they frame a challenge as an opportunity to get better.
And by focusing on the process and believing in their capacity to grow they're more likely to understand how important mistakes are in this process. And when they receive feedback from a parent, teacher, coach, or friend they're more receptive to this because their focus is on getting better and because they believe that that information can help them grow. And they have the capacity to do so.
Two key points with this table. First, you're not just one or the other. This is a spectrum.
In different times, on different days and different situations, you might be in a growth, while other times you'll slip into a fixed. But now that we understand how it works and we understand the characteristics, you can start to identify where you're at on the spectrum. And more specifically, the cause of that mindset.
Is it our beliefs? Or is it our focus? Second, yes, these actions of learning are great and they're definitely behaviors that we want, but we have to understand that they come from our mindsets.
So, to create a great culture for learning, it's about zooming in on beliefs and focus and creating a real growth mindset, which is one of the most important things we can do.
