Carol S. Dweck

<p>Millions of dollars and thousands of hours are spent each year trying to teach leaders and managers how to coach their employees and give them effective feedback--and, in turn, to listen to criticism from their employees. Yet much of this training is not effective. Many leaders and managers remain poor coaches and are not open to feedback from others. New research sheds light on why.</p>

<p>This work shows that a manager´s mindset is a critical link in the process. Building on my theory and research, new work from the business world is showing that many managers do not believe in personal change. They have a "fixed mindset," believing that personal qualities and abilities are carved in stone and cannot be developed. These managers, the research shows, simply judge employees as competent or incompetent at the start and that´s that. They are not sensitive to improvement in employees´ performance (remaining stuck in their initial impression), they do relatively little developmental coaching, and they are far less likely to solicit negative feedback from their employees. Why bother if people can´t really change?</p>

<p>Other managers believe that people can change and grow. Sure, it´s nice to have talents, but that´s just the starting point. Managers who have this "growth mindset" are committed to their employees´ development, and their own. They notice improvement, they give a great deal of developmental coaching, and they ask for critiques from their employees.</p>

<p>Studies are also showing that people with the growth mindset make better negotiators and that groups who share a growth mindset do better on complex management tasks.</p>

<p>Most exciting, the growth mindset can be taught.  Peter Heslin, Don VanderWalle, and Gary Latham have developed a brief (90-minute) workshop that teaches a growth mindset:  It starts off with a scientific article and a video about how the brain changes with learning. Next, it asks managers (or future managers) to think of at least 3 reasons why it´s important to realize that people can develop their abilities. It also asks them to think of an area in which they once had low ability but now perform well, and to explain how they succeeded in making the change. Managers then write an email to a struggling (hypothetical) protégé about how abilities can be developed, including examples of how they themselves had dealt with career challenges. Finally, managers recall times they had seen someone learn to do something they never thought this person could do, and they reflect upon how this occurred and what it means.</p>

<p>After participating in this workshop, there was an immediate change in how readily managers detected improvement in employee performance, how willing they were to coach a poor performer, and in the quantity and quality of their coaching suggestions. What´s more, these changes persisted over the six-week period in which the participants were followed.</p>

<p>Given that so many managers now have a fixed mindset, it is no surprise that they often don´t profit as much as they could from training programs. For them to want to learn about coaching and feedback, they have to first understand that people can profit from it and change.</p>

<p>Those with a fixed mindset often believe that their job is simply to select the brightest people. Yet, years of research in psychology have shown that we are not good at predicting the future based on current assessments of talent. We can assess people´s present skills, aptitudes, and strengths, but this does not translate well into future performance. It does not tell us about people´s potential for growth in the future-how they might perform with the right commitment, effort, and training. In fact, more and more research is showing that what eventually separates the most successful people from their equally talented, but less successful, peers is their level  of commitment, effort, and continued training. This is true in sports, science, and the arts-and it is becoming clear that it is true in business, too.</p>

<p>What does this mean? First, it means that our best bet is not simply to hire the ablest people we can find, but also to look for people who embody a growth mindset: a zest for learning (and teaching), an openness to giving and receiving feedback, and an ability to confront and surmount obstacles.</p>

<p>It also means training leaders, managers, and employees to believe in growth, in addition to training them in the specifics of effective communication and mentoring. Indeed a growth mindset workshop should be a first step in any major training program.</p>

<p>Finally, it means creating a growth-mindset environment in which people can thrive. This involves:</p>

<p>-        Presenting skills as learnable</p>

<p>-        Conveying that the organization values learning and dedication, and not just ready-made genius or talent</p>

<p>-        Giving feedback in a way that involves coaching for future success</p>

<p>-        Presenting managers as resources for learning</p>

<p>Without a belief in human development, many corporate training programs become exercises of limited value. With a belief in human development, such programs give meaning to the term "human resources" and become a means of tapping its enormous potential.</p>